I am actually pretty shocked at the responses here on HN, of all places. Not because, as technologists we should all automatically love any new technology, but because, as technologists we should have perspective on its inexorable march.
How many times have we laughed at definitive statements, pontificating on this or that newfangled thing, that were proven to be wildly off-the-mark only a few years later?
How many times have we facepalmed at the print media's desperate attempts to combat or stave off digital publishing?
Whether it's Google Glass or something else, "invasive" wearable tech will be utterly pedestrian in a decade or two. Similarly, privacy is going away, and future generations won't care. You can already see it with the kids. It's just the obvious extrapolation of computing technology, and it won't be stopped by the old guard.
If you disagree, care to put our thoughts in a time capsule and see who looks more foolish in 10 years?
I built the site ten years ago, and the Long Now Foundation has plenty of other things going on, so I'm pretty confident that this will do for your 10-year bet.
If you find a challenger, I'm glad to help you two negotiate a testable prediction and get the bet up on the site.
Wow. I've had for many years an idea I've called GoodBets to get people who argue on the web to put their money where their mouth is, with the money going to the winner's choice of charity, just as you have with Long Bets. GoodBets would integrate with comment systems, such as this one on HN, so if someone makes some unequivocal statement you think is baloney, you can challenge them with a GoodBet in your reply. They can accept or back down. The benefits are two-fold: discourse would improve[1] and charities would benefit.
The GoodBet website would have two leaderboards: users with most winning bets by dollar and users who donated the most by dollar. That way even the losers win, encouraging participation.
Any chance you could adopt my ideas, either into Long Bets or a fork of it?
Everyone has had that idea. :). Problem is that it doesn't really improve discourse, it just turns trolls into zealots who spend all their time arguing about the exact interpretation of the bet itself.
Note, I am a 7 year user of Intrade(which is undergoing a reboot) with over 100k USD total traded.
I don't have time to build that myself, but if you are interested in building something like that, I'm glad to chat. It could well be that the Long Now would be interested in incorporating that into the Long Bets app.
Ok! Email me with your proposed prediction text (e.g., "LongBets will be gone in 10 years"), the wager you'd like, and the charity you'd like the winnings to go to if you win. (To stay legal under US law, bet winnings must go to US-registered charities.) My email: domain is williampietri.com; account is my first name. We'll sort it out from there.
I agree with you on everything except the privacy part, as people grow older they guard their privacy much more than as a youth.
I think it will be like everything with technology, we will be more the same, and more different. People might share some information freely as a bird that we would be horrified at, but I don't think the intrinsic need for privacy will leave society on some level (for a host of reasons).
Maybe this will manifest into something like "For Us The Living" with a public sphere and a private sphere. Go outside and you are 100% monitored by thousands of sources, but in your home or private dwelling things turn off.
Social mores evolve slower than technology, but they do evolve.
I think concepts of privacy are changing a lot and what's perceived as youth being cavalier about their privacy is just a reflection of a significantly different perspective.
Mostly I think kids are much more aware (though maybe not in an entirely conscious way) of holding on to several identities of varying degrees of privacy. They're better at segregating their lives into several online identities in addition to the one they physically inhabit at school/work/in public.
Not to say they are always successful at maintaining those boundaries. Really no one could be entirely. But they are much more active about it and it's a big part of their lives.
I agree, I probably should have qualified with "in public", there will be some areas of relative privacy. There will still be a security community; people who are skilled and need true privacy will be able to find it, bit I think they will be a small minority. Already many people are sharing from inside the sphere - data, media, text, etc.
Just look around at people wearing headphones right now. Have attitudes really changed? As a technologist, do you see someone with headphones and think "progressive"? Of course not, you meerly ignore it unless there's a practical reason to care.
Someone on the bus with headphones is likely ignoring everyone else. Someone crossing the street with headphones is likely not paying enough attention to traffic.
Is glass different? We seem to forget that headphones themselves have drastically evolved in style and shape over the years, some designs were almost universally derided.
Let's not ignore the elephant in the room here though, glass is far more similar to bluetooth headsets. How are those aging? Do the kids think it's cool? I don't know for sure, but I'd guess not. You can put that guess in the time capsule.
> Let's not ignore the elephant in the room here though, glass is far more similar to bluetooth headsets. How are those aging? Do the kids think it's cool?
No, because they have no use for them. There's nothing inherently goofy about them other than that society hasn't made them the norm. It certainly could be said that staring glazed-face at a glowing rectangle in front of you looks dorky as well. But smart phones have become a damn useful device, and that's why no one thinks twice.
It also seems rude to be wearing a headset while socializing. People take their headphones out of their ears. If you have a bluetooth headset, I feel like I'm not getting your full attention. Even if you're not on a call, I still feel like I come second. It would be the same with Glass. If I'm talking to someone and they're wearing Glass, it seems rude. If they glance to the screen, even more so.
Then, it's unnecessary at times like you said. I think this is what looks smug, you're walking around with something on your head, that you might not be actively using. Or with bluetooth, you have an earpiece, but you're not in a call. It looks like you're wearing it, just to show it off, and it seems like you're trying hard to impress. With headphones, we make the assumption you're listening to music when they're in your ear.
People enjoy their technology, but they like to pretend they're free from it. A friend posted on Facebook the other day how everyone is always on their tablet or laptop, and 'gah, can't people just put their phone or tablet down for one day and look up'. But... she was on Facebook writing that message. I get that feeling from a lot of people. They keep their phone close, but they don't want to look like they depend on it. They want instant e-mail notifications or texts, but, they don't want to give off that image. It's not an attractive quality to always be playing with your phone or attached at the hip with technology. It's anti-social. That's a negative. When you're wearing something like Glass, you give off that impression.
And lastly, with Glass, you're literally pointing a camera at my face, and could be taking photos, and recording audio or video without my knowledge. That's a little uncomfortable.
Personally, I think it's going to fail, and I wouldn't be surprised if I never see a single person wearing the device. However, I applaud them for taking the risk, since the technology and advances will be used in some way. Could it be used by doctors to stay hands free? Could it be used on motorcycles, so you can see your speed or a rearview image in the corner of your eye? Does it work well just for around the house, so I can do housework, and get notifications? Or can I cook with dirty hands, and see my recipe, or cooking time remaining? I think there are uses for it, I think others will see what they've accomplished and apply it in some way. However, as a device that everyone will be wearing while walking down the street, I just don't see it happening.
What if we think about it in terms of augmentation of capabilities and something that is divorced from this implementation. People want to have the capabilities, without being seen to be entrapped by them. An example I suppose would be wearing headphones at a party or a concert ( anti-social) vs having easily accessible a vast array of music to be tapped at will during the many times when this is not considered to be anti-social. Can we receive more information without being anti-social? If there was no perceptible disengagement? Is it simply a function of developing a social context?
The glass screen is always raised. You don't wear glass in front of your eye it is worn above your eyes. This allows you make eye contact with other people easily.
> Just look around at people wearing headphones right now. Have attitudes really changed? As a technologist, do you see someone with headphones and think "progressive"? Of course not, you meerly ignore it unless there's a practical reason to care.
I don't normally consciously acknowledge that someone is wearing headphones, and that is the point. The article is pointing out how little we think of people wearing headphones in public now, while they used to be very noticeable and with largely negative connotations.
The argument that fundamental civil rights will simply disappear in the face of "technological progress" seems utterly vapid to me. In fact, it sounds like a fundamentalist ideology. This argument is a thin is "we have nukes, so let's blow up stuff".
This is not technology that will make certain jobs or products obsolete. This is not technology that will simply change the way we do things. This is not technology that merely affects our social interactions.
This is technology that robs people of fundamental freedoms, freedoms that we've not only had since home sapiens first appeared, but freedoms which we have explicitly protected through laws and constitutions as technological progress has made it easier to take away that freedom.
A society where everyone can be recorded on video 24/7 without restrictions is not a free society.
If this is truly the "inexorable march of technology", I might consider becoming a Luddite after all.
The technology of Google Glass is technological progress, just like printing a gun with a 3D printer is technological progress. I don't think that automatically means that in 10 years time we'll be walking around shooting at everything that moves with either.
A lot of people who knew the iPhone and iPad were going to be huge also think Glass is doomed for the consumer market.
Sometimes the way you look matters. See: the Segway. It's a threshold. Did headphones really make you look as dorky as the Segway does to your contemporaries? Doubtful. Does Glass? I think it comes close.
And I'm sure a lot of people who thought the iphone and the ipad were incredibly stupid also think glass is incredibly stupid. And of course there are people who thought the iphone and ipad would be massive successes who think the same of glass.
Your ability to predict what amount to fashion trends in the future is not particularly related to your ability to do so in the past.
It is the best predictor, obviously, but I'm saying that doesn't really mean much. Fashion is fickle.
And the thing is, above and beyond that, 10 years from now the tech that's evolved from Glass will look about as much like Glass as the iphone looks like my first touchscreen phone (behold: http://img.engadget.com/common/images/3060000000053553.JPG?0...)
Bingo. The first consumer computer glasses may not be a mass hit. But persistence, innovation, tweaking, and competition will sooner or later hit on a design that sells.
Segways did not fail because they made you look dorky. They failed because they were an extremely expensive toy that didn't solve anyone's problems and were bulky enough that they made new problems when people tried to use them.
Segway needed early adopters to drive the price down, but couldn't get early adopters in part because nobody wanted to be the first person seen riding a Segway to work.
Speeding up intra-city commuting without having to walk or ride a bike obviously would be awesome. When people pointed this out back when the Segway came out even the fattest nerds were saying they were being lazy, but the truth is most technology helps people be lazy, so it seems to me the dork factor played a huge role in preventing early adoption.
a range which meant you were going to need to schlep it into your apartment/office to charge every day
taking up an incompressible 2-3 persons worth of space in an elevator/hallway/sidewalk/cubicle
no parking infrastructure
little/no ability to navigate grass and probably highly recommended not to drive off a curb
no extra carrying capacity
plus extra speed is either useless on a crowded sidewalk or makes you a giant dick on a crowded sidewalk and also useless if you're with some one who doesn't have that speed.
Yeah, if heads-up computing fails in this iteration (and I suspect it will in this iteration) its not going to be aesthetics it will be because no one can build a compelling use case for the price. Privacy/Social-Contract concerns will probably worsen that, but I really doubt they will be sufficient on their own.
Because I'm a bad person, I occasionally ask Google Glass wearers what they do with them. I get answers, but none I'd call a good answer. But because I'm not a terrible person, I don't as the obvious followup question: "That's worth $1500 to you?"
The Segway was more like a laptop than a phone. It's big. It's bulky. It's expensive.
Taking a PC to a pub, so you could tweet is dorky. Taking a phone or glass to a pub to tweet is dorky, but you can pretend it's just a spur of the moment thing.
Similarly, privacy is going away, and future generations won't care. You can already see it with the kids.
This keeps being said, but it doesn't have to be that way and may not stay that way for long. For one thing, if kids were so careless about privacy, they wouldn't be using Snapchat.
It comes down to a question of whether kids are careless about privacy or whether they don't care about privacy.
We'll take my great-grandfather for an example. He'd be horrified about how careless I've been about protecting our racial purity. How could I be so careless as to marry a women without realizing that she's not only a dirty papist, but also one of those swarthy French‽
However, the truth was not that I was careless, but that I didn't care. I know all of these things, but they didn't matter to me. Similarly, I know someone who broke federal privacy laws with respect to my personal information. I could report this individual, but the simple fact is that I don't care. If he'd posted the entire data set to wikileaks, I still wouldn't care. It's not that I have nothing to hide - there's some pretty embarrassing stuff in that data set. However, everything in that data set, good or bad, is true.
The only way I could see privacy not mattering in the future is if knowledge stops being equivalent to power. Even if everyone knows everything about everyone, I don't see that knowledge ceasing to be useful for manipulation.
The important question to me, then, isn't whether the embarrassing (or mundane) secrets are true, but whether they would give someone the power to manipulate the subject of those secrets, or to manipulate others with respect to the subject of the secrets.
Privacy is a major driver behind the slowing teen use of Facebook. All these kids friended anyone and everyone, and now Facebook feels more public than private to them--so they use it less.
My younger siblings and their friends each have around 1500 to 2000 friends on Facebook. They hardly use their accounts anymore for that reason.
We are into the realm of game theory here. You can say "I don't care if my embarrassing photos/controversial opinions/whatever are public" only if everyone agrees the same thing at the same time. Because otherwise, you will find yourself competing with someone whose aren't public, in front of someone who does care. That might be a manager, it might be the electorate.
I remember thinking how stupid the iPad was when it came out. It's just an iPhone with a magnifying glass attached, after all. Then I got one as a gift, and the appeal became immediate.
There's something about the need to criticize that seems inherent to humanity -- or at least the HN comments section.
>I remember thinking how stupid the iPad was when it came out. It's just an iPhone with a magnifying glass attached, after all.
No, it's an iPhone with a much bigger screen real estate. Which changes all kinds of things, user experience and UI design wise. Things that are awkward on small screen are easily done on a larger screen.
If it was just a magnified iPhone it would be stupid. Now, what's really bad is how many tech pundits though of it exactly like that...
the ONLY reason i use the tablets more is battery life. Given equivalent processing power/battery life, nobody would choose a tablet. the screen real state simply does not compensate for the lack of public use, uncomfortable long session use, etc.
give me a phone with decent battery life, and i won't even mind the occasional magnifying glass attached to it.
Now, the phone might be easier to hold with one hand, but the iPad is easier/better for lots of tasks. From reading books and comics or watching videos to using music creation apps, drawing apps etc. Anything where screen real estate matters.
>the ONLY reason i use the tablets more is battery life. Given equivalent processing power/battery life, nobody would choose a tablet.
Wrong again. Not to mention that millions of people by Wi-Fi only iPads, and when using an iPhone in that way (with the 3G/4G turned off), you get pretty much the same battery life. Or you know, those people could get an extra battery juice pack for their iPhone, but they don't.
I was only thinking about this yesterday evening. My wife used to spit feathers and froth at the mouth when I mentioned Apple devices, and thought that the iPad was stupid. She also thought that the iPhone made a rubbish business phone, particularly in comparison to the Blackberry and Nokia (no ability to sync contacts properly at the time etc.)
BUT! now she has an iPad. She has had it for about a year and she loves it. She spends all evening shopping/browsing.
I too have a tablet and struggled to think of how I would use one before I bought it, but now I read more than ever, and browse.
Very interesting how life-changing (or more like habit-changing) tablets have been, particularly the ease of use to look something up and read without having to turn a computer on. (I still use my laptop if I want to CREATE anything, but consuming is mostly done on a tablet, as attempting to create something on a tablet is an exercise in frustration). Perhaps Apple cleverly realised that most people consume instead of create.
Very clever. We would not have thought this 5 years ago.
Privacy is definitely going away in the public space. But I'm not so sure privacy in, well, the private space is going away.
We may even see a movement --heck, it may even get a name one of these days-- for apartments and houses built in a way that some rooms get a "100% no intrusive technology inside" treatment.
For example you may have an intelligent fridge (so that it can send spam as already happened and why not be part of a botnet mining bitcoins), intelligent TV which can report your mood to advertizers, etc. but have, say, a bathroom with no intelligent lightswitches (because even lightswitches will surely have NSA-friendly webcams and microphones), with no WiFi and just a "detector" at the door ringing a bell in case you try to enter with a smartphone / smartglasses / whatever.
Same for the bathroom and the toilets.
I don't know about you, but as long as the state isn't forcing me to have a webcam and a microphone in my bedroom and in my bathroom, I'll still have privacy there.
I see more and more people now putting a little piece of post-it on the webcam of their laptop (e.g. MacBook, on which there's no physical slider to obscure the cam).
In other words: as long as I'm still a free man, I get to decide where, on my private property, I do still have privacy.
And I invite you in ten years in my property and you'll tell me if the NSA can switch on a webcam and a microphone in my bedroom or not ; )
Haha, I have the post-it, colored with sharpie to blend in because people pointed it out and chuckled at it.
I really don't see a smartphone detector in the bathroom, but maybe you just turn it off, I don't think the bathroom is an issue. The bedroom maybe, but I would assume most smartphone owners sleep with theirs in the room, among other devices. The overall connectivity of households and their data to "the grid" is increasing rapidly. There will be some privacy, it's not a 24/7 visual feed, but the government, Google, Facebook, hackers, et al. will be doing what they do, and people will be giving it to them.
It isn't the invasiveness of glass that is the trouble. It's the minimum focal length of the eye and the speed of focusing. I want an overlay that is in focus, not to read email while I'm walking my buddy's dog.
Once glass is directly on the optic nerve things will be better.
Unless there's a big advance in magnetic field manipulation, I doubt it.
Basically - unless we find a way to inject data non-invasively using an advanced version of transcranial magnetic stimuation.
The basic problem with bioscience - in fact anything that's not computer science, is you can't just hit "recompile" when you screw up. We can't just replace an optic nerve that goes bad, in fact anytime you do even minor surgery you run the risk of an infection that wipes out whole systems of the body from a tiny mistake.
>I am actually pretty shocked at the responses here on HN, of all places. Not because, as technologists we should all automatically love any new technology, but because, as technologists we should have perspective on its inexorable march.
Perspective also means opinion. Not just accepting the "inexorable march" as fate.
I just hope the tech fades with it. Not away, but into the background. I'd rather have a pen that can draw a diagram on my workpiece tucked in my pocket than I would some geegaw strapped to my head all the time.
Remember how dumb people used to look walking around with bluetooth headsets? Especially weird when they were holding a conversations and looked like they were talking to themselves? Has the taboo really faded with that?
I agree with the need for perspective. Sixty years ago people thought that kitchens would have a robot to do the cooking for you but instead we got microwave ovens and ready meals. You get the same effect (easy meals) just through a different mechanism. The important things is solving a particular problem or need; not the actual technology. In that sense Google Now is the pivotal technology for Google, not glass.
> Whether it's Google Glass or something else, "invasive" wearable tech will be utterly pedestrian in a decade or two.
You can wear an iPhone. When's the last time you saw someone photographing their food in a restaurant, then tweeting while their friends checked their email?
I disagree that people will become comfortable with Google Glass - the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording).
To which the analogy vs. headphones is not relevant.
I anticipate, however, that Google (or somebody) will find a way to make this product largely invisible to anybody but the wearer in the near term future.
Through more discreet projection / camera placement, or future-tech incorporation with a contact lens.
So for a company in the business of printing money, investing in BETAs at this stage to understand UX, function, etc is wise.
And yet most people don't have that reaction to pervasive CCTV. Which, in some places, is virtually omnipresent and constantly recording. "Smile, you're on camera ☺"
And many people have no qualms sharing pretty much everything on Facebook and the like.
I don't know which way it will really go, but it is really not obvious a priori that everyone is that concerned about privacy, or that society will not adapt to make things like constant filming more acceptable.
The difference for me is that we've learned that CCTV basically never has a direct impact on our lives. I'm sure I'm caught on security cameras 20 times a day for the last 10 years, but not one of those 73,000 recordings has ever come to my attention or mattered at all.
The same isn't true of handheld cameras. When people take a picture of me, it could go places, and I know that. If you're snapping pictures of people, you'll get reactions.
Right now, people definitely treat Glass like a handheld camera. And I suspect they will, at least up until the moment they start wearing one themselves.
I thought your comment was going the other way. The same generally is true of handheld cameras. Can you recall a situation where a stranger snapping a photo that had you in it caused a problem for you?
Here's such a case: a website [1] dedicated to taking pictures of girls in public transport without asking for permission before nor after [2].
Quoting from the opinion piece,
> “Well, when I saw that I was in a posted photo, it scared me… and then afterwards, blah! But maybe there isn’t the need to post these photos online… I feel like I’m in a catalog for rapists or other sick people. It was quite shocking…”
I regularly see tagged photos of myself come up on Facebook and think, "Christ, that's annoying." Enough other people do that they have built a lot of special controls around tagging.
I've also occasionally ended up in the newspaper in crowd shots. That can be fun or irritating, but either way it definitely matters to me.
CCTVs are accompanied with the assumption that some authoritarian figure is responsible for the recordings, and will follow reasonable and legal guidelines to distributing the feed. Even IP Cameras with live streams to the internet are subject to township / state / federal laws and cannot record near bathrooms, hotel rooms or anywhere where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
A closer analogy to Google Glass might be handycams and smartphones, and these face plenty of pushback even without the always-on criterion.
If you're sitting down to have coffee with a friend, it's the difference between a camera watching over you from afar and having a camera essentially in the middle of the conversation.
It's not the same to be observed by some invisible or unknown entity than to be observed directly by a person. Someone pointing a digital camera at a person is usually more disturbing than a CCTV camera doing the same thing.
Also, Google Glass may be constantly recording in private places usually without CCTV: homes, dinner tables, meetings, etc.
In my opinion, both are equally disturbing. CCTV often though we don't notice, don't have a choice, or can't as easily express, "WTF is your problem" towards the obnoxious person recording us without consent and clearing exactly what they plan to do with these recordings. When buying stuff at the store, the store does not offer my the option of consent regarding their ubiquitous camera systems. However, the hope is that the camera systems in this context will not be used to exploit, ridicule, or manipulate my very thoughts. With a person I am interacting with, the odds are not as good, but consent of interaction is also easier to withdraw without seriously affecting my ability to survive. I can choose to interact with people who aren't constantly recording me, if I prefer.
Myself I like making field recordings of nature sounds. I've noticed though that a lot of people are concerned when I pull out my Zoom field recorder and start recording them during conversations. They generally don't like it. I don't blame them. I don't like it either. So I either record discretely (which is illegal in many states) or not at all. I don't blame them for not wanting me to record their private conversations though, because their concerns and their desires to have a private conversation are completely legitimate.
In addition to what everyone has said, CCTV are also low-resolution most of time, without sound and a such an angle and a distance that most of your actions are "invisible" to the camera (like knowing what kind book you are reading for example, or even you are reading a book at all).
Most people I believe (rightly or wrongly) think that CCTV are a presence that isn't a threat because the footage doesn't usually live forever, and usually is only used for when something negative happens (such as a crime).
> I disagree that people will become comfortable with Google Glass - the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording).
A core assumption of this argument is that people won't eventually become accustomed to the idea of being recorded consistently, often without their knowledge or consent.
I can't see why that would be the case. Video surveillance is nigh-ubiquitous in London, and this appears to be both accepted and tolerated. Closer to home (US), I was probably recorded on camera 10-12 times today alone - anywhere from office buildings, retail stores, gas stations, etc. Moreover, I understand that I'm being monitored or recorded in some fashion during the majority of my waking hours (internet usage in the workplace, mobile apps with access to my current location, etc.)
Why do you feel people will forever resist this particular loss of privacy, when we already take some measure of persistent surveillance & recording as a given?
NB : This does not mean I feel comfortable speaking to someone wearing glass. It's unsettling. However, the very crux of the OP was that what we currently consider unsettling or strange is subject to change. I can't find a good reason to disagree with that conclusion.
> Video surveillance is nigh-ubiquitous in London, and this appears to be both accepted and tolerated. Closer to home (US), I was probably recorded on camera 10-12 times today alone - anywhere from office buildings, retail stores, gas stations, etc.
Are any of those London cameras, or the dozen cameras you suspect record you in the US, in public restrooms?
Instead of asking a rhetorical question with an implied conclusion, it might be worth addressing the actual argument.
You're implying that there is a certain threshold past which society will not tolerate its actions being potentially recorded.
That may be the case, but I haven't heard it argued convincingly.
If we are to take any lessons from history, it is that accepted social norms are subject to radical change. What was once utterly unthinkable has in many cases become hum-drum or even the social norm.
Why should this (glass) be the hard line in the sand that human civilization draws?
BREAKING NEWS, HN USER TZS CAUGHT URINATING IN PUBLIC RESTROOM URINAL, SHOCKING FILM OF HIS CLOTHED BACK!
Are you expecting Glass wearers to suddenly start leaning over urinal partitions to film you pissing? Or poking their heads over stalls? Both of these are pretty goddamn unacceptable where I'm from, Glass or not. If someone is so weird that they want video evidence of themselves going to the bathroom, and they happen to capture me standing at a urinal, who gives a fuck?
> I disagree that people will become comfortable with Google Glass - the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording).
When personal cameras first came on the scene -- the newspapers tried to inflame hysteria -- ANYONE COULD TAKE PICTURES OF ANYONE! There were pushes for regulation, banning, and people where ATTACKED for using cameras in public. Google for "Kodak Fiends" and "The Camerist and the Squaw" -- these were the old version of "Glassholes".
Society creates social norms to deal with this stuff. See again camera phones... a lesser for of "Kodak Fiends" trended in the press, then we adapted, and now no one even worries about it. It will happens for Google Glass over time, history tells the tale.
I've found that in my own experience that depressed people focus on and recall negative details moreso than the good.
This form of selective memory, remember the good things and forgetting the bad, is a primary tool that ordinary people use to stay sane. Something that records everything you do forever has the potential to serious mess with that.
But at first blush I'm not seeing how it would matter. If I recall rightly, what you remember is partly a function of what you think about. If you're thinking about negative experiences, then you'll retain them. If you think about the positive ones, you'll retain that.
People already have a lot of digital archiving going on in the form of photos, emails, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. Mostly, people just ignore that vast historical trove. I would expect adding more detailed recording not to change the balance much; if people use their archives at all, it will be to seek out the things that they already are inclined to remember.
Totally agree. I refuse to talk to anyone with one of those on. It's not only creepy but also really unfair. It also throws the whole concern of private conversations out the door. Get rid of the camera but keep the glass. Maybe then we will be more comfortable.
Weirdly, when I was in 7th or 8th grade I thought it would be a neat idea to put an audio tape recorder (the cassette type, remember those?) in my bookbag and record the audio of my entire day at school. I have no idea why I thought this was a neat idea. I don't believe I still have this tape, and if I recall the audio wasn't very clear.
People are funny. Probably most do not want to be recorded without their permission, but many of them will think of situations when they want to be the one silently recording. And some of those situations would actually be valid, recording cops for example.
So, unless there is a law, I can't see forced LED for recordings. If Google tries, then one of the most popular apps for Glass will be a hack which deactivates the light.
Perhaps a better comparison would be wearing a lavalier/lapel microphone. They have been around for a long time --yet people still find them unnerving and will ask you if it is on if you are wearing one.
> the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you
What about people with cameras on their smartphones? Every time you see someone on the phone or playing with their phone and their camera is pointing at you, there is a chance they're filming/taking pictures of you.
We got used to it. Things change so fast. It's not because right now we're thinking about privacy that we'll still think about it tomorrow.
> the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording). To which the analogy vs. headphones is not relevant.
That isn't the theme of the article, though. The author was just addressing whether Google Glass would stop looking dorky, not whether we'd be comfortable with the voyeurism. So I think the analogy is valid, and I suspect will be proven true.
How about how when people use their smart-phones and the lil camera points at whoever is opposite them? It always kinda weirds me out and I wonder if they're taking a picture. But I think people are more or less okay with it now and 99% of people don't notice and don't mind.
I think that is a fair criticism of Google Glass. But I'm worried about my privacy in regards to governments, not fellow citizens. In fact, I think wearable computing like Google Glass could be a game changer in keeping governments accountable. It could be really convenient in recording what you believe to be police misconduct here in the States (instead of blatantly fumbling for your mobile). Or, provided it is affordable, it could be powerful tool to be handed out to people in the Sudan.
Big difference IMO is that the Glass is worn, and even more, is worn on the face, specifically around the eyes.
Remember how douchey the bluetooth headset people were? Very small by comparison, and that was mostly hidden if you had long hair, or were viewed directly from the front.
The Pebble is about the limit, which is why the wrist-computer thing is so interesting, even though it doesn't provide a huge amount of new capability for "heads up" computing vs. a vibrating smartphone. I'm mostly unwilling to wear the "old" Pebble, but probably will wear Pebble Metal, and will definitely wear Pebble 3.0 (if it improves by roughly the same amount; 1-4mm slimmer would be nice).
Glass would be fine alone, or in a car, or in the field, but probably not something I'd wear at dinner, or in a casual meeting (unless by using it I were much more productive and useful).
The article seems to think wearing headphones in public is ok. It's fine when you're sitting down avoiding people, but the kids wearing large, crappy headphones in other environments (e.g. at meals) are kind of pathetic.
Remember how douchey the bluetooth headset people were?...but the kids wearing large, crappy headphones in other environments (e.g. at meals) are kind of pathetic.
Isn't this really judgmental? Doesn't this say more about you than about them?
I'm completely serious. I do not judge people on the tools they use in their life that is of no consequence to me. The same holds for Google Glass -- it is somewhat perverse, if not an attempt at group bullying, however so many try to get some sort of group disdain going about it.
The single credible complaint anyone has about Glass -- after you dig through all of the noisy subjective blather -- is the privacy angle. It may be defeatest but I think that ship has sailed, and we're absolutely surrounded by things recording us (someone mentioned lapel mics, for instance, but of course every smartphone around you might be audio recording. Video recording is often more ubiquitous, but the "pretend you're using your phone" tactic is hardly uncommon)
The whole point of fashion is to shape how people judge you. If most people weren't affected by it, it wouldn't exist. So if it says something about him, it's only that he's human.
Outside of the notion that you can be judgmental about a person ("douche", "pathetic") based upon the tools they use -- conflating wearing a fedora with using a piece of technology -- fashion largely concerns itself with the inconsequential, and in almost all industries and applications follows a far second behind function.
Now someone might point to some freakish catwalk outfit and some bizarro shoes, but those have negligible relevance to the normal world. We're talking about average people in the average world.
I drive a large vehicle because I have a large family and live in a rural area. I picked this model because it looks nice, having fulfilled all of the necessary functions. Some other people live in the city and drive tiny but stylish vehicles, their necessity for function far different.
I have a really fast smartphone that has great apps and great integration. I chose the one that is gold and has a nice logo.
I have an amazing burr coffee grinder that makes perfect grinds and keeps some in an airtight container. It also happens to look really nice on my counter top.
Fashion follows. It does not lead. It will always be contorted around the former.
And people wore headphones because they liked having mobile music without disturbing others. People wore bluetooth headsets because they had jobs and roles that demanded significant voice traffic (as an aside, they declined because voice traffic declined, not because a bunch of people so insecure that they need to bring other people down called them names). And people will wear wearables and smartwatches and so on because it provides value in their life. And fashion will follow, and there will come a time when people will try to make it the bees knees of trendiness.
What's your point? It's irrelevant if thinking someone with a bluetooth headset is douchey is judgmental, the point is if enough people think that's the case, particularly young people, then it's doomed.
The discussion about Google Glass and wearables that we hear has zero input from young people. It's the middle aged white guy telling the world what he thinks from his blog.
> Isn't this really judgmental? Doesn't this say more about you than about them?
Not really. Bluedouches are so self-involved that they don't realize and/or care how annoying it is for them to walk around in public (apparently) loudly talking to themselves. Normally, we only excuse this behavior in schizophrenics.
Not as annoying as the self involved people who go around talking into a plastic brick in public. Normally we only excuse schizophrenics of talking to inanimate objects.
I have a bluetooth headset for making phone calls more safely with my older car (not capable of interfacing directly with my phone), and I don't agree with demonizing headset users, but the biggest issue that I personally found was related to the fact that the headsets were hard to see. Making it unclear when someone was talking on a call or to those around them. The headphones with mics, I find them to be less of an issue because they are more visible even though it would seem to present the same opportunities for confusion.
There was a time when vision correcting glasses were considered very strange I would imagine, but they proved to be very useful and we become accustomed to seeing them. What will be fun, I think, is as others have postulated wearable tech becoming less apparent to the naked eye, so much so that the plastic brick will be considered odd, and that one would WEAR vision correcting lenses mounted in metal or plastic frames right on the face?!
Is it also really annoying for you to see people walking around in public and talking (apparently) to themselves, but while they are with one of their friends who is doing the same thing?
I really don't see the difference between me talking to a friend in public when they are next to me, at the end of a phone call mediated by a handset, or a phone call mediated by a bluetooth headset. The volume of my speech is the same in all three cases, so I have to assume some people are upset that they cannot listen to both sides of my conversation, and become annoyed with the phone/headset scenarios when they are unable to eavesdrop?
First, I find that most people (including myself) talk louder on the phone or headset than to an adjacent person. I attribute it to a combination of lousy acoustics and a lack of visual cues. If you talk at the same volume, maybe you just have a better phone or headset than most people.
Second, I don't think it's a matter of eavesdropping; rather, it seems harder to ignore a half-conversation than a full one, because the latter is normal and expected. Maybe we will eventually become habituated, and in another 10 years we will all be walking around talking to our glasses, watches, or whatever, automatically ignoring each other.
The story reports that the Walkman changed people's opinions about wearing headphones. (The kind of listening earpieces, even paired in a framework, used with the Walkman I usually think of as "earphones," but I see that the contemporary news story called them headphones, back in the day.) What I most remember about the Walkman is that it liberated public places from boomboxes, unaffectionately known as "ghetto blasters," which I used to hear all too often when I was out in public as a student and as a recent university graduate.
AFTER EDIT: And after thinking about this some more, and after pondering the other comments kindly posted here, I think maybe the future of Google Glass will depend in part on whether wearing Google Glass is seen as eliminating a disgusting previous habit (like looking down at one's lap to text while driving) or is seen as a new disgusting habit with no good purpose. I have no idea what most people will think about this--I have still never seen anyone with Google Glass on in my part of the country.
In my view, one thing about any wearable device is that people form an impression of what you're doing with it. That's what makes it socially acceptable or not in the long run.
Earphones / buds / blueteeth don't have unlimited social acceptance. If you're talking to me while wearing headphones, I might ask you to take them off, especially if you're one of my kids. If I see you wearing them while while careening towards me on your bike, I might dive for cover. If I see someone wearing them while communing with nature, I might think they're weird.
If any prediction is possible, I'd guess that Google Glasses will also gain some sort of conditional social acceptance based on what they are capable of being used for.
>What I most remember about the Walkman is that it liberated public places from boomboxes, unaffectionately known as "ghetto blasters," which I used to hear all too often when I was out in public as a student and as a recent university graduate.
Smartphones are the new jamboxes. (that's what I always call them) Haven't you ever been walking around in public with someone blaring music out their smartphone speakers? Happens all the time. It's the jambox trend all over again, except smartphone speakers are terrible quality so it's 100% more annoying. Someone was sitting in a crowded (yet oddly quiet) train station doing it.
>I think maybe the future of Google Glass will depend in part on whether wearing Google Glass is seen as eliminating a disgusting previous habit (like looking down at one's lap to text while driving)
How could looking forward while texting and driving by any less distracting? I've already posted this elsewhere by "hands free" texting is just as distracting. We need to chill the fuck out and realize that text can wait. See my other comment here for sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7151678
I would like a return of ghetto blasters. Those things are cool and I have one wired up to an ipad cut into it to play tunes.
I have a google glass too and I don't wear it so much in public. You can't really see it with a hat - probably mounted in real glasses and long hair or a hat is best.
I'd hold up for the contacts over the eyes, this is sort of a half step that will be great proving ground - but ultimately too invasive into life - like at a partttty!
I wear them all the time because I like listening to music on the go. However, I still think, objectively speaking, they are silly and off-putting. Just because they are so common now doesn't mean we have to deny their intrinsic nature.
Right, headphones still aren't appropriate in many situations. You can wear them on the subway (although a pretty small minority of people do).
But try showing up to a meeting at work with headphones on. Or to a family gathering. You would instinctively take them off immediately.
The presence of headphones is still a social cue, and the presence of Glass will always be one too. It's not going to become just a neutral thing like wearing eyeglasses.
My speculation is that looking at someone wearing Glass messes with us on a deep-seated, perceptual level. Direct eye contact is a huge part of how humans communicate, and Glass interferes with that.
It's worse than eyeglasses or sunglasses, though, because it's asymmetric and offset, so it seems (to me) to trigger some kind of "deformity" cue.
If it really is violating our evolutionary preferences for symmetric faces and unobstructed eye contact, fashion won't be enough for it to catch on.
No one cares if you wear headphones. You're a jerk if you order coffee with earbuds/bluetooth in. I've never seen anyone flip up a Google Glass to the top of their head to have a conversation, but if that was standard behavior, Google Glass would be widely accepted.
The problem today as I see it isn't the camera ($diety knows tourists take enough pictures of you in SF), its people (influenced by clueless Google marketing) being smug and oblivious enough to keep the Glass on during normal human interaction.
The idea of a google glass that can be temporarily disengaged (flipped up) is a really interesting one. It seems like that gives the wearer more control over where they would like to direct their attention. It also signals to whoever they're dealing with that their attention is undivided.
This is probably the single biggest difference between headphones and google glass. I wonder if the designers at google will figure that out.
I believe the idea that these technologies is alienating is false. There are some people (such as myself) who simply do not wish to engage with their fellow passengers on a train or airplane. So, if someone politely speaks to me then I am forced to either a: engage with them (there's no harm in doing so, but I simply don't want to), or b: come up with some sort of way out of the conversation and hope to not appear rude (I don't wish to offend anyone, but I just don't want to talk to them). However, people are much less likely to speak to me if I'm wearing headphones or if I'm reading something on my phone, laptop, or tablet.
However, I also disagree here that Google Glass will stop being dorky, and I really think that it will be a while before it goes "mainstream." The reason is that people were somewhat hostile when the iPad was first released. Indeed, many people still look at tablet users as smug and see them as somehow offensive. So, as has been said here, now you're making the tablet very tiny, very expensive, and adding a nearly always-on camera to it.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out bluetooth ear pieces. You simply look like a smug bastard or an idiot when you're using one (full disclosure, I used to have one during college so that I could listen to music while riding my bike to class, but also keep an ear open for traffic etc.) And Google Glass is really not that much different from a bluetooth ear piece, except, again, that it's got a little screen and a nearly always-on camera.
> I believe the idea that these technologies is alienating is false.
You know, there's one side to "alienating" where the world shuts you out. But I think it's fair to say when people talk about headphones or Google Glass, they also mean you shutting out the world. You're describing a scenario where headphones basically make it harder for people to interact with you (correct me if I'm wrong), or make it easier for you to avoid that interaction. So I think these people are right in their sentiment that it makes the ocean between us a little deeper and wider but maybe the use of the word "alienating" is not quite right.
You're exactly right. Too often words like "alienating" are considered negative, as I did. As a tool that allows me to focus on my work, alienation is a good thing.
Note that I'm not bashing serendipitous meetings, those are often the best (I met my wife that way). But I'm semi-neurotic (there's probably a word for it that I don't know, maybe ADD?) and find it nearly impossible to get back to my work if I'm even distracted for a short while.
I don't think the Walkman is a good comparison at all. Instead, look at the boom box. Big headphones today, or the Walkman in the 80s didn't invade someone else's space. They allow a person to withdraw.
Boom boxes, and Google Glass, on the other hand, are explicitly outwardly focused. They force your presence upon others.
You clearly haven't used Google Glass. With the exception of the camera, everything is inward focused. Everything you do and see and interact with glass happens with only visibility to you. Nobody else can see what you are seeing.
I have, so don't make such sweeping assumptions. I've also been around people who are using them. I find their use in my presence to be an invasion of my personal space.
Maybe I'm just old, but I still think wearing headphones conveys a detached air. My reaction isn't as strong as the 1981 interview, but it's there. Anyone else feel that way?
That 1981 story is bizarre. Pocketable (AM-only!) transistor radios with an earphone were on the market in the 50s and the "little Japanese radio" was ubiquitous by the 1960s.
By 1981 I'm sure there were people still grousing about the good old days but it would have been the equivalent of complaining about e-mail and the death of the handwritten letter in the 2010s (and I'm sure NPR has done more than one story about that in this decade because that's their shtick).
The Walkman was revolutionary because it was a portable cassette deck, the first true plays-anywhere format that allowed someone to completely divorce themselves from radio music without any compromises.
As someone in the habit of sticking my tongue out at surveillance cameras, I might have to learn to restrain myself when staring at a human/camera mixture.
More seriously, I think this suggests a general principle: if something has intrinsic value, that will eventually outweigh fashion concerns. Even though bluetooth didn't totally take off, it seems like roughly half the people talking on phones in lower Manhattan have earbuds in, and I can't think of a place in the US that's more fashion-conscious.
The real question isn't whether people can't grow accustomed to glass, but whether the benefits of glass outweigh the disadvantages, minus the fashion-centric ones.
My uncle likes to tell a story of when (sometime before 1985) he had his brick phone and was talking on it in the entrance of a K-Mart.
He was leaning up against a wall back to everyone trying to be discreet with the new fangled invention of a cell phone.
As he was talking an elderly women was lurking behind him, he could hear her looking through her change purse. He said he realized she was waiting for the pay phone she thought he was using.
He left abruptly leaving nothing but the empty space and the wall and shocked the woman who couldn't seem to grasp where the pay phone went.
That says something interesting about behavior and how the function/form relation is contingent but slow-moving. Star Trek communicators were supposed to be used on loudspeaker and looked directly at, and yet when we got flip phones we used them exactly like rotaries.
Your uncle had a mobile, but when he needed to talk in public, he needed the kind of physical anchoring that was associated with talking on the phone in public -- enough that he generated the illusion of being on a payphone. (Much like if you talk on a cellphone that's connected to a charging chord, you still generate the illusion of a landline).
What does this say about glass? That we want it to work like things that are already there -- an always-with-you screen, for example, or a mini-GoPro -- and it might take a while to really come on its own. If it ever takes off, of course. Google has deep pockets but the acceleration is unrelenting and unforgiving.
I'm not sure why people worry about social acceptability so much. Mainstream opinion is basically that of sheep.
I'm old enough to remember when the Internet use had a significant social stigma. Now teenage girls gorge themselves on it in public. The same people who'd be so quick to judge now keep their mouths shut.
When was there ever a widespread social stigma associated with Internet use? This is not something that ever existed, so it's probably not a good analogy.
The Internet was seen as this nerdy, niche thing for a long time. Thus, by extension, you'd be more inclined to admit you stayed up late 'watching TV.'
This was the late nineties.
But correctness of analogy doesn't change the thesis: mainstream opinion is whatever people are force-fed through bottom-of-the-barrel social norms.
I disagree on the comparison, tbh. Headphones is a purely personal experience; when you see it, you know that person is enjoying some private time, isolating himself from the busy / noisy outside world, or just being a douche. They don't cause uproar because, even if they look silly or make you look silly or like an audiophile (depending on make and model), it's something they do for themselves.
Wearing Glass, on the other hand, is pretty much saying "I AM GOING TO RECORD ALL THE THINGS!". Actually, nevermind; if Glass did not have a camera but was just a heads-up display of sorts, nobody would care. All of the controversy surrounding Glass is about the camera, not about what the original concept was, a heads-up display.
tl;dr: the comparison makes if Glass was just a heads-up display for personal information purposes, but it doesn't because it has a camera.
"Looking so dorky" is actually fairly low on the list of ways in which Google Glass fails to be a usable product. Dustin Curtis wrote an excellent review in which he discusses these more serious problems:
Oh whoa, I didn't know that the eye had to refocus to watch the screen! I thought it was more like a HUD and assumed that Google had mastered that part of the system (and was probably the major innovation behind Glass).
Are there competing HUD systems out there which can be worn near the eyes and don't require a refocus?
I have been using Glass for almost 3 months now. I have tried out almost all the different apps for it at least once. And even written my own apps. My experience has changed greatly over time.
When I first got glass, I felt extremely weird wearing it, it didn't feel right on my face (I have never worn glasses for vision). But not only that, i was very self conscious about it, it looks weird and I knew it. I would maybe wear it for a little while and then take it off when I saw someone.
However, as time has progressed I wear it much more often. I have started to see the value in it, hands free headset. Driving directions, step by step instructions for things, and then the standard watch type functionality of SMS and email alerts.
It doesn't feel weird on my face anymore and I don't feel like an ass hole wearing it around anymore. It just took some getting use to.
It has been said here several times already, but the real key here is usefulness. There needs to be a Glass killer-app, and I think that we are close to having it. There will be lots of great use cases soon, and more will crop up as time goes on.
If you are at ITEXPO this week and want to try glass and see a cool demo of how it can be used in a real world situation, contact me and stop by our booth and check it out.
I think the analogy with headphones is accurate, but the article missed something important"
Headphones in public are absolutely considered obnoxious. Old folk like me do think they look silly, and we do think it says something negative about people who cannot live without pervasive music in their lives.
The attitudes from 33 Years ago have not changed. But the youth just don't notice (or don't care) that us older folk still think that.
Fahrenheit 451 was a dystopian novel not only because of the book burning but because of the people's use of technology to divorce themselves from the outside world and especially their relationships.
Ray Bradbury said in 1960
"In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."
Actually, I still find big headphones weird. I bought one myself so I started finding them okay, and there are a lot of people wearing them now that it doesn't look so silly anymore.
Makes me think about this as well:
"Annette Kellerman promoted women’s right to wear a one-piece bathing suit like this circa 1907… She was arrested for indecency"
I used to only wear earbuds simply because they were more portable. More recently, though, I've begun wearing a full-size set (Bowers and Wilkins P3) because I was tired of my music sounding "small." The difference is amazing and I'll never go back.
I think it's entirely dependent on the type of headphones. The kind you mention are really slim and sleek; they don't really look out of place. It's when I see people wearing Beats or even bigger over/on ear headphones that attract my attention. I don't think ill of people wearing these headphones, but I do think they look silly because of how unwieldy the headphones seem.
You're correct about the larger cans. Personally, I dislike the weight of those type, and also how unwieldy they are and that they do not produce superior sound to smaller, more intelligently designed models (that usually don't cost more).
Everyone's so busy shitting themselves over Glass users "recording everything all the time". Oh no! They might have a recording of me entering a bathroom! Maybe they'll record me talking about the movie I saw last week!
Where is all this footage going to be stored? Decent-resolution video is not exactly small. How long will it take to fill up the 64 GB on your phone? If you have a 1 TB disk at home to archive the video, how many days worth can you store there? People certainly won't want to automatically upload to Youtube, because then they'd be broadcasting their home address, the location of their hidden house key, their credit card info every time they pay for something, etc.
And how long can you record video with Glass before the battery dies? I've heard that the battery is good for about a day with "normal" use; I don't think capturing video and sending it to your phone for storage all day long counts as "normal", I'd expect to get maybe 2 hours tops.
Would a version of Glass sans camera be more acceptable? Less voyeurism & less surveillance.
I haven't used one so not sure how much of its functionality needs the camera. As a user I might miss facial recognition, OCR, etc.
One middle ground could be to have a camera that only outputs information useful for shape recognition, say for example, a monochrome sensor with an edge detection pass.
Google glass will become acceptable because it will be miniaturized and mostly invisible, not because the currently obscene format will become 'a Walkman for your eyes'.
Until then the only socially acceptable way to use them will be in work situations, such as first responders and military.
Note, I currently own a google glass (amongst other wearable tech) and develop for it.
Skimming the original NPR article:
"Unidentified Man #2: You know, it's nice when you're walking around to hear other people talking and see what they're doing. And you're kind of putting blinders on."
Culturally we've evolved to taken wearing headphones publicly in a public place (such as a Grocery Store) as a subtle social cue that "I don't want social interaction".
I imagine with early augmented reality devices like the Google Glass, we will adapt social etiquette around them. Its less of a question if it will be accepted but how social graces will accommodate such a technology. I imagine similar behaviors will evolve around the Glass. I can speculate what those might be but I think more importantly that the Google Glass may not stop looking super dorky, but rather we will develop culture around said device, and its acceptable uses.
I can see the point don't know if Glass will make it however it used to be EXTREMELY weird to see people with bluetooth headsets and even more odd if people were talking on them in public places "Are you talking to me?" now it's so normal for the most part I don't even notice them.
That's because people now use wired headphone/mic headsets for the most part (and occasionally bluetooth stereo headphones with mic as well) so the users just look like iPod listeners.
I believe the wearable format of Google Glass has a good chance to succeed because it is radical enough to deliver enough value from its capabilities. Watches are too tame, and too limited.
It can't be stopped. I want to know, based on face recognition, is the cop walking up to my car known for aggression or for professionalism? I want to know the population density of Bt and PLMN radios around me. I want a subconscious sense of direction. I want to see impurities in air and water. I want senses nobody has thought of yet. Glass is only the beginning, and it is only perhaps minimally capable in the wearables spectrum of capabilities.
It is very likley this means multiple body-worn sensors. Maybe they will be small, but, if not, they will probably become accepted as much as glasses, rings, belt buckles, and other functional adornments.
Predicting the future is hard. Some very smart people thought the Segway would change the world, but when it launched a lot of "man on the street" types thought it looked really dorky.
A decade later... it still looks dorky. (A lot of fun to use though, if you ever get the chance)
I took a commuter train the other day. A girl sat down next to me with her glass on as I was texting.
My texts aren't always the most private thing in the world, but I don't really want to have to give even a moment's thought to whether the person next to me on the train is recording what's on my screen.
Whether it's even feasible or not to capture adequate quality with whatever version of glass she had (old? new? super-high-res beta?) is not the point. I do not want to have to think about it.
If you have a camera on your head, and it is pointing outward all the time and potentially recording stuff like what I'm saying/doing/reading/writing, people near you are going to be uncomfortable, end of story.
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
I think this does a good job of speaking to one issue with Glass. "It looks dorky" will fade. There are negative reactions for other reasons, but conflating all negative attributes of Glass isn't a good analysis.
For those raising privacy concerns as an issue with this analysis - do you think the "that looks dorky" reaction is in fact significantly motivated by privacy concerns, or can you imagine a hip-and-chic styled product that is nonetheless equally (potentially) voyeuristic raising only some of the present objections?
I still think people wearing big headphones look stupid. I've never gotten used to that. And if was chatting to somebody and they were wearing headphones I would be uncomfortable.
None of which touches on the main reason I find google glass uncomfortable- the thought that the other person could be recording everything. People say "well CCTV records you all the time" but that is a world of difference between having an overhead shot of you when you pay for gas and someone pointing a camera in your face as you're chatting to a friend.
There's a difference between having headphones on/in your ears and having something obscuring your face, between the person looking at you and your face. Doubly so when it has a camera pointed at said person. It feels like it's BETWEEN the two of you, and delivering extra information to you. It feels unnerving for that reason. Are you really looking at me? Humans establish eye contact for a reason.
Kind of like when I'm talking to someone with headphones on. They take them off before I feel comfortable to talk at length to them.
People still go to greath lengths to get rid of their optical glasses even though those were around for hundreds of years now, are widely-used and are usually associated with positive attributes like intellectuality. For me that's the strongest indicator that anything similar to Google Glass will never become mainstream. Attractiveness beats out easier access to information any day.
I'd barely notice glass if it looked like that, far less prominent than bluetooth headsets or white headphones, or people clutching smartphones and bumping into each other, or just randomly standing stationary like the zombies that we've become gazing into our navals, I mean smart phones.
People stopped caring about headphones to the extent that they liked using headphones themselves.
The biggest problem with Google Glass is that it does not meet a clearly defined need or desire that most people have. So there is nothing to balance the dorkiness.
Google glass has its problems, but barring any major catastrophes I expect augmented reality eyeglasses to be very popular perhaps by the end of this decade or the beginning of the next.
I see Google glass as the ZX-80 of augmented reality.
Does this mean that every teen can write google glass apps now (Z80 assembly was really easy to learn) but in twenty years time AR technology will be unwieldy, crashy and overfeatured?
If attractiveness is based on facial symmetry and we wear an object asymmetrically overlapping our face, does it make us seem less attractive? Could that be the issue here?
Google Glass represents yet another bar set by the ever-evolving shitty arms race of the invasive miserable grind of the human social condition.
If there's any proof that only the machines will survive in a world where we used machines to kill each other off, it will be our inability to collectively resist the unnecessary escalation that Google Glass represents.
I think Bluetooth is a fair comparison with the aesthetic quality of glass. The recording capability is what pushes glass into new territory though, in my opinion.
I can imagine people actually flocking to a glass wearer for attention, hoping they are being recorded and posted online just as they might flock to someone with a cellphone camera. At parties, hanging out with friends, at a club, etc. I can imagine it being a lot of fun. If I were discussing business or a stranger approached me wearing google glass, though, I would probably be hyper-aware that I was possibly being recorded.
I can also imagine plenty of scenarios where google glass would make people extremely uncomfortable to the point where you would be asked to leave (nicely or not). Which is not something that would probably ever happen with a bluetooth receiver.
I said "Bluetooth, that will never catch on, who wants to go around with a thing in your ear with a flashing blue light? Makes you look like Borg." Now people wear them all day.
And I never thought I would see people walking down the street staring at a phone. "That would be dorky." Now people nearly collide with me on sidewalks because they're looking down and, what's more, they eat meals in public places with the phone sitting on the table like it's a little person.
They most definitely do not wear Bluetooth earpieces all day. There was a brief period years ago when it was (relatively) a lot more common, but the richly-deserved backlash appears to have mostly eliminated the practice. I can't even think of the last time I encountered someone who just kept it on all the time. Purely anecdotal, but I think I've actually seen people using phone holsters more recently than I've seen anyone walk around with a Bluetooth earpiece when they weren't actively talking on the phone or driving.
Maybe it's regional, I dunno. I'm in the Bay Area FWIW.
How many times have we laughed at definitive statements, pontificating on this or that newfangled thing, that were proven to be wildly off-the-mark only a few years later?
How many times have we facepalmed at the print media's desperate attempts to combat or stave off digital publishing?
Whether it's Google Glass or something else, "invasive" wearable tech will be utterly pedestrian in a decade or two. Similarly, privacy is going away, and future generations won't care. You can already see it with the kids. It's just the obvious extrapolation of computing technology, and it won't be stopped by the old guard.
If you disagree, care to put our thoughts in a time capsule and see who looks more foolish in 10 years?