Google Glass: The Opposition Grows
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
I can see myself smacking someone for taking videos/pictures of me without my consent, by holding a camera right in my face. Google Glass almost legitimizes that kind of behavior. "Oh I can record our conversation because the camera is inside the glass and look its shiny."
Like the video of this guy holding a camera to random people's face: http://www.slashgeek.net/2013/02/26/google-glass-privacy/
NOT OK!
The right to privacy in public is generally regarded as a right to casual privacy - in the sense that many people can hear and may capture or accidentally record what you say, but won't publish or broadcast these events.
It seems the problem with Google Glass is more that it's forcing people to consider what has been true for a very long time: that wherever you go, chances are you're recorded in dozens of ways, by dozens of people, and the only actual defense is essentially social ettiquette in handling this content (and the fact that most people just don't care about who you are or what you do).
> "If a complete stranger holds a camera to your face you know what he is doing and you have a legitimate reason to tell him to stop doing it, most of you will probably object to it."
As a street photographer, that last part is entirely false. The vast majority of people have no objections to being photographed in public - almost all reactions I've ever gotten have ranged between "huh? meh" and "oh cool!".
The reactions he got in the video was because he was behaving like Lord Regent of the Universe, not because he was recording someone. My unscientific estimate is that >95% of the people I've ever taken pictures of (all strangers, almost all without seeking permission beforehand), are either ambivalent or downright approving.
Which goes towards the point: Google Glass is the vehicle for the problem, not the problem itself. The problem, as it has always been, is with assholes.
I also won't interact with people while they are wearing Glass. I do not like it when people take my picture without my permission, and Glass is practically a spy camera. Worse, it not only takes pictures, but video with audio and GPS information.
Can you imagine everyone you know who wears glasses now using a camera at all times?
Or it will result in a literally violent backlash against constant privacy invasion.
Or hopefully something in between, like the village who just ran the Google Street View car out of town when they heard it was coming (though it was disappointing to hear that Google later went back and got the footage anyway).
Mass surveillance is not OK, and is a Pandora's box situation where once the data is out there, realistically it's never getting deleted again. Privacy has evolved as a valued concept in just about every civilised society for good reasons. It's just a shame that a generation of Facebook addicts are too busy getting their hit to notice all the negative consequences to the kind of culture they're inviting.
I don't think much of Glass. Just doesn't appeal to me but I am curious about what makes it special for others.
Unfortunately, the current model requires both a microphone (to hear you) and a camera (to see gestures), so even well-intentioned users will still be brandishing recording devices in ways that make others uncomfortable.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2013/03/10/the-ban-...
I drink gallons of Google-Koolaid, but even I can see(pun intended?) that Google glasses is going to have some social issues. Even I will be a bit uneasy talking to someone wearing them.
I'm still guessing a ban will happen somewhere.
How will they push their stock price above $1000? $1200?
I'd like to suggest another metric: September 11s (or "9/11s"). How many 9/11s will it be before Google's reuse of the data they collect is popularly legitimized, in their new role as the nation's biggest defence contractor? This is an insane idea, but I fear not sufficiently insane. I'd peg it at under a quarter of one 9/11.
The company must grow somehow. It must keep growing. As it exhausts its old business areas and sacrifices any ideals it may have once held, you have to at least entertain these crazy outcomes.
That's why it can't be too surprising that when a little player turns into the main player, they suddenly lose enthusiasm for standards.
Even reading this trash article was in just about all respects, a horrible waste of time.
Bars can just ban photography and ask their customers to not have Glasses on without the need of any sort of ass kicking. I would never go to a bar that advertises ass kicking as a feature - independent of whether I have/wear Glasses or not.
Once your data is recorded, you can't take it back 30 years down the road if you decide you don't like the direction the company has taken, or if privacy laws have changed to no longer be in your favor. The data is already out there. If you think changes in the TOS are bad now...
And your info won't just go to Google. There will be apps. You'll "Post this conversation to Facebook" or something equally stupid. Now fifty different niche websites are accessing things you said to your friend that you never uploaded. (Also, remember seeing in the news that some jobs require your facebook password as part of the interview process? What if that became more common? What if it wasn't just facebook, but everything you ever did, said, or saw happen?)
Our personalities will change, too. We'll become accustomed to constant and total self-censorship
People's data will be subpoenaed too, or just made available for general monitoring in some dictatorship somewhere. Maybe you once had a conversation with someone who later is investigated for something, and out of context your conversation sounds terrible. Now they investigate you. This investigation won't lead to a conviction, but it might fuck your life up for a few months. And that's an optimistic scenario.
I don't really believe it's stoppable though. We're not taking smartphones back. This is just a smartphone strapped to your head. We probably will tell people not to wear them in certain places, but how long will that last? We'll get used to it, like we got used to the TSA. Technology is only going to get more ubiquitous. Maybe we can fight fire with fire. The cypherpunks have been doing it for a while.
Play devil's advocate sometimes. Google Glass may end up being the best thing ever, but we should always question things. If the answer to the question is good, then it doesn't matter that we asked, but if it's bad... we'll be damn glad we did.
http://gawker.com/5990395/if-you-wear-googles-new-glasses-yo...
"If You Wear Google’s New Glasses You Are An Asshole"
They have this temporally reversed. This world heralded Glass. (Unfortunately. Stallman could say, "Told you so.")
In general though, privacy has been dead on the net for a long time now. In life outside the net too, the guy opposite you could have the camera on while he holds the phone in his hand. So yes, some people would have issues with this, but generalizing that response to a majority would be exaggeration.
But Glass isnt really one of them... I cant shake the feeling it will end up in the same strange spot as bluetooth headsets and it just has alot of potential issues with privacy, usability (voice only?) and general appearance.
I wonder if the author makes sure to turn their monitor to face the wall when they've finished working so hackers can't film them while they sleep.
The real question is adaptation - as Clay Shirky says, it's all about learning how to work with the wind, not against it.
If enough people block the use of Glass, it could have an adverse effect on its sales and growth.
I figure it didn't take off for the same reason non-overly obese people don't use Rascal carts. People were worried about being perceived as lazy. They're also really expensive, so you'd be perceived as snobbish as well.
Just look at Gob's character in Arrested Development. They didn't stick him on a Segway because he's a prudent person that needs to get to places in a hurry.
It was expensive, large, you had to find somewhere to park it, you had to remember to charge it, it came with an aura of snobbishness (at that price tag, not entirely undeserved).
And it solved... what? In suburban America it doesn't go fast or far enough to get you anywhere in reasonable time. In urban America the distances people walk aren't worth all of the above compromises.
The Segway makes no sense to the suburbanite whose main mode of transportation involved their garage door opener. The Segway also makes no sense to the urbanite who can walk 100 feet to the closest grocery store.
It was a marvelously cool technology looking to solve a problem very few people actually had.
The segway solved nothing. It was a neat toy.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/images/segsuck2.jpg
Source: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=segway_more_...
Google Glass was designed by people that make a living by tracking you, your friends and by annoying the hell out of you with advertisements. That is the fundamental problem, it solves their problems, not yours. For almost everyone, there is no need to walk with glasses on, unless the designer of such glasses needs to know every step you take. Need directions? Check the phone and check it again 5 minutes later. No need to look like a glasshole.
I wanted to explain myself when I downvoted you, but I am just going to say that I would rather be a glasshole than be that bitter.
Or changing the world one ad click and one snoop at a time. (since you started it)
Fine. Being bitter, assuming I am, can be transitory. Once your sell your soul for a salary, you can never get it back.
You have a couple of years before "Googler" becomes a toxic word. Maybe less, given Larry's focus on squeezing every penny out of the ecosystem, so plan accordingly.
Get off the high horse - tell me what you do for a living and I can find just as morally damning words to say about you. Unless you are curing cancer at an orphanage for paraplegics, the morality of your career is, like the rest of us, more gray than it is black or white.
So stop it with the meaningless emotional rhetoric and attack someone's arguments on its own merits. To pretend that all Google does is shove ads in your face, and that their only accomplishments to date have been so, is either brutally ignorant or blatantly and deliberately disingenuous.