1. Here’s a blog post that makes a very good point about Google Glass:
The key experiential question of Google Glass isn’t what it’s like to wear them, it’s what it’s like to be around someone else who’s wearing them. I’ll give an easy example. Your one-on-one conversation with someone wearing Google Glass is likely to be annoying, because you’ll suspect that you don’t have their undivided attention. And you can’t comfortably ask them to take the glasses off (especially when, inevitably, the device is integrated into prescription lenses). Finally – here’s where the problems really start – you don’t know if they’re taking a video of you.
Now pretend you don’t know a single person who wears Google Glass… and take a walk outside. Anywhere you go in public – any store, any sidewalk, any bus or subway – you’re liable to be recorded: audio and video. Fifty people on the bus might be Glassless, but if a single person wearing Glass gets on, you – and all 49 other passengers – could be recorded. Not just for a temporary throwaway video buffer, like a security camera, but recorded, stored permanently, and shared to the world.
Now, I know the response: “I’m recorded by security cameras all day, it doesn’t bother me, what’s the difference?” Hear me out – I’m not done. What makes Glass so unique is that it’s a Google project. And Google has the capacity to combine Glass with other technologies it owns.
Go read the rest. In the weeks since Google Glass has been announced as a definite upcoming product, more and more problems have presented themselves. To give a personal example: I attend a lot of film screenings. At many of these screenings, security guards collect the cell phones of everyone who enters the theater. What do they do if someone is wearing Google Glass? What if those glasses are prescription strength, and the critic is unable to see the movie without them? What about places like banks, where filming is discouraged? I think we’re going to see Google Glass banned outright in some locations.
2. Along those lines but on a lighter note, Dartanion London made a video demonstrating how Google Glass will affect the dating dynamic:
Anyone can be wearing a camera on their lapel right now, Paul. Horse has departed. Play with stable door all you like.
Close your bold tag, moron. I was on the edge with Paul Constant for a long time, but I’ve been swayed to believing that he’s a useless writer. Index Media would be better served by hiring a classroom full of third-graders to write blogposts instead of this supposed ‘writer’.
“What if those glasses are prescription strength, and the critic is unable to see the movie without them?”
Perhaps the critic should have a back-up pair of normal glasses.
/B>
My expectation in public is always that nobody is looking at me, noticing me, recording me, or remembering me. I demand total privacy on the bus! I also assume everybody I talk to is paying 100% attention to me. No?
I want Google Glass because smartphones, tablets, and laptops aren’t portable enough, nor are they easy enough to navigate. And because i want to view an even smaller screen that’s much less manipulable. Plus, saying it is fun — Google Glass, Google Glass, Google Glass…
GUESS MY WORK HERE IS DONE…
I mean, if we’re going to be recorded all the time by drones, it might be helpful to have an easily accessible version available to contradict what various government agencies say they’ve recorded but won’t show us the tapes of.
When I first learned about Google Glass, just for fun I designed a button in my Zazzle shop that one can wear if you are wearing those “camera glasses”. That button says “Camera Is On” in simulated Google colors.