Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

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Ya know, I'm more or less with you and I am a Google fanboy.

The 2 things that Glass will have to overcome:

1)The not-so-fashionable look. I'm sure this'll be corrected in the future.

2) The way people feel about a device that may or may not be recording them at any given moment. Let's not even mention anything about a red light glowing during recording because we know that'll be hacked out. Google Glass will be able to record you without you knowing, period. People will simply have to accept that or the product will fail or get banned in so many places it'll almost be not worth owning at all unless you're a hardcore geek. Then of course someone does some super slick mod where Glass just looks like any ordinary pair of glasses; then mass paranoia breaks out and either people get over it or any glasses are banned. ;)

Mind you this paranoia will be happening despite the fact we've had wearable hidden HiRes cameras smaller'ish than a penny for over a decade already... http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/product/b-w+indoor+high+re...

It's almost scary to imagine there will inevitably be Glass-like contact lenses. How do you protect yourself from that?

Which makes me wish there was an anti-Glass product out there. Something that makes you disappear, or at least masked as a see-through hologram. It's perfectly acceptable if anti-Glass does not hide your feet for regulatory reasons.

People who are not comfortable being recorded might welcome invisibility as protection.

Google did quite a great job in the aesthetic department (considering the goal and size of the device) but it's still 'invasive'.

ps: It's funny how public react to obvious recording devices when they're surrounded by them.

The way people feel about a device that may or may not be recording them at any given moment.

It's pretty difficult to go out in public without being recorded. Security cameras are ubiquitous.

True, but people feel different about an individual they may or may not know recording them versus a security camera at the Bank. All it will take is one melodramatic FOX-News piece on TV connecting Glass to cyber-bullies or crime or some other ThinkOfTheChildren/terrorist nonsense and a bunch of people will freak out. I don't want it to happen, but I know it will and suddenly Google will have to explain how it's "Keeping our children & the public safe" or some other intangible goal.

EDIT: And look at the comment replying me below by user "read" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6189941 . If we have HN-users who already feel like they need to "protect themselves" against Glass, the general public would be whipped into a frenzy by one FOXNews report.

If we have HN-users who already feel like they need to "protect themselves" against Glass, the general public would be whipped into a frenzy by one FOXNews report.

I don't think this is true. There is already "revenge porn" and upskirt shots from cell phones. Nobody has suggested banning cell phone cameras, or even complained about it in any serious way. (Remeber that law that would require camera phones to always make a noise? How did that go? http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h414/show. Out of 435 potentially paranoid Fox-News-loving representatives, he could get no other sponsor.)

I think the whole Glass camera thing is just people trying to rationalize their intrinsic dislike for the thing. (It's new. It looks like glasses. I got made fun of for wearing glasses when I was a kid. They are intrinsically weird.) You can already surreptitiously record pretty much anything that happens in public, and people upload the result to Facebook and YouTube regularly.

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