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).
My best friend was an early adopter of the iPhone. It was so new, so entrancing at that point that I had to endure about a year of him gazing down at his cupped hand during almost every conversation. Those conversations were some of the most infuriating I've ever had. He's promised to be an early adopter of Glass, and this time I think I'll make a point of telling him to take the damn things off before we hang out.
As much ad I hate that behavior, I know I fall into the same trap when I get a new phone. I make a conscious effort to not do it after I realizes 90% of the people at our comp sci socials were face down in their devices. It's one of the reasons I've stayed away from social networks for so long: I don't need more reason to be constantly connected to tech.
Frankly, it might be what we need to finally get a privacy amendment. It's not legal in Japan to have cameras that take pictures without making a noise because of upskirting; I can easily see all HUDs requiring a tally light whenever they are recording or storing information.
Makes me want to post The Moon Moth if I can find it.
Apropos of nothing - I had one of the first two smartphones. I'm all about access to data. But the only time I can see wanting Google Glass is when I'm on the motorcycle.
I've got hands for a reason, dammit.
- Frankly, it might be what we need to finally get a privacy amendment
I'm thinking the opposite: this is exactly what need to finally get the world's populace to understand that "public" is the exact opposite of "private". I don't know when people began to think it is somehow reasonable, to expect privacy in public, but it is a recent thing, nonsensical on its face, and an entitled desire.
When you're in public, you're in public. You will be seen. And the "threat" of being seen and recorded, covertly or otherwise, is almost as old as I am.
If this is what it takes to finally, finally hammer these facts into everyone's heads... well, OK. Maybe we will all, at long last, start to act accordingly, and drop the frivolous lawsuits and faux-astonishment/outrage when we see pictures of ourselves in public places being posted online.
- It's the fact that any picture taken of you anywhere ever can be found by looking for your name
You say this as if it mostly isn't already the case. The only part I find annoying is people pretending otherwise.
If a GIS or TinEye for "kleinbl00" doesn't already turn up an image of you or some info, I'd wager its because you put forth an effort to make sure this was so, not because the default is "anonymity". (And no, I haven't checked. ;-))
And that's a good thing? This is new in the history of mankind and the fact that it ooks people out is not only to be expected, it's to be supported.
Further, you seem to be arguing that the onus is on the individual to keep nefarious forces from destroying their anonymity, rather than on law to protect its citizens. Which I find dangerously wrong-headed.
- And that's a good thing?
Not good, not bad. I think it can be either, depending on who we ask and why.
- This is new in the history of mankind
IMO, this is as old as when newspapers started using photographs. If anything has changed, its the degree, and IMO even that hasn't changed overmuch for the last decade or so.
- the fact that it ooks people out is not only to be expected, it's to be supported.
I do not see why, on either front.
I would feel differently if we were talking about the inside of my windowless bathroom, or even inside of my house with the curtains drawn, or even the inside of my house with the curtains UP (though I wouldn't argue that very strongly), or even other such places where I can reasonably expect to do things without being seen... but we aren't talking about that.
No, we're talking about places where you can be seen by strangers, potentially a ton of them. It has long been a simple, axiomatic truth, that if you can be seen, you can be recorded, and if you can be recorded, you can (and probably will, at some point) end up on the internet. That this device -- which only makes all this incrementally easier, and is literally as plain as the nose on my face -- can cause this kind of "OMG Wat??" reaction... well, its just mysterious to me, and somewhat silly.
- Further, you seem to be arguing that the onus is on the individual to keep nefarious forces from destroying their anonymity
This is perhaps too fine a distinction, but: no, I'm not. What I'm arguing is that in public, there really isn't anonymity to destroy, and I've no idea why people think there is. I literally do not understand the mind of someone who is upset that a photo of them riding the bus was posted to a public FB profile, just to pick an example.
The best I can guess is that people just don't like that this is the case, and I really just do not know what to say to that other than "avoid the outside". Or, better yet, what I said before: act accordingly.
| because now the distractions are all conveniently placed directly into your eyeball!| I will never get Glass. I feel as if having a smartphone is already too distracting. I'd hate to constantly be notified of nonsense all of the time. Don't tell me there's an awesome restaurant around the corner, let me find it on my own.
I make sure to change to settings in my apps so that they don't notify me for everything. I only have it on texts and emails, but even that is too much. I'm glad there's a fellow anti-Glass.
- You won’t know if you’re being recorded or not; and even if you do, you’ll have no way to stop it.
And that, my friends, is the experience that Google Glass creates. That is the experience we should be thinking about. The most important Google Glass experience is not the user experience – it’s the experience of everyone else. The experience of being a citizen, in public, is about to change.
People are missing the wonderful ability to recreate a crime from the perspective of all the people witnessing it. Crime as perpetuated by crooks or criminals or prosecuting attorneys or ....
There's a great SciFi book about a world without privacy, but darned if I can remember the name.
-XC
- Oh, and as for that physical design problem. If Google Glass does well enough in its initial launch to survive to subsequent versions, forget Warby Parker. The next company Google will call is Bausch & Lomb. Why wear bulky glasses when the entire device fits into a contact lens? And that, of course, would be the ultimate expression of the Google Glass idea: a digital world that is even more difficult to turn off, once it’s implanted directly into the user’s body. At that point you’ll not even know who might be recording you. There will be no opting out.
This is inevitable, and it will be at that point I start to worry.