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Comment by lehrblogger | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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)

Yeah, I understand. I was speculating about possible changes to social norms and body postures in response to recording technology like Glass. As an alternative to an indicator light, maybe Glass-wearers will learn not to look at other people at all, so as not to give the impression that they are recording. Similarly, perhaps there are ways that we held our pre-camera cell phones that would now imply recording, so we've all subconsciously learned to hold our new phones differently.

In other words, it could be a lack of obvious physical gestures that indicates we are not recording, rather than the presence of obvious physical gestures that indicate we are recording.

A world in which we don't 'point' our heads at strangers is definitely weird and possibly undesirable, but interesting to think about.

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