Hacker News Reader

Comment by droelf | Hacker News Reader

I still don't know.. Google Glass feels like these people standing in the first row in a concert and watching the whole thing through their 2.5" smartphone screen just to share it on facebook. It's just not the experience I want to get from life.

View on HN

But that's the point of Glass. You don't have to stand with your phone in front of your face to watch the concert anymore. You just have Glass record it. And you're watching the concert as you've always done it. Glass frees you.

Free you it does. But at what cost? With Glass everything I do I'll do with compromise. Divided attention. When I play with my son I'm keeping an eye on Twitter. When I'm at a concert I'm making sure I watch the stage. When I'm visiting friends I'm wondering how they'll feel with a potentially always-on camera photographing and recording their kids.

Attention. Split. Down. The middle.

>With Glass everything I do I'll do with compromise

This is a choice you make. You're making it for the sake of your argument, then presenting the argument as if everyone will make the same choice.

You shouldn't; I won't.

If the tech shrinks enough to fit in what are today normal glass frames, then it will be everywhere. Until then I feel like it's more like the camera was before it merged with the phone: a device you use when you want to capture an experience. Some people would carry their camera everywhere, but most would take it on a trip, to a concert, to a party, etc.

Buy Glass didn't force you to wear it everytime.

You can wear them only when you have something interesting to share.

So does a head- (or ear-) mounted camera stand.

Which also have the added bonus of not inviting 'fiddling'. Glass can record, but then there are the notifications and the 'interactions' and all that, that combine to put the lie to it being any different than staring at the phone.

Think bigger. Since it's easy to leave the glasses on - and assuming large amounts of bandwidth - everyone uploads their video of the concert to the cloud, from which the algos piece together a high resolution 3d composite which gets streamed to folks with VR headsets in real time.

That's where I see this stuff going in the long term.

Brilliant. The hassle of standing in a crowd without the actual feel of standing in a crowd.

Um... right... because it wouldn't be easier to say... make myself a sandwich if I felt like it when watching the concert from the comfort of my home?

I'm not even sure if this was an attempt at wit or not...

The experience of being in the front row, without the cost and inconveniences of actually being in the front row.

What an interesting way to put it. I've never heard anyone describe it like that.

How would you say its any different from the smartphone addicted users of today? (I freely admit that I'm one of these addicts)

Interesting viewpoint. But the usage scenarios depicted by the author do carry real value, beyond just sharing and capturing photos like translating, GPS capabilities...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com