Google Glass May Have an Afterlife as a Device to Teach Autistic Children | Hacker News Reader

Google Glass May Have an Afterlife as a Device to Teach Autistic Children

nytimes.com

68 pointslil-scamp19 comments

That is, a device to train autistic children to communicate "normally". Not a method for more effective teaching in general.

While obviously a biased sample, the #ActuallyAutistic reactions I've seen so far are... not enthusiastic (roughly: Holy shit, again with the "eye contact" obsession; do you think we haven't figured out where your eyes are?).

The more articles like this I see, the more I get the whole "nothing about us without us" thing.

Pretty much, yeah. Neurotypical folks want to feel comfortable, and see the way of addressing this as teaching neurodivergent folks to power through it and live in constant stress and anxiety for their benefit. No willingness to meet half way.

Agreed - while dressed up in technology (that flopped, for good reason) this is simply another way to try and force people into being "normal".

There is no need for this device, or the motive behind it, to exist.

More kids have ASD then ever before and there is a shortage of therapists. If this technology can make a clinical impact then it is a good thing. It broadens access to treatment. Much like voice technology like Siri and Alexa may help as well.

> If this technology can make a clinical impact then it is a good thing.

A major issue is that such impact for ASD is often (perhaps even typically) measured without bothering to ask the person whether they regard it as an improvement.

Intensive ABA therapy was shown to be effective in the 70s. We also know that the earlier you begin therapy the better the outcomes. So I should ask my 2 year old if they regard it as an improvement? My 3 year old? What about an infant? We see early signs of autism in infants. Not sure what you are on about here. You can see and assess improvement without asking a person. In fact someone with ASD might not even be able to tell you they feel improvement until much much later.

> So I should ask my 2 year old if they regard it as an improvement? My 3 year old?

Uh, yes? You can also watch for things like avoidant behavior and distress (or the opposite) centered around the therapy process.

there are a lot of other uses for glass outside of this

Google Glass is a great idea, but was sold to the wrong market. I believe there is a lot of niche markets that would really benefit from this - the police, augmented reality tool for museums/historical sites visitors, people with physical disabilities and many others (like the one mentioned in the article).

I am sure Google knew this, but they also knew that this is not something that would provide sufficient income from their perspective.

It also has a life as a business solution:

https://www.cnet.com/news/google-glass-enterprise-edition-2-...

"Google's Glass customers and partners currently include AGCO, DHL Group, HB Fuller, and Sutter Health."

A decent start, but that's not really a list that suggests it will be anywhere near as significant as Google hinted 6 years ago.

They seem to have more than that:

https://www.google.com/glass/partners/

VMWare seems a good nod. The others seem more of the same, though I may have missed a stealthy good catch.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20464724

Google Glass project would never be completely dropped by Google, even though it didn't succeed as an accessory now; it has very obvious medical use cases.

As BMI/BCI tech improves, especially w.r.t vision a spectacle (aka glass) is the obvious choice to put a camera for input on the face; a spectacle with processing power like Google Glass is a convenient advantage.

Maybe that's all it ever was..

i still want one :)

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

Explorer Edition units are mostly useless, but they're pretty cheap these days. Mine's good shelf decoration, so I don't intend to ever give it up.

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