Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

http://lehrblogger.com/2013/07/16/ok-glass-build-a-social-network/

by lehrblogger • 13 years ago

30 46 13 years ago

lehrblogger.com

egypturnash• 13 years ago

OK Glass, install a cache for my website.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

lehrblogger6• 13 years ago

Was the site down? It's hosted on S3 and served by CloudFront, so I'm not sure what might have been wrong. Thanks for the cache link, though!

cliveowen• 13 years ago

As far as I can tell, all the mentioned scenarios address pretty niche markets.

Personally I don't see mass adoption of Google Glass in any kind of conceivable future, I see head-up displays in very specific settings as the winning solution, instead of an always on, general-purpose solution.

dualogy• 13 years ago

niche markets

--or maybe we end up in a future like this: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-back-to-the-future-2-got...

lehrblogger6• 13 years ago

Aren't the mobile photo sharing and messaging markets both large and established? Past technologies that have made those tasks slightly faster or easier have seen widespread adoption, and it seems possible the same thing could happen with Glass.

abruzzi2• 13 years ago

This may be right, but to me, as a doubter, I'm well aware of potential benefits, but my creepiness radar comes from the feeling that there is a point where recording becomes too intrusive. If I'm in a public bathroom and someone is snapping photos, that it's too intrusive. And the problem with glass is that you never know wether its just sitting on someone's head, or it is recording. I don't see the benefits of ubiquitous telepresence overcoming the creepiness of ubiquitous telepresence.

lehrblogger6• 13 years ago

Our existing mobile devices can be used in similar creepy ways, but we've learned to discern between the postures people use for taking photos with their phones, and their postures for doing everything else with their phones. We certainly pay an "attention tax" to maintain an awareness of nearby devices, but we've gotten over the creepiness.

It's possible that we'll learn similar patterns for Glass. While we won't know if the device itself is recording, we might still be able to guess based on where the wearer is looking and how quickly they are moving. On the flip side, Glass wearers might also change their postures and habits so as to avoid matching these newly-learned patterns.

abruzzi2• 13 years ago

Exactly. I think it boils down to the fear that we don't know when the camera is active. When we're holding out our smart phone in a certain way, people know we're taking a photo. Google could build glass with a bright flashing on-air light, which would help, but absent obvious physical gestures, we'll wonder wether the device has been rooted to disable the light.

Don't get me wrong, I do think its unfortunate, because there are real positive sides to the device, and you touch on them in your blog, but for me, unless I feel better about the hair raising on the back of my neck, I'm going to be hesitant to accept the devices. (Caveat: I'm a bit of a privacy nut, that has never used Facebook, twitter, uses brivate browsing whereever possible, uses SMIME to encrypt most of my emails, etc., so my experience may not be very indicative)

sveme• 13 years ago

If it's prediction time, here's mine: The time of hyper-multitasking, constant broadcasting of minute details to even the most distant acquaintances is over; the big luxury will be being able to spend uninterrupted time on a single, meaningful thing, without being constantly interrupted by emails/tweets/fb messages/chats etc. People rent cabins in the forest to get things done - and they got those things done and might serve as inspirational role models for others.

Even Hackernews could be considered as support for this view, as it tends to encourage people to use the long, well-thought form instead of the quick snip. The most useful posts that I read here must have taken its writers more than an hour (admittedly, this is not one of those brilliant posts).

If Google Glass succeeds - and it is possible that it does, then it will most certainly not be based on the immediate exchange of images with others a long way away. If a picture is worth taking and worth sending, it is worth getting out the smartphone or camera. At least in my generation very few people have time and the wish to constantly interrupt their work or play to check yet another sunset in NY/Shanghai/Rio.

But maybe that is truly a generational thing.

lehrblogger6• 13 years ago

I don't see these two futures as necessarily incompatible, and could certainly use more time alone in cabins. But sometimes it's better to both relax and be productive with other people, and technology is good for removing the constraint that those people be in the same place. Maybe Glass won't be a device on which we receive minute social updates, but it can still be useful for the same reasons a telephone is useful. Maybe it could even have a similar busy signal, so you're not interrupted if you're already talking to someone.

I think the 'worth' of a picture depends on the circumstances – people take many more pictures than they did twenty years ago, now that we don't need to get the film developed – and a further simplification of the process might lower the threshold further. A pretty sunset is a pretty sunset, but the pretty sunset from someone you love halfway around the world is something different. An interesting thing about Glass is that it minimizes the duration of the interruption needed to both send and receive that sunset.

sismoc• 13 years ago

I don't want to be recorded. At All!!

No video, no audio, no photographs. NOTHING!!

Take your Glass somewhere else. I am off-limits.

gnaritas3• 13 years ago

What makes you think you have a right to tell someone else what they can record in a public place? You cannot have an expectation of privacy in public.

bigiain5• 13 years ago

(This is the beginning of a much longer comment I wrote in another thread a few days back - see the full version here if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6043640 )

"You have no expectation of privacy when in public."

I'm seeing this objection a lot lately, and perhaps I'm showing my age here, but I've certainly got an "expectation of being largely individually anonymous when in public". While there's nothing to stop people looking for me and possibly finding me in public - I _don't_ expect people(/corporations/tlagencies) to be recording everybody in public spaces and archiving them permanently in ways that allow all archived recordings of me to eventually be crossreferenced and de-anonymised.

bigiain5• 13 years ago

I also don't want to be recorded by convenience store or shopping mall cctv, or by repo man ANPR, or by red light / speeding cameras.

We've lost that argument though.

What I would like to see, is for there to be appropriate responsibility assumed by the people taking advantage of the privilege of recording everything. I eagerly await the first few court cases where someone drunkenly records and uploads to youtube something that they _really_ shouldn't have, and a judge and jury decides it's entirely appropriate to hold Glass-wearers to account for what they choose to record and publish.

izendejas• 13 years ago

I'm genuinely curious: why don't you want to be recorded at malls et al?

What's the difference between such surveillance and a security guard wondering around looking for suspicious activity and/or protecting shoppers/businesses?

Surely, it can be abused, but it can also help protect "suspicious" individuals from being profiled/targeted maliciously by such security guard, for example.

What if you were hit an intersection and said cameras helped to identify the individual who hit you and then ran, would that change your mind?

I don't think surveillance is the problem as much as who does it and the laws they implement.

Sven7• 13 years ago

Fucking Yeti! I know you are out there. I'll find you.

bigiain5• 13 years ago

And, of course: http://xkcd.com/1235/

conformal3• 13 years ago

same here! i want nothing to do with the world of pointless media sharing or other people's perception that recording everything is worthwhile.

if i could legally destroy every glass rig that was anywhere near me, i would be a happy person indeed. the unfortunate situation that now arises is a surveillance arms race, wherein it is illegal (in most countries) to undertake destructive or jamming actions against surveillance technology, be it radio or cellular frequency EM waves, a horde of idiots with cameras or the intelligence services that record all internet traffic, including this post. i would rather not participate, but the concept of passive/massive resistance simply will not work against such technology.

i don't want to develop my own countersurveillance to keep the glassholes at bay. however, i and people who care about privacy are left with few options. i would love to see some legit countermeasures for glass.

wavefunction• 13 years ago

>Google should ... rather develop it as a novel device for directed, private communication.

Private in what way? Private between us and Google? Private between us and Google and the NSA?

This blog post ignores the reality before our very eyes, something we don't need Google Glass for. It is merely another data acquisition tool for Google and any usefulness beyond that is incidental.

fear91• 13 years ago

There are many Googlers here, you know :) You either talk about G positively or not at all.

The glass is the most Orwellian thing I've ever heard of. The only thing that could beat it would be direct brain interfaces, capable of stealing thoughts.

conformal3• 13 years ago

it is amusing that you mentioned this because google's business strategy is to steadily erode the privacy of all human beings and monetize it at each step. they can try to dance around this all day with marketing and it doesn't matter.

it's only a matter of time before the glass hardware has an attachment that reads your mind so you exert even less effort than currently, e.g. blinking. google will then take that data and sell it to marketers, the USG, and whoever else they can, so everyone knows what you're going to think before you think it. google predictive thinking... so sad.

tonylemesmer• 13 years ago

Highlights nicely that the hardware is a good but the omnipresent backend its plugged into isnt necessarily so.

protomyth• 13 years ago

There's an odd series on youtube called H+[1] that is about implanted computers (and a killer virus) that has some interesting scenes that could apply to Google Glass and its ilk. Some are amusing but dangerous (husband watching sports while driving), and some get a bit creepy. Sadly, their picture of how the media would handle it is accurate[2].

The virus and information "appropriation" fears for this type of device are very real. If you think people went batshit crazy over some startup uploading address books or Apple keeping an unencrypted list of cell towers, then you haven't seen anything when the first glass virus or "they're tracking us scare" hits a congressional committee[3].

Its one thing for the twilight zone object on my desk to freak out. Its a lot more personal when I carry it in my pocket. Its beyond scary when its on my face.

1) http://www.youtube.com/user/HplusDigitalSeries sponsored by AT&T

2) Pundits with much fury and noise communicating no information

3) I suggest using OpenVMS as the OS

lehrblogger6• 13 years ago

Thanks for the link, I'll watch some of these. I agree the viruses/etc are a serious issue, and I'm not sure if I'm more worried about the first virus for Glass, or the first viruses for self driving cars and Amazon delivery quadcopters ... :)

Spearchucker• 13 years ago

I see the value, even though I'm ambivalent about the concept. I'd love to get my hands on something like it, but given the NSA revelations, not from Google (and not from Microsoft, either).

The irony is that I'd probably trust something from Taiwan or Korea. Ironic in that when I did work for the government,anything manufactured in these countries automatically ruled it out.

orestmayski• 13 years ago

With the recent relations of the spying that happens on civilians by the NSA, and other government security agencies, are we ready for something like Google glass?

sologoub• 13 years ago

This debate about knowing when Glass is recording puzzles me a bit. We have an established way to indicate that a device is recording across both camcorders and webcams on laptops - a small light indicating when the camera is on.

On most camcorders it's a small red light. On Macs it's green.

Glass has an indicator towards the back that is poorly visible. Just move it to the front and maybe make it a little brighter.

Last I checked, no one is running away from a person walking around with a camcorder that's not on. When it is on, it's easy to see and step out of the view.

aaronbrethorst• 13 years ago

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/seattles-creepy-cameraman-pushe...

nhayes-roth• 13 years ago

Personally, I no longer trust these established indicators. I now feel justified in assuming that backdoors are built into most systems and that Glass could be recording at any time, without my approval and without any indication.

arrrg2• 13 years ago

It’s possible to wire the LED directly to the power of the camera. That way if the camera receives power the LED is also on. There is no way to change this behaviour in software. (This is how the indicator lights on Macs and presumably many other indicator lights are wired up.)

pedrocr• 13 years ago

Are you serious or cracking a joke? I honestly can't tell. Because it seemed like you were slowly describing how to turn the supposedly cool and hip google glass into the borg headset:

http://www.startrek.com/legacy_media/images/200509/ds9-401-l...

I don't think I could pull this look quite as well as Patrick Stewart :)

thaumaturgy• 13 years ago

I've stayed out of this debate so far for various reasons, but there is a specific privacy issue with Glass that I haven't noticed anyone else raising yet.

It is inevitable that Google Glass will have real time facial recognition, whether Google wants them to or not (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/11/google-glass-...). Or, that a similar product offering that capability hits the market once Glass becomes popular enough.

If you are a felon, or have ever been arrested on an accusation of a serious crime, that is a future that you're not excited about. If you've ever been in the media -- even on a purely local basis -- for anything salacious, that's not a future you can be excited about. You can probably get Google Image Search results for "[your county] arrested" (worked for a couple of counties that I sampled at random); there are websites like mugshots.com that republish mug shots and details of the arrest.

As it is now, the only thing that ex-cons and others in similar situations have going for them is the relatively short attention span of the public and a vanishingly small support network of other ex-cons and people willing to give them another chance.

The rest of society, for the most part, regards them as unequal citizens (and in some cases, sub-human, depending on the offense).

An apartment complex might choose to rent to an ex-con for some reason; once the technology is available, management will have to deal with outraged neighbors and many apartment complexes will simply stop renting to them. An employer might give someone a job but not disclose that person's personal history to their co-workers; if the technology becomes ubiquitous enough, that will stop being an option too.

I don't think the technology itself is inherently bad. But, I don't think society has yet reached a point of maturity where it can gracefully handle this.

patmcguire• 13 years ago

Can we discuss why mugshots.com is still the top result? Their main pitch is:

UNPUBLISHING SERVICE FROM

THE MUGSHOTS.COM DATABASE

HOURS OF OPERATION: 7AM -11PM EST

Which seems to be extortion. If they were a group of people deeply concerned about convicts in their midsts that would be a different issue, but they seem to be running a "pay us and we'll go away" business model, which it seems reasonable to beliebe the search engines should punish in the same way they do content farms.

johnreese• 13 years ago

The perfect anti-Google Glass device: http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/02/21/ir-leds-used-to-defeat-s...

contingencies• 13 years ago

It's sad when the best they can do is conjure up the twentieth consecutive year of "natural feeling video conferencing is right around the corner!" as an excuse for allowing marketeers to use techno-fetishism to push omnipresent corporatized surveillance in to society and public spaces. (The video conferencing argument is a failure and will remain such: people prefer telephones, and it never feels natural.)

Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

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