Sergey Brin and Google Glass on the #3 train ..

What’s that about a photo being worth a thousand words? This one and the accompanying caption, both posted on Twitter yesterday by Brooklyn resident Noah Zerkin, say a lot ..

“Yeeeah… I just had a brief conversation with the most powerful man in the world. On the downtown 3 train. Nice guy.”

Zerkin says he spotted Google co-founder Sergey Brin wearing the famous Google Glass, the wearable computer and augmented reality gadget, on the subway in New York over the weekend. Zerkin, who describes himself as a “Wearable Computing and Augmented Reality enthusiast/hardware prototyper” was happy to share the image on his Twitter feed and with a host of news outlets that picked up on it today.

What’s great about the photo, of course, is not just that Brin appears here as just another average subway regular, rather than a world-famous multi-billionaire. It’s also that Zerkin captured the Google co-founder as he continues to test a pet project, which enthusiasts believe could change the way we use computers in daily life.

You may recall that Brin showed off the Google Glass device during a splashy performance at last summer’s I/O conference in San Francisco, where skydivers used the wearable computer to send video of themselves jumping from a blimp to the roof of Moscone Center. Now Brin seems to be showing how it works on other modes of transit.

Zerkin was graciously fielding media inquiries and other comments about the photo on his Twitter stream today. But so far, there’s been no word on whether Brin was able to get a decent wireless signal on the #3 train.

(Photo courtesy of Noah Zerkin)

Brandon Bailey (143 Posts)

Brandon Bailey covers Google, Facebook and Yahoo for the San Jose Mercury News, reporting on the business and culture of the Internet.