A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky
onthemedia.org
onthemedia.org
How many times have we laughed at definitive statements, pontificating on this or that newfangled thing, that were proven to be wildly off-the-mark only a few years later?
How many times have we facepalmed at the print media's desperate attempts to combat or stave off digital publishing?
Whether it's Google Glass or something else, "invasive" wearable tech will be utterly pedestrian in a decade or two. Similarly, privacy is going away, and future generations won't care. You can already see it with the kids. It's just the obvious extrapolation of computing technology, and it won't be stopped by the old guard.
If you disagree, care to put our thoughts in a time capsule and see who looks more foolish in 10 years?
I think it will be like everything with technology, we will be more the same, and more different. People might share some information freely as a bird that we would be horrified at, but I don't think the intrinsic need for privacy will leave society on some level (for a host of reasons).
Maybe this will manifest into something like "For Us The Living" with a public sphere and a private sphere. Go outside and you are 100% monitored by thousands of sources, but in your home or private dwelling things turn off.
Social mores evolve slower than technology, but they do evolve.
Mostly I think kids are much more aware (though maybe not in an entirely conscious way) of holding on to several identities of varying degrees of privacy. They're better at segregating their lives into several online identities in addition to the one they physically inhabit at school/work/in public.
Not to say they are always successful at maintaining those boundaries. Really no one could be entirely. But they are much more active about it and it's a big part of their lives.
Personal video "always-on" cameras will NOT be pervasive in 10 years.
Put me down for saying that where ever you wish.
I just hope the tech fades with it. Not away, but into the background. I'd rather have a pen that can draw a diagram on my workpiece tucked in my pocket than I would some geegaw strapped to my head all the time.
Don't be too confident though: predictions in general are very hard, especially about the future [1].
[1] http://andrewgelman.com/2014/01/21/commissar-traffic-present...
Once glass is directly on the optic nerve things will be better.
I really hope we get to see biological interfaces in our lifetimes. If there's a singularity, I'm guessing that's where it'll begin to take off.
Basically - unless we find a way to inject data non-invasively using an advanced version of transcranial magnetic stimuation.
The basic problem with bioscience - in fact anything that's not computer science, is you can't just hit "recompile" when you screw up. We can't just replace an optic nerve that goes bad, in fact anytime you do even minor surgery you run the risk of an infection that wipes out whole systems of the body from a tiny mistake.
Abstraction is a big problem, basically.
Someone on the bus with headphones is likely ignoring everyone else. Someone crossing the street with headphones is likely not paying enough attention to traffic.
Is glass different? We seem to forget that headphones themselves have drastically evolved in style and shape over the years, some designs were almost universally derided.
Let's not ignore the elephant in the room here though, glass is far more similar to bluetooth headsets. How are those aging? Do the kids think it's cool? I don't know for sure, but I'd guess not. You can put that guess in the time capsule.
No, because they have no use for them. There's nothing inherently goofy about them other than that society hasn't made them the norm. It certainly could be said that staring glazed-face at a glowing rectangle in front of you looks dorky as well. But smart phones have become a damn useful device, and that's why no one thinks twice.
Only time will tell with Glass.
That's what makes them uncool, they're unnecessary. Maybe someday glass will cut the rope of being paired with a phone, but not anytime soon.
Then, it's unnecessary at times like you said. I think this is what looks smug, you're walking around with something on your head, that you might not be actively using. Or with bluetooth, you have an earpiece, but you're not in a call. It looks like you're wearing it, just to show it off, and it seems like you're trying hard to impress. With headphones, we make the assumption you're listening to music when they're in your ear.
People enjoy their technology, but they like to pretend they're free from it. A friend posted on Facebook the other day how everyone is always on their tablet or laptop, and 'gah, can't people just put their phone or tablet down for one day and look up'. But... she was on Facebook writing that message. I get that feeling from a lot of people. They keep their phone close, but they don't want to look like they depend on it. They want instant e-mail notifications or texts, but, they don't want to give off that image. It's not an attractive quality to always be playing with your phone or attached at the hip with technology. It's anti-social. That's a negative. When you're wearing something like Glass, you give off that impression.
And lastly, with Glass, you're literally pointing a camera at my face, and could be taking photos, and recording audio or video without my knowledge. That's a little uncomfortable.
Personally, I think it's going to fail, and I wouldn't be surprised if I never see a single person wearing the device. However, I applaud them for taking the risk, since the technology and advances will be used in some way. Could it be used by doctors to stay hands free? Could it be used on motorcycles, so you can see your speed or a rearview image in the corner of your eye? Does it work well just for around the house, so I can do housework, and get notifications? Or can I cook with dirty hands, and see my recipe, or cooking time remaining? I think there are uses for it, I think others will see what they've accomplished and apply it in some way. However, as a device that everyone will be wearing while walking down the street, I just don't see it happening.
Seems like an easy design fix.
I don't normally consciously acknowledge that someone is wearing headphones, and that is the point. The article is pointing out how little we think of people wearing headphones in public now, while they used to be very noticeable and with largely negative connotations.
I built the site ten years ago, and the Long Now Foundation has plenty of other things going on, so I'm pretty confident that this will do for your 10-year bet.
If you find a challenger, I'm glad to help you two negotiate a testable prediction and get the bet up on the site.
In hindsight I was unnecessarily...cavalier...but I would be willing to work something out.
The GoodBet website would have two leaderboards: users with most winning bets by dollar and users who donated the most by dollar. That way even the losers win, encouraging participation.
Any chance you could adopt my ideas, either into Long Bets or a fork of it?
[1] Partisan Bias Diminishes When Partisans Pay. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/554...
Note, I am a 7 year user of Intrade(which is undergoing a reboot) with over 100k USD total traded.
There's something about the need to criticize that seems inherent to humanity -- or at least the HN comments section.
No, it's an iPhone with a much bigger screen real estate. Which changes all kinds of things, user experience and UI design wise. Things that are awkward on small screen are easily done on a larger screen.
If it was just a magnified iPhone it would be stupid. Now, what's really bad is how many tech pundits though of it exactly like that...
the ONLY reason i use the tablets more is battery life. Given equivalent processing power/battery life, nobody would choose a tablet. the screen real state simply does not compensate for the lack of public use, uncomfortable long session use, etc.
give me a phone with decent battery life, and i won't even mind the occasional magnifying glass attached to it.
That's just like, err, your outlier opinion man.
Now, the phone might be easier to hold with one hand, but the iPad is easier/better for lots of tasks. From reading books and comics or watching videos to using music creation apps, drawing apps etc. Anything where screen real estate matters.
>the ONLY reason i use the tablets more is battery life. Given equivalent processing power/battery life, nobody would choose a tablet.
Wrong again. Not to mention that millions of people by Wi-Fi only iPads, and when using an iPhone in that way (with the 3G/4G turned off), you get pretty much the same battery life. Or you know, those people could get an extra battery juice pack for their iPhone, but they don't.
They buy wifi only ipads because the form factor is embarrassing to use with 3g anyway.
a clumsy ipad is still less clumsy than a phone+power pack+cables
BUT! now she has an iPad. She has had it for about a year and she loves it. She spends all evening shopping/browsing. I too have a tablet and struggled to think of how I would use one before I bought it, but now I read more than ever, and browse.
Very interesting how life-changing (or more like habit-changing) tablets have been, particularly the ease of use to look something up and read without having to turn a computer on. (I still use my laptop if I want to CREATE anything, but consuming is mostly done on a tablet, as attempting to create something on a tablet is an exercise in frustration). Perhaps Apple cleverly realised that most people consume instead of create.
Very clever. We would not have thought this 5 years ago.
Sometimes the way you look matters. See: the Segway. It's a threshold. Did headphones really make you look as dorky as the Segway does to your contemporaries? Doubtful. Does Glass? I think it comes close.
Your ability to predict what amount to fashion trends in the future is not particularly related to your ability to do so in the past.
I don't know, your ability to predict trends in the past sounds like the best predictor of your future ability.
Except if you think that there's no such an abilily, and it's all random guesses and luck.
And the thing is, above and beyond that, 10 years from now the tech that's evolved from Glass will look about as much like Glass as the iphone looks like my first touchscreen phone (behold: http://img.engadget.com/common/images/3060000000053553.JPG?0...)
Taking a PC to a pub, so you could tweet is dorky. Taking a phone or glass to a pub to tweet is dorky, but you can pretend it's just a spur of the moment thing.
To me, Segway with stick = http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/Y810072B.jpg
Segway without stick = http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/TkyLnWm1iCs/maxresdefault.jpg
Does your job require walking around on a flat service all day? Segway for Mall Cops.
Do you want people who have a hard time walking for a few miles so they can do a tourist tour? Segway for tourist.
That's about it from me.
Speeding up intra-city commuting without having to walk or ride a bike obviously would be awesome. When people pointed this out back when the Segway came out even the fattest nerds were saying they were being lazy, but the truth is most technology helps people be lazy, so it seems to me the dork factor played a huge role in preventing early adoption.
a range which meant you were going to need to schlep it into your apartment/office to charge every day
taking up an incompressible 2-3 persons worth of space in an elevator/hallway/sidewalk/cubicle
no parking infrastructure
little/no ability to navigate grass and probably highly recommended not to drive off a curb
no extra carrying capacity
plus extra speed is either useless on a crowded sidewalk or makes you a giant dick on a crowded sidewalk and also useless if you're with some one who doesn't have that speed.
... so that you could walk a little less.
It was not a compelling product.
"Similarly, privacy is going away,..."
Privacy is definitely going away in the public space. But I'm not so sure privacy in, well, the private space is going away.
We may even see a movement --heck, it may even get a name one of these days-- for apartments and houses built in a way that some rooms get a "100% no intrusive technology inside" treatment.
For example you may have an intelligent fridge (so that it can send spam as already happened and why not be part of a botnet mining bitcoins), intelligent TV which can report your mood to advertizers, etc. but have, say, a bathroom with no intelligent lightswitches (because even lightswitches will surely have NSA-friendly webcams and microphones), with no WiFi and just a "detector" at the door ringing a bell in case you try to enter with a smartphone / smartglasses / whatever.
Same for the bathroom and the toilets.
I don't know about you, but as long as the state isn't forcing me to have a webcam and a microphone in my bedroom and in my bathroom, I'll still have privacy there.
I see more and more people now putting a little piece of post-it on the webcam of their laptop (e.g. MacBook, on which there's no physical slider to obscure the cam).
In other words: as long as I'm still a free man, I get to decide where, on my private property, I do still have privacy.
And I invite you in ten years in my property and you'll tell me if the NSA can switch on a webcam and a microphone in my bedroom or not ; )
I really don't see a smartphone detector in the bathroom, but maybe you just turn it off, I don't think the bathroom is an issue. The bedroom maybe, but I would assume most smartphone owners sleep with theirs in the room, among other devices. The overall connectivity of households and their data to "the grid" is increasing rapidly. There will be some privacy, it's not a 24/7 visual feed, but the government, Google, Facebook, hackers, et al. will be doing what they do, and people will be giving it to them.
This keeps being said, but it doesn't have to be that way and may not stay that way for long. For one thing, if kids were so careless about privacy, they wouldn't be using Snapchat.
My younger siblings and their friends each have around 1500 to 2000 friends on Facebook. They hardly use their accounts anymore for that reason.
We'll take my great-grandfather for an example. He'd be horrified about how careless I've been about protecting our racial purity. How could I be so careless as to marry a women without realizing that she's not only a dirty papist, but also one of those swarthy French‽
However, the truth was not that I was careless, but that I didn't care. I know all of these things, but they didn't matter to me. Similarly, I know someone who broke federal privacy laws with respect to my personal information. I could report this individual, but the simple fact is that I don't care. If he'd posted the entire data set to wikileaks, I still wouldn't care. It's not that I have nothing to hide - there's some pretty embarrassing stuff in that data set. However, everything in that data set, good or bad, is true.
The important question to me, then, isn't whether the embarrassing (or mundane) secrets are true, but whether they would give someone the power to manipulate the subject of those secrets, or to manipulate others with respect to the subject of the secrets.
Perspective also means opinion. Not just accepting the "inexorable march" as fate.
You can wear an iPhone. When's the last time you saw someone photographing their food in a restaurant, then tweeting while their friends checked their email?
The argument that fundamental civil rights will simply disappear in the face of "technological progress" seems utterly vapid to me. In fact, it sounds like a fundamentalist ideology. This argument is a thin is "we have nukes, so let's blow up stuff".
This is not technology that will make certain jobs or products obsolete. This is not technology that will simply change the way we do things. This is not technology that merely affects our social interactions.
This is technology that robs people of fundamental freedoms, freedoms that we've not only had since home sapiens first appeared, but freedoms which we have explicitly protected through laws and constitutions as technological progress has made it easier to take away that freedom.
A society where everyone can be recorded on video 24/7 without restrictions is not a free society.
If this is truly the "inexorable march of technology", I might consider becoming a Luddite after all.
The technology of Google Glass is technological progress, just like printing a gun with a 3D printer is technological progress. I don't think that automatically means that in 10 years time we'll be walking around shooting at everything that moves with either.
We are into the realm of game theory here. You can say "I don't care if my embarrassing photos/controversial opinions/whatever are public" only if everyone agrees the same thing at the same time. Because otherwise, you will find yourself competing with someone whose aren't public, in front of someone who does care. That might be a manager, it might be the electorate.
There is no such thing. There are only specific technologies. Some march inexorably, some are jokes (if they're remembered at all).
To which the analogy vs. headphones is not relevant.
I anticipate, however, that Google (or somebody) will find a way to make this product largely invisible to anybody but the wearer in the near term future.
Through more discreet projection / camera placement, or future-tech incorporation with a contact lens.
So for a company in the business of printing money, investing in BETAs at this stage to understand UX, function, etc is wise.
This form of selective memory, remember the good things and forgetting the bad, is a primary tool that ordinary people use to stay sane. Something that records everything you do forever has the potential to serious mess with that.
Wikipedia calls it the negative triad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_errors#Depression
But at first blush I'm not seeing how it would matter. If I recall rightly, what you remember is partly a function of what you think about. If you're thinking about negative experiences, then you'll retain them. If you think about the positive ones, you'll retain that.
People already have a lot of digital archiving going on in the form of photos, emails, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. Mostly, people just ignore that vast historical trove. I would expect adding more detailed recording not to change the balance much; if people use their archives at all, it will be to seek out the things that they already are inclined to remember.
A core assumption of this argument is that people won't eventually become accustomed to the idea of being recorded consistently, often without their knowledge or consent.
I can't see why that would be the case. Video surveillance is nigh-ubiquitous in London, and this appears to be both accepted and tolerated. Closer to home (US), I was probably recorded on camera 10-12 times today alone - anywhere from office buildings, retail stores, gas stations, etc. Moreover, I understand that I'm being monitored or recorded in some fashion during the majority of my waking hours (internet usage in the workplace, mobile apps with access to my current location, etc.)
Why do you feel people will forever resist this particular loss of privacy, when we already take some measure of persistent surveillance & recording as a given?
NB : This does not mean I feel comfortable speaking to someone wearing glass. It's unsettling. However, the very crux of the OP was that what we currently consider unsettling or strange is subject to change. I can't find a good reason to disagree with that conclusion.
Are any of those London cameras, or the dozen cameras you suspect record you in the US, in public restrooms?
You're implying that there is a certain threshold past which society will not tolerate its actions being potentially recorded.
That may be the case, but I haven't heard it argued convincingly.
If we are to take any lessons from history, it is that accepted social norms are subject to radical change. What was once utterly unthinkable has in many cases become hum-drum or even the social norm.
Why should this (glass) be the hard line in the sand that human civilization draws?
Are you expecting Glass wearers to suddenly start leaning over urinal partitions to film you pissing? Or poking their heads over stalls? Both of these are pretty goddamn unacceptable where I'm from, Glass or not. If someone is so weird that they want video evidence of themselves going to the bathroom, and they happen to capture me standing at a urinal, who gives a fuck?
And many people have no qualms sharing pretty much everything on Facebook and the like.
I don't know which way it will really go, but it is really not obvious a priori that everyone is that concerned about privacy, or that society will not adapt to make things like constant filming more acceptable.
Also, Google Glass may be constantly recording in private places usually without CCTV: homes, dinner tables, meetings, etc.
Myself I like making field recordings of nature sounds. I've noticed though that a lot of people are concerned when I pull out my Zoom field recorder and start recording them during conversations. They generally don't like it. I don't blame them. I don't like it either. So I either record discretely (which is illegal in many states) or not at all. I don't blame them for not wanting me to record their private conversations though, because their concerns and their desires to have a private conversation are completely legitimate.
A pretty big difference if you ask me.
A closer analogy to Google Glass might be handycams and smartphones, and these face plenty of pushback even without the always-on criterion.
The same isn't true of handheld cameras. When people take a picture of me, it could go places, and I know that. If you're snapping pictures of people, you'll get reactions.
Right now, people definitely treat Glass like a handheld camera. And I suspect they will, at least up until the moment they start wearing one themselves.
> “Well, when I saw that I was in a posted photo, it scared me… and then afterwards, blah! But maybe there isn’t the need to post these photos online… I feel like I’m in a catalog for rapists or other sick people. It was quite shocking…”
[1] http://www.argentinaindependent.com/life-style/thecity/chica...
[2] http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2012/05/21st-century-street-haras...
I've also occasionally ended up in the newspaper in crowd shots. That can be fun or irritating, but either way it definitely matters to me.
That's because they don't see those recordings posted around and embarrasing them or affecting their future lifes.
I agree. It seems like a false analogy to me.
Perhaps a better comparison would be wearing a lavalier/lapel microphone. They have been around for a long time --yet people still find them unnerving and will ask you if it is on if you are wearing one.
That isn't the theme of the article, though. The author was just addressing whether Google Glass would stop looking dorky, not whether we'd be comfortable with the voyeurism. So I think the analogy is valid, and I suspect will be proven true.
Google should put an LED light on Glass that turns on whenever it's recording, just like MacBooks.
So, unless there is a law, I can't see forced LED for recordings. If Google tries, then one of the most popular apps for Glass will be a hack which deactivates the light.
What about people with cameras on their smartphones? Every time you see someone on the phone or playing with their phone and their camera is pointing at you, there is a chance they're filming/taking pictures of you.
We got used to it. Things change so fast. It's not because right now we're thinking about privacy that we'll still think about it tomorrow.
When personal cameras first came on the scene -- the newspapers tried to inflame hysteria -- ANYONE COULD TAKE PICTURES OF ANYONE! There were pushes for regulation, banning, and people where ATTACKED for using cameras in public. Google for "Kodak Fiends" and "The Camerist and the Squaw" -- these were the old version of "Glassholes".
Society creates social norms to deal with this stuff. See again camera phones... a lesser for of "Kodak Fiends" trended in the press, then we adapted, and now no one even worries about it. It will happens for Google Glass over time, history tells the tale.
Remember how douchey the bluetooth headset people were? Very small by comparison, and that was mostly hidden if you had long hair, or were viewed directly from the front.
The Pebble is about the limit, which is why the wrist-computer thing is so interesting, even though it doesn't provide a huge amount of new capability for "heads up" computing vs. a vibrating smartphone. I'm mostly unwilling to wear the "old" Pebble, but probably will wear Pebble Metal, and will definitely wear Pebble 3.0 (if it improves by roughly the same amount; 1-4mm slimmer would be nice).
Glass would be fine alone, or in a car, or in the field, but probably not something I'd wear at dinner, or in a casual meeting (unless by using it I were much more productive and useful).
The article seems to think wearing headphones in public is ok. It's fine when you're sitting down avoiding people, but the kids wearing large, crappy headphones in other environments (e.g. at meals) are kind of pathetic.
Isn't this really judgmental? Doesn't this say more about you than about them?
I'm completely serious. I do not judge people on the tools they use in their life that is of no consequence to me. The same holds for Google Glass -- it is somewhat perverse, if not an attempt at group bullying, however so many try to get some sort of group disdain going about it.
The single credible complaint anyone has about Glass -- after you dig through all of the noisy subjective blather -- is the privacy angle. It may be defeatest but I think that ship has sailed, and we're absolutely surrounded by things recording us (someone mentioned lapel mics, for instance, but of course every smartphone around you might be audio recording. Video recording is often more ubiquitous, but the "pretend you're using your phone" tactic is hardly uncommon)
Not really. Bluedouches are so self-involved that they don't realize and/or care how annoying it is for them to walk around in public (apparently) loudly talking to themselves. Normally, we only excuse this behavior in schizophrenics.
There was a time when vision correcting glasses were considered very strange I would imagine, but they proved to be very useful and we become accustomed to seeing them. What will be fun, I think, is as others have postulated wearable tech becoming less apparent to the naked eye, so much so that the plastic brick will be considered odd, and that one would WEAR vision correcting lenses mounted in metal or plastic frames right on the face?!
You are certainly not being any safer. The act of engaging in a phone call is what is distracting, not holding a device. Don't kid yourself.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/12/aaa-study-usi...
http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0701/blcellphone70...
http://www.alertdriving.com/home/fleet-alert-magazine/north-...
http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/14/look-no-hands-is...
Further, nobody is talking about people who use these technologies in private, they are talking about people who are using them in public.
I really don't see the difference between me talking to a friend in public when they are next to me, at the end of a phone call mediated by a handset, or a phone call mediated by a bluetooth headset. The volume of my speech is the same in all three cases, so I have to assume some people are upset that they cannot listen to both sides of my conversation, and become annoyed with the phone/headset scenarios when they are unable to eavesdrop?
Second, I don't think it's a matter of eavesdropping; rather, it seems harder to ignore a half-conversation than a full one, because the latter is normal and expected. Maybe we will eventually become habituated, and in another 10 years we will all be walking around talking to our glasses, watches, or whatever, automatically ignoring each other.
Now someone might point to some freakish catwalk outfit and some bizarro shoes, but those have negligible relevance to the normal world. We're talking about average people in the average world.
I drive a large vehicle because I have a large family and live in a rural area. I picked this model because it looks nice, having fulfilled all of the necessary functions. Some other people live in the city and drive tiny but stylish vehicles, their necessity for function far different.
I have a really fast smartphone that has great apps and great integration. I chose the one that is gold and has a nice logo.
I have an amazing burr coffee grinder that makes perfect grinds and keeps some in an airtight container. It also happens to look really nice on my counter top.
Fashion follows. It does not lead. It will always be contorted around the former.
And people wore headphones because they liked having mobile music without disturbing others. People wore bluetooth headsets because they had jobs and roles that demanded significant voice traffic (as an aside, they declined because voice traffic declined, not because a bunch of people so insecure that they need to bring other people down called them names). And people will wear wearables and smartwatches and so on because it provides value in their life. And fashion will follow, and there will come a time when people will try to make it the bees knees of trendiness.
We don't need more distracted drivers.
AFTER EDIT: And after thinking about this some more, and after pondering the other comments kindly posted here, I think maybe the future of Google Glass will depend in part on whether wearing Google Glass is seen as eliminating a disgusting previous habit (like looking down at one's lap to text while driving) or is seen as a new disgusting habit with no good purpose. I have no idea what most people will think about this--I have still never seen anyone with Google Glass on in my part of the country.
I have a google glass too and I don't wear it so much in public. You can't really see it with a hat - probably mounted in real glasses and long hair or a hat is best.
I'd hold up for the contacts over the eyes, this is sort of a half step that will be great proving ground - but ultimately too invasive into life - like at a partttty!
Earphones / buds / blueteeth don't have unlimited social acceptance. If you're talking to me while wearing headphones, I might ask you to take them off, especially if you're one of my kids. If I see you wearing them while while careening towards me on your bike, I might dive for cover. If I see someone wearing them while communing with nature, I might think they're weird.
If any prediction is possible, I'd guess that Google Glasses will also gain some sort of conditional social acceptance based on what they are capable of being used for.
Smartphones are the new jamboxes. (that's what I always call them) Haven't you ever been walking around in public with someone blaring music out their smartphone speakers? Happens all the time. It's the jambox trend all over again, except smartphone speakers are terrible quality so it's 100% more annoying. Someone was sitting in a crowded (yet oddly quiet) train station doing it.
>I think maybe the future of Google Glass will depend in part on whether wearing Google Glass is seen as eliminating a disgusting previous habit (like looking down at one's lap to text while driving)
How could looking forward while texting and driving by any less distracting? I've already posted this elsewhere by "hands free" texting is just as distracting. We need to chill the fuck out and realize that text can wait. See my other comment here for sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7151678
I wear them all the time because I like listening to music on the go. However, I still think, objectively speaking, they are silly and off-putting. Just because they are so common now doesn't mean we have to deny their intrinsic nature.
But try showing up to a meeting at work with headphones on. Or to a family gathering. You would instinctively take them off immediately.
The presence of headphones is still a social cue, and the presence of Glass will always be one too. It's not going to become just a neutral thing like wearing eyeglasses.
It's worse than eyeglasses or sunglasses, though, because it's asymmetric and offset, so it seems (to me) to trigger some kind of "deformity" cue.
If it really is violating our evolutionary preferences for symmetric faces and unobstructed eye contact, fashion won't be enough for it to catch on.
The problem today as I see it isn't the camera ($diety knows tourists take enough pictures of you in SF), its people (influenced by clueless Google marketing) being smug and oblivious enough to keep the Glass on during normal human interaction.
This is probably the single biggest difference between headphones and google glass. I wonder if the designers at google will figure that out.
The missing ingredient is cool and popular people have to be seen using the technology, and make it look good while doing it.
However, I also disagree here that Google Glass will stop being dorky, and I really think that it will be a while before it goes "mainstream." The reason is that people were somewhat hostile when the iPad was first released. Indeed, many people still look at tablet users as smug and see them as somehow offensive. So, as has been said here, now you're making the tablet very tiny, very expensive, and adding a nearly always-on camera to it.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out bluetooth ear pieces. You simply look like a smug bastard or an idiot when you're using one (full disclosure, I used to have one during college so that I could listen to music while riding my bike to class, but also keep an ear open for traffic etc.) And Google Glass is really not that much different from a bluetooth ear piece, except, again, that it's got a little screen and a nearly always-on camera.
> I believe the idea that these technologies is alienating is false.
Does that make sense?
Note that I'm not bashing serendipitous meetings, those are often the best (I met my wife that way). But I'm semi-neurotic (there's probably a word for it that I don't know, maybe ADD?) and find it nearly impossible to get back to my work if I'm even distracted for a short while.
Boom boxes, and Google Glass, on the other hand, are explicitly outwardly focused. They force your presence upon others.
The modern equivalent of the boom box is people playing music loudly on their phone speaker on public transport.
I wouldn't compare it to the boombox at all.
With the exception of the camera...
By 1981 I'm sure there were people still grousing about the good old days but it would have been the equivalent of complaining about e-mail and the death of the handwritten letter in the 2010s (and I'm sure NPR has done more than one story about that in this decade because that's their shtick).
The Walkman was revolutionary because it was a portable cassette deck, the first true plays-anywhere format that allowed someone to completely divorce themselves from radio music without any compromises.
More seriously, I think this suggests a general principle: if something has intrinsic value, that will eventually outweigh fashion concerns. Even though bluetooth didn't totally take off, it seems like roughly half the people talking on phones in lower Manhattan have earbuds in, and I can't think of a place in the US that's more fashion-conscious.
The real question isn't whether people can't grow accustomed to glass, but whether the benefits of glass outweigh the disadvantages, minus the fashion-centric ones.
My uncle likes to tell a story of when (sometime before 1985) he had his brick phone and was talking on it in the entrance of a K-Mart.
He was leaning up against a wall back to everyone trying to be discreet with the new fangled invention of a cell phone.
As he was talking an elderly women was lurking behind him, he could hear her looking through her change purse. He said he realized she was waiting for the pay phone she thought he was using.
He left abruptly leaving nothing but the empty space and the wall and shocked the woman who couldn't seem to grasp where the pay phone went.
Your uncle had a mobile, but when he needed to talk in public, he needed the kind of physical anchoring that was associated with talking on the phone in public -- enough that he generated the illusion of being on a payphone. (Much like if you talk on a cellphone that's connected to a charging chord, you still generate the illusion of a landline).
What does this say about glass? That we want it to work like things that are already there -- an always-with-you screen, for example, or a mini-GoPro -- and it might take a while to really come on its own. If it ever takes off, of course. Google has deep pockets but the acceleration is unrelenting and unforgiving.
I'm old enough to remember when the Internet use had a significant social stigma. Now teenage girls gorge themselves on it in public. The same people who'd be so quick to judge now keep their mouths shut.
What changed? Oh, right: absolutely nothing.
This was the late nineties.
But correctness of analogy doesn't change the thesis: mainstream opinion is whatever people are force-fed through bottom-of-the-barrel social norms.
Wearing Glass, on the other hand, is pretty much saying "I AM GOING TO RECORD ALL THE THINGS!". Actually, nevermind; if Glass did not have a camera but was just a heads-up display of sorts, nobody would care. All of the controversy surrounding Glass is about the camera, not about what the original concept was, a heads-up display.
tl;dr: the comparison makes if Glass was just a heads-up display for personal information purposes, but it doesn't because it has a camera.
Picture headphones with a camera.
Are there competing HUD systems out there which can be worn near the eyes and don't require a refocus?
When I first got glass, I felt extremely weird wearing it, it didn't feel right on my face (I have never worn glasses for vision). But not only that, i was very self conscious about it, it looks weird and I knew it. I would maybe wear it for a little while and then take it off when I saw someone.
However, as time has progressed I wear it much more often. I have started to see the value in it, hands free headset. Driving directions, step by step instructions for things, and then the standard watch type functionality of SMS and email alerts.
It doesn't feel weird on my face anymore and I don't feel like an ass hole wearing it around anymore. It just took some getting use to.
It has been said here several times already, but the real key here is usefulness. There needs to be a Glass killer-app, and I think that we are close to having it. There will be lots of great use cases soon, and more will crop up as time goes on.
If you are at ITEXPO this week and want to try glass and see a cool demo of how it can be used in a real world situation, contact me and stop by our booth and check it out.
Headphones in public are absolutely considered obnoxious. Old folk like me do think they look silly, and we do think it says something negative about people who cannot live without pervasive music in their lives.
The attitudes from 33 Years ago have not changed. But the youth just don't notice (or don't care) that us older folk still think that.
EDIT: Now you kids get off my lawn!
Fahrenheit 451 was a dystopian novel not only because of the book burning but because of the people's use of technology to divorce themselves from the outside world and especially their relationships.
Ray Bradbury said in 1960
"In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."
http://digboston.com/boston-news-opinions/2012/06/rip-ray-br...
Makes me think about this as well:
"Annette Kellerman promoted women’s right to wear a one-piece bathing suit like this circa 1907… She was arrested for indecency"
Mmm, yes. Shallow and pedantic.
2. Why are you quoting it, do you agree or disagree in its original context, are you applying it to the first quote in a serious/ironic/____ manner?
Where is all this footage going to be stored? Decent-resolution video is not exactly small. How long will it take to fill up the 64 GB on your phone? If you have a 1 TB disk at home to archive the video, how many days worth can you store there? People certainly won't want to automatically upload to Youtube, because then they'd be broadcasting their home address, the location of their hidden house key, their credit card info every time they pay for something, etc.
And how long can you record video with Glass before the battery dies? I've heard that the battery is good for about a day with "normal" use; I don't think capturing video and sending it to your phone for storage all day long counts as "normal", I'd expect to get maybe 2 hours tops.
Have a little bit of fucking perspective, maybe.
I haven't used one so not sure how much of its functionality needs the camera. As a user I might miss facial recognition, OCR, etc.
One middle ground could be to have a camera that only outputs information useful for shape recognition, say for example, a monochrome sensor with an edge detection pass.
Until then the only socially acceptable way to use them will be in work situations, such as first responders and military.
Note, I currently own a google glass (amongst other wearable tech) and develop for it.
Culturally we've evolved to taken wearing headphones publicly in a public place (such as a Grocery Store) as a subtle social cue that "I don't want social interaction".
I imagine with early augmented reality devices like the Google Glass, we will adapt social etiquette around them. Its less of a question if it will be accepted but how social graces will accommodate such a technology. I imagine similar behaviors will evolve around the Glass. I can speculate what those might be but I think more importantly that the Google Glass may not stop looking super dorky, but rather we will develop culture around said device, and its acceptable uses.
It can't be stopped. I want to know, based on face recognition, is the cop walking up to my car known for aggression or for professionalism? I want to know the population density of Bt and PLMN radios around me. I want a subconscious sense of direction. I want to see impurities in air and water. I want senses nobody has thought of yet. Glass is only the beginning, and it is only perhaps minimally capable in the wearables spectrum of capabilities.
It is very likley this means multiple body-worn sensors. Maybe they will be small, but, if not, they will probably become accepted as much as glasses, rings, belt buckles, and other functional adornments.
A decade later... it still looks dorky. (A lot of fun to use though, if you ever get the chance)
My texts aren't always the most private thing in the world, but I don't really want to have to give even a moment's thought to whether the person next to me on the train is recording what's on my screen.
Whether it's even feasible or not to capture adequate quality with whatever version of glass she had (old? new? super-high-res beta?) is not the point. I do not want to have to think about it.
If you have a camera on your head, and it is pointing outward all the time and potentially recording stuff like what I'm saying/doing/reading/writing, people near you are going to be uncomfortable, end of story.
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
For those raising privacy concerns as an issue with this analysis - do you think the "that looks dorky" reaction is in fact significantly motivated by privacy concerns, or can you imagine a hip-and-chic styled product that is nonetheless equally (potentially) voyeuristic raising only some of the present objections?
None of which touches on the main reason I find google glass uncomfortable- the thought that the other person could be recording everything. People say "well CCTV records you all the time" but that is a world of difference between having an overhead shot of you when you pay for gas and someone pointing a camera in your face as you're chatting to a friend.
Kind of like when I'm talking to someone with headphones on. They take them off before I feel comfortable to talk at length to them.
Prior art.
http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of...
That one day, suddenly, it will just be... the new normal.
See Black mirror: The entire history of you.
The biggest problem with Google Glass is that it does not meet a clearly defined need or desire that most people have. So there is nothing to balance the dorkiness.
I see Google glass as the ZX-80 of augmented reality.
If there's any proof that only the machines will survive in a world where we used machines to kill each other off, it will be our inability to collectively resist the unnecessary escalation that Google Glass represents.
And I never thought I would see people walking down the street staring at a phone. "That would be dorky." Now people nearly collide with me on sidewalks because they're looking down and, what's more, they eat meals in public places with the phone sitting on the table like it's a little person.
Maybe it's regional, I dunno. I'm in the Bay Area FWIW.
I can imagine people actually flocking to a glass wearer for attention, hoping they are being recorded and posted online just as they might flock to someone with a cellphone camera. At parties, hanging out with friends, at a club, etc. I can imagine it being a lot of fun. If I were discussing business or a stranger approached me wearing google glass, though, I would probably be hyper-aware that I was possibly being recorded.
I can also imagine plenty of scenarios where google glass would make people extremely uncomfortable to the point where you would be asked to leave (nicely or not). Which is not something that would probably ever happen with a bluetooth receiver.