Google Glass: An Etiquette Guide

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323982704578453031054200120.html

by onosendai • 13 years ago

29 46 13 years ago

online.wsj.com

stevenleeg• 13 years ago

I wonder what the rationale behind not including an LED for the camera was. I can't imagine it was cost or anything. Such a simple addition would have definitely done a long ways in reducing the fear people seem to (rightfully) have with its camera.

gamegoblin• 13 years ago

I think I wish the camera had some sort of tiny shutter that opened or closed if it was recording or not. LEDs can be hacked to not light up; a physical barrier is even more fear-reducing.

eps• 13 years ago

What good is the LED on someone's Glass if you don't keep an eye on it at all times? You see it blinked, you know you were photographed. Too late.

A physical lens cover is the way to go.

A camera-free version is an even better option.

wahnfrieden• 13 years ago

There can be repercussions to taking a photo. Knowing of these repercussions ahead of time can inhibit one from taking it in the first place if the shutter click is broadcasted.

greggman2• 13 years ago

Are you going to require blind people with prosthetic eyes to have LEDs in their eyes?

As Kurzweil would say first the tech will be made for people with disabilities. Then it will at some point be better than real eyes and some people will start getting them on purpose. Finally most of the rest will at least augment themselves. People thought cellphones were stupid on the 80s. They thought computers were stupid in the 60-70s or at least that no normal person would want one. Now most 1st world people have both in the their pocket. Glass is only the first step.

kevingadd9• 13 years ago

I don't see how it would be unreasonable for the prosthetic eye setup to come with a LED that lights up when the video stream is being recorded to storage or streamed to the internet, no.

Nobody's suggesting that you should be required to have an indicator that tells people you're looking at them. That's stupid.

k3n2• 13 years ago

For one, it'd be easily disabled. Two, phone's and other digital cameras often don't have a recording LED, so why should this?

arrrg2• 13 years ago

Easily? If, like, e.g., on MacBooks (and probably all other laptops designed by someone with half a brain), the LED is wired directly into the power cable of the camera, there is no way you can turn the LED off through software. If the camera receives power the LED receives power.

To get around this you would have to actually touch the hardware, so you need to take the device apart and rewire the camera (which can be and, considering the size of the device, probably will be pretty complicated). Sure, I’m certain it can be done, but not by many people.

jamesaguilar8• 13 years ago

I don't get why everyone is freaking out about trying to predefine the social rules for this thing. Rather, to be more literal, I should say I do get it but don't agree with it.

Wearable computing and ubiquitous photography are going to be things as the cost of hardware falls. This is already true compared even to the world of the late nineties. Google glass is just the first attempt, but there will be others. WSJ opinion pieces are not going to define how people use it.

The actual social drawbacks combined with the benefits will be the determining factor in how people use it. I imagine (from actually watching people's reaction to the device in person) that in real scenarios most people will not care that you are wearing a Glass/iSee/Windows Goggle 8. And likewise, the relative infrequency of surreptitious recording being useful will limit how often the devices will be used that way.

hatcravat• 13 years ago

Actually, Steve Mann was doing this fifteen years ago. There are web pages describing his wearables that literally haven't been updated for a decade. Think about that for a second. Bill Clinton was president when this was cutting edge stuff. And the Glass hardware looks just as stupid and dorky as the hardware Mann built himself.

rasur2• 13 years ago

More like going on 30 years, actually.

jamesaguilar8• 13 years ago

You are nuts if you think Glass looks as dorky as Mann's stuff. Be serious, please. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wearcompevolution2.jpg

michaelwww• 13 years ago

It puzzles me I don't see much mention that Steve Mann was physically assaulted because of his glass hardware and discuss the reasons for it in relation to Google Glass.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/augmented-reality-explorer-...

rasur2• 13 years ago

Memory-impaired users of EyeTap/Glass-like devices - using them as a memory-prosthetic (a not unreasonable use of this kind of technology to aid their day to day lives) - might find themselves subject to abuse from able-bodied (in the metal sense) non-users, mistaking the disabled for geeks.

Just a thinking-out-loud exercise. Move along.

kevingadd9• 13 years ago

That's a real concern, yeah. With a technology like this, abuses can have a huge negative impact on people who otherwise have need of it to go about their daily lives.

I think if cochlear implants were mass-market for people who weren't born deaf, we'd probably already be facing some of the same social problems there - if it was widespread and common that people just carried around recording devices in their skulls, and anything you said anywhere could be recorded and replayed without your knowledge or permission, and it was common, that'd probably make people pretty paranoid. The introduction of smartphones and other commodity recording devices has already caused a problem here - with stories of police officers/military confiscating or damaging phones that are being used to record their acts, etc.

To a degree this isn't something unique to Glass, it's just the first time we've had a theoretically mass-market device come out that aims to make recording truly ubiquitous and non-obvious.

RRRA• 13 years ago

How about this : http://imgur.com/UdJGSJj

libria• 13 years ago

> You know how that guy with the Bluetooth headset became Bluetooth Headset Guy, the most grating tech villain in existence today? It's because he never took his headset off.

There's a strange social phenomenon where some people feel obliged to not only pass judgment on the way other people enjoy their life (the same contingent of people who seem to dislike those family stickers on cars and people who take pictures of food), they must evangelize/enforce the style of life they're more comfortable with.

What's wrong with bluetooth guy (and his predecessor of 10 years before, cell-phone guy) using his technology? Deal with it like you deal with everything else: endure it, go somewhere else, or explain politely how their behavior is demonstrably harmful (not merely annoying, harmful).

> Be courteous and take the device off in locker rooms, public bathrooms, business meetings, movie theaters and anywhere else where wielding a camera would be improper or offensive.

Agreed. Those are legal issues and should absolutely be observed (the law, not the events).

babarock• 13 years ago

I can't help but shake my head in disagreement when I hear things like "we need a red LED or a shutter sound on this camera". It's not that I encourage people to be sneaky about spying with their pictures. It's that it will be inevitable.

As mentioned, any hacker could turn off whatever restriction you're going to put. Pretending that we're preventing something is stupid and wrong. It's a hypocrisy that is so typical it makes me angry.

To a large extent, secret photographing/recording is a technological revolution, and it will, predictably, meet some resistance. We can either:

* pretend to do something about it.

* help people resisting transition into it.

There are really no other options. Preventing it from happening is not an option. What would you do?

It's very similar to the whole "illegal downloading of music" business. Millions of dollars are spent, laws, national (global!) debates are held, all sorts of technological hurdles are put into play, and ... nothing prevents any kid from downloading whatever they want from the Internet.

All this "pretending to do something about it" has a cost. Some scapegoats are going to suffer greatly along the way. Aaron Schwartz's example is famous around here, but it's absolutely not the only one. Do we need more innocent victims?

jamesaguilar8• 13 years ago

Right? Doesn't HN react negatively to security theater in most contexts? It is interesting that the collective approach is different with this device.

kevingadd9• 13 years ago

A red 'recording' light or shutter noise are not security theater. They're a feedback mechanism to notify subjects that they are being recorded. Even if 1 or even 10% of google glass users hack their device to remove the light, the other 90% will have the light and that will improve others' awareness of when they're being recorded and enable them to take action.

Incremental improvement is better than nothing, and this is an example of an incredibly cheap, obvious incremental improvement with no downside.

arrrg2• 13 years ago

Eh, a perfect solution is not at all necessary. That’s just a weird way of approaching this.

It is the polite thing to do to make obvious whenever you are recording other people. Google can and should help with that politeness. Society is perfectly capable of creating and enforcing rules without laws.

kevingadd9• 13 years ago

the LED/shutter sound aren't about 'preventing it from happening', and your binary logic here is pretty lazy.

The point is that a red LED or shutter sound make it obvious to other people that photography is happening, in the most common cases. Someone who wants to surreptitiously photograph people without their permission will always do it, yes, but that doesn't mean the solution is to 'help resisting people transition into' being photographed without their permission in any and every scenario.

If the common case (i.e. stock Google Glass) has a 'recording' LED or shutter sound, it becomes much easier to address situations where a well-meaning person violates someone's privacy without thinking about it. This will lead to proper etiquette and understanding being formed. The alternative, 'I can take video of you without your knowledge, get over it, the FUTURE' perspective is not going to win anyone over anytime soon. Especially vulnerable minorities.

mmanfrin2• 13 years ago

You misinterpret what he means by 'preventing it from happening' -- he is referencing the unnotified recording of another person by one wearing Glass. Adding a red LED will not prevent people recording without others aware as a red LED is something terribly easy to kill.

kenjackson• 13 years ago

There's a big difference between downloading of music and a red light for taking video. In fact one might be able to apply the categorical imperative and see that most people would want the red light viewable by others, but there is no similar desire when it comes to not downloading music.

That is, this is about creating a desired societal norm. You're right, there are people that will violate this regardless. There's always someone who will hide a camera in the girls bathroom, and there's little you can do to stop it, but yet we've been able to get to reasonable place in society that we still assume there aren't hidden cameras in "private" places.

apendleton• 13 years ago

This isn't about security or privacy. It's about social norms. Most people don't want to offend people, don't want to record people without their consent, and don't want to make people feel uncomfortable because they think they might be recorded. Establishing a social norm that people should outwardly notify others when they're recording will mean fewer people will record people who don't want to be recorded because of social pressure. Certainly, creepers who want to record others secretly will do so, but they will have violated social norms for having done so, and won't have any defense since they will have had to deliberately obfuscate their activities to do so.

Silhouette• 13 years ago

Preventing it from happening is not an option. What would you do?

The same thing you do in any other situation where someone is behaving in a socially unacceptable way:

1. Legislate against that behaviour.

2. Punish those who do it anyway.

You can't stop it completely, but if for example the penalty for recording in public without everyone's consent were crushing your shiny new toy right in front of you the first time, fining you a month's salary the second time, and throwing you in jail for a month the third time, I think you'd find very few people really felt that using always-on recording technology was so valuable they couldn't do without it.

As for your analogy with copyright infringement, well, people used to say that driving while talking on a mobile or smoking in a crowded bar were too ingrained in society and no-one would be able to stop them. It turns out they were wrong, and the people who want to do those things at the expense of others are a small minority, and most of them give up and find other things to do instead when you threaten them with being arrested. The others, you try to catch and actually arrest.

As has been said many times before, just because we can do something, that doesn't mean we should. I could do all kinds of things right now that would hurt people in all kinds of ways, and nothing would physically stop me, and many of those things probably aren't even illegal. I still don't do them, because hurting people is a scummy thing to do.

crazygringo• 13 years ago

The whole "people will hack the red light" issue is pretty easy to get around.

First of all, make sure that, if the light breaks on its own, the camera will stop functioning. (To prevent "innocent" recording without the red light.)

Second, pass a law requiring hardware manufacturing to include these red lights, and making it illegal for people to record others in public with devices which have been modified to function without a light. (It wouldn't be needed for cameras, which have no other purpose -- I'm talking about devices like Google Glass.)

I'm not necessarily saying this is the best solution to the problem, just that it's one possible solution.

After all, if you're in a restroom while someone else is wearing Google Glass, and you know they'd be hit with a $10K fine and up to two years in jail if they were recording you, then you're probably going to feel OK that they didn't hack the red light. Anything's possible, of course, but it becomes a crime like any other.

zw123456• 13 years ago

I get it, I don't like being photographed without my consent. OK, I admit that may come from a place of self conscienceness or whatever. But, I would like that respected. How about an opt out or opt in type of icon that people could wear, maybe the polite Google glass wearer would use the opt in feature that would only photograph other Google glass wearers? That seems like an easy feature to add. Just a thought.

Google Glass: An Etiquette Guide

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