Google Glass, anyone?

Lightmancer

Legend
Location
Sunny Frimley
Name
Bill Palmer
So, what do we think of Google Glass from a photography point of view? There has been a lot of hype and interest around this, then it has all died down a bit. Now I am reading reports like this: Google Glass wearers stir up trouble at the bar with early adopters being referred to as "g l a s s h o l e s"... It is certainly compact (whether or not it is serious is another matter...) but I think that the debate veers more towards the impact upon society than the technology per se.

I work for a "high tech" company myself (not Google) and I know that we are already developing applications with Google Glass in mind, and rightly so. In industry, I can see a myriad uses, from police to service engineers, doctors to train drivers - but in everyday life? There is something vaguely creepy about talking to someone who may be listening - or who may be checking their email, or even last night's catch-up TV. At the moment, you can tell because the head is down revealing early-onset male-pattern baldness and the 'phone held discreetly in the lap is being prodded (at least one hopes it is the 'phone...) but with Google Glass, how will one know...?

The real concern for me, at least, is the likely backlash against Glass wearers by those who feel that their "privacy" (note the inverted commas) is being compromised. Will those who complain, followed as sure as eggs are eggs, by those who legislate - discriminate between wearable tech that uploads instantly to the Cloud and - potentially - records everything the user sees indiscriminately and the photographic equipment that brings us all here? Will we see the recent legislation introduced in Hungary becoming the norm? Will our pastime become - even more - a target for suspicion and discrimination - and all because of a pair of glassless glasses that make the wearer look like a member of the Borg Collective (styled by Ray Ban)? Perhaps the next generation Glass devices will include a blinking red light like an old video recorder - even more cyborg-chic.

Those who embrace Google Glass can't seem to see the problem - or the challenge. But then I suspect many are already asocial in their outlook and will focus (no pun intended) upon their own "needs" (wants) rather than on what others think, thereby making it worse - example the lady in the first article who turned ON the record function to "defuse" tension in the bar...

Thin end of the wedge, or nothing to worry about?

Discuss...
 
Maybe if people think they are possibly being filmed in every aspect of their public life, we will start acting more like the advanced lifeforms that we are supposed to be.

Honestly, I think a lot of what is going on is just knee-jerk responses to anything new. If people would step back and actually think (I know that's asking a lot), they would realize that most people are already carrying around devices that can fairly discreetly record conversations, images and video.

I predict some bumps in the road (as with any new technology) and eventually complete assimilation.
 
Thanks for those links, ReD. Pretty much how I feel about it. I dont have anything I need to keep secret but just for the sake of my own feeling of safety, I like to have things that nobody else knows about me. The thought of living in a world where anything I might say or do is being recorded by someone, somewhere (or in the case of Eggers' book which I will read, the Circle) fills me with a horror that is indescribable. Google Glass? No way. Not now, not ever. Its a path to 1984. Corporations already have far too much power. This is just going to give them more.
 
Maybe if people think they are possibly being filmed in every aspect of their public life, we will start acting more like the advanced lifeforms that we are supposed to be.

Honestly, I think a lot of what is going on is just knee-jerk responses to anything new. If people would step back and actually think (I know that's asking a lot), they would realize that most people are already carrying around devices that can fairly discreetly record conversations, images and video.

I predict some bumps in the road (as with any new technology) and eventually complete assimilation.

I really hope you are wrong, Luke. This is way way beyond the recording aspect of any phone (or even dictaphone which we had for years before our smartphones)... this is NOT a path humanity needs to take. If I have to live my life wondering who's recording me (not that anyone would bother) for whatever purpose... its time to move on. I don't believe its a kneejerk reaction to anything new. I'm usually at the front of whats new in my peer group... but not for this. This is bad, bad, bad, bad.

By the way... do you do facebook? If not... why not? Facebook is an entity which is already trying this on, every time it changes terms and conditions. Zuckerberg believes that nothing should be private. Everything that happens at facebook hinges on that belief. Yes, you can make stuff private but Joe Average doesnt usually know that, and doesnt check his settings....

Thin end of the wedge? Yes.
 
It's going to be a field day for creeps once prices drop. In the end it's going to be a wash, it will help in certain cases and harm in others.
 
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