Yeah. I really don't get why they focused on its gargoyle feature, which (rightly so) raised serious concerns about privacy, and downplayed AR. The obvious target market, other than geeks, would have been bikers. They'd find both gargoyle and AR very useful for swarm coordination. And military, of course. Perfect for infantry. But that's probably in quiet development.
> which (rightly so) raised serious concerns about privacy
I always thought the privacy concerns were overblown:
If it's about users surreptitiously recording others, wearing the really conspicuous gadget known to contain a camera on your head is a really ineffectual way to do that. A smartphone in a shirt pocket would be better, and surveillance devices intended to be concealed better (and cheaper) still.
If it's about Google or app makers getting recordings, that doesn't seem nearly as bad as the various always-listening voice recognition tech in popular use today. Perhaps it might if people were wearing them 24/7, but they don't have the battery life for that.
It was never about secretly taking photos. It was all about having an obvious contraption on your head that might not be recording or not. That makes people a) uncomfortable and b) conclude that you either don't care or just lack the social skills to realize that. It's not like recording secretly with a concealed cellphone, it's like overtly aiming your cellphone camera at someone while interacting with them, whether it's actually recording or not.
One might argue that people should get used to that, and at some point they probably will, but turns out it's a somewhat more difficult task trying to adapt people to your product than vice versa.
It has a light on the front that comes on if the camera is active. Do you think most of the people who were uncomfortable were unaware of that, or didn't trust that people using it wouldn't disable the light?
The former would make a lot of sense to me. That it has a camera is obvious, and knowing how the light works requires a modicum of research. The latter, not so much, as we're back in the realm of secret recording.
