Why I'm sending back Google Glass
computerworld.com
computerworld.com
This isn't just a GG problem. This is general Google problem, and something that seems to be growing. Until a year ago I had an old Nokia E5 that could tell you where you were and give you directions to anywhere without being "online". Now I have an Android which refuses to let me use the GPS in anyway unless I am connected to be big G and have given them permission to track me.
You can even get it through F-Droid if you prefer not to use the google apps.
Perhaps, Big G are actually trying to encourage some diversity in the market by only pre-installing apps that people are wary of using :-)
1) Huge potential - something like this will be the next "iPhone"
2) Headaches - 2-3 hrs of intermittent usage would give me a headache without fail
3) Battery Life... BATTERY LIFE
4) Surprisingly hostile reactions in some places (restaurants etc)
5) Novelty wears off fast then what?
Returned with thanks to friend kind enough to lend it to me. Not something I would buy until
1) Price is in the 2-300$ range
2) Battery life is 5x
3) At least one Killer app
That's an example of strange unsolicited attention from a stranger is perceived as hostile. He could have been pointing a picture of the Virgin Mary at them and gotten a similar reaction.
If some blind guy walked in with his Google Glass connected to his brain so he could see and was ask to remove them do you think the "please remove your glasses" would be acceptable? "But sir, I can't see without these as I'm blind. Are you really going to discriminate against blind people?".
Cameras embedded in eyes are coming. First they'll be for the blind. Then they'll be better than real eyes and probably be used for soldiers. Then they'll become fashion/must have along the same lines as a smartphone is today for most people. When friends can all see in infrared in the dark and you can't or can zoom in and read something small thing 600 meters away, or can drive through fog with their augmented reality eyes or recall whatever they need on demand few people will stay un-augmented.
I get that people don't want to be recorded. I just see it as they have no right not to be recorded because they have no right to choose how I remember things. If we invented a tech that could read my memory and produce a video then what? They've already invented digital memory that can be connect to brains. So if my brain was digital would that make a difference? If you don't want me to see you don't go out in public. Past that you have no right to decide how I remember you. Whether it's with my memory of you, a sketch I made, a picture I took or, a video I recorded. Those are all just augmented versions of me.
Your hypotheticals about digital memories: we will cross that bridge when we get there.
Objections about camera phones have subsided because people understand them better. Unless someone is pointing the phone at you, which is usually an obvious action and not something that is widely done covertly, you aren't being photographed. But there are still concerns: I'm about to go vote in an election where there will almost certainly be "no camera" signs up at the polling station and specific advice against taking selfies that might inadvertently contravene laws about disclosing who voted for whom.
You have no such guarantees with a camera that by design is always looking out with the wearer and doesn't advertise whether it's recording or not.
The only difference is in the future I'll have augmented eyes and an augmented brain and be able to share perfect digital copies of my memories. Society will realize it's the same as it's always been. Those people trying to be thought police and telling me what I can and can't remember and how I can and can't remember and who I can share my memories with will be seen just as silly as they are today for non-augmented memories.
Going out in public should not mean that my activities are automatically recorded and published by anyone that wants them. It's not like I have an expectation of privacy, but I do have an expectation that in general it's none of your business and I really don't want to be recorded, tagged and uploaded.
There's a huge conversation to be had about anonymity in society and freedom from pervasive surveillance, and it's nothing to do with being a luddite.
If everything everywhere is being recorded by someone, such as memory recording or a blind persons implants, who are you to say you can't be included?
They're not invading your privacy, your home.. they're in a shared world, which is just as much theirs as it is yours. You two share it. So do you have the right to say he cannot remember it?
Sure, it's slightly different than these days of a person with a camera, but it's an extended concept. One that is important to think about, imo.
Days will change in the near future, being recorded won't feel special. With so many devices, so many recordings.. it just won't matter. You'll have to invent some type of scrambler if you still care, when that day hits.
It's not that it feels 'special', it's that there are implications to asymmetric information gathering that are uncomfortable and difficult. Saying 'society will just change so the technology doesn't feel weird anymore' is maybe not the best way to tackle those issues.
It's not about memory, it's about pervasive uploading, tagging and tracking. It's about amalgamation of masses of data on a worldwide scale, such that every detail of everyone's life is collected and aggregated by massive companies, fuelled by well-meaning idiots handing them video feeds with associated timestamps, GPS locations etc etc.
That's not a world I want to live in, where people record everything, feed it via google and facebook, and suddenly a third party company in another country knows everything you do, without your ever needing to interact with them.
Please get it through your head IT'S NOT JUST THE RECORDING (though that is offensive enough)
The augmented me in the future will have digital memory and digital eyes and I'll be able to make and share perfect copies of those memories but they're my memories to share just like the are today and have been since forever
Here's an example of a recording I made today in my head. I was on the way to work. I saw a blue chevy license #E17HV2 cut me off and then proceed to go down the freeway at around 80mph. A police officer was near by and sped after him. A few minutes later I saw he'd been pulled over by the cop."
That recording was in my brain. I just shared with with you. The guy speeding has no right to tell me I can't remember it. He has no right to tell me I can't share it (which I just did).
Video is the same thing just higher fidelity. Augmented me with digital eyes and digital memory is still me, same memories, same rights.
Now that's a whopper of a strawman argument. I'm impressed.
The 'seeing' argument isn't important. It's the 'recording' bit that people disagree with. If a blind man went around recording everything his device 'saw' and uploaded it somewhere, sure, people would quite reasonably complain. This is (presumably) why the equivalent aural device, a cochlear implant, doesn't come with Dragon Naturally Speaking 10.
In the future I'll have augmented my brain and my eyes and instead of having to write what I wrote above I'll just post some video. Same memories. You don't have a right to tell me how I remember them nor how I share them nor who I share them with.
As for hearing aids (a) they'll progress and (b) http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/digital-recorder-hearing-aid...
To me, one of Glass's biggest problem has always been its looks. But this isn't an iPhone on your head. We can't compare this to any polished products anywhere. It's a cellphone in a briefcase.
'Would you want a wearable computer on your head' ? - Answer will be no, generally.
'Would you like sunglasses that can do a little bit more than just being sunglasses?' - Answer is now not as obvious.
I've used Glass for a few months now and I don't think it's a consumer product as it stands.
It WILL be, but it's not a consumer product now. Think certain sectors and use them 'for a purpose'.
On the contrary, the argument has never been more relevant than in an era when increasingly pervasive surveillance would otherwise be taken for granted.
Once Pandora's box is open, it will be almost impossible to close it. Pandora's box isn't really full of cameras, though, it's full of all the recording and image processing and data mining that goes with them. You can't do those things without the ubiquitous cameras, but the cameras are usually the only part of the system you can see and do something about, so once the cameras are in you'll never be quite sure who is doing what on the other side of them.
That's a fair point but personally I still feel there are some important differences. CCTV footage is usually used (ostensibly) for security or logistical purposes (e.g. traffic management) and comparatively rarely ends up on YouTube or Facebook. Glass footage on the other hand is acquired by a private individual with less visible motives and no oversight. That's not to say that CCTV footage is never abused or personal footage usually is, but on balance I would expect more people to be concerned about being recorded by a random stranger than by a random shop.
Secondly, the 'almost covert' nature of Glass makes it feel to me inherently creepier - you can see if someone is pointing a phone or standalone video camera at you, but if someone looks your way wearing Glass, are they recording you? I expect many people (particularly women, given some of the websites out there) would feel nervous about that. It's easier to consent to being recorded when you know its happening, and therefore also easier to prevent it if you don't consent.
I expect that a person holding a phone in front of them everywhere they went as if filming would experience a similar level of hostility to that reported by some Glass users.
Do you remember junior high or high school, and how desperate you were to avoid doing a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. that could potentially embarrass you? Products like google glass, and smartphones for that matter, bring those feelings back for a lot of people; they know that all it takes is just one quick screw-up, and they're getting picked on, but on a scale that is mind blowing. Essentially, it's not that we're embarrassed by our actions, or that our actions are illegal, it's that we just don't want to be laughed at.
That made perfect sense to me.
I think the Narrative camera looks nicer and is smaller than Sensecam. http://getnarrative.com
It felt like I was staring at a CRT that was set to a 60 Hz refresh rate.
>4) Surprisingly hostile reactions in some places (restaurants etc)
I guess the take away is, buy gadgets to achieve things, don't buy gadgets to buy gadgets.
Think problem-oriented vs. idea/tool-oriented mindset, illustrated by Alan Kay in his talk The Future Doesn't Have to Be Incremental: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o#t=1096. As you surround yourself with tools of the future, you can think of problems and solutions no one else sees (problem-finding as opposed to -solving).
I think that's their biggest error with their current design. If you can only use this device for a very short time, it's going to be a failure.
Plus, I can't count how many times I'm out in the world with an earbud in and the cable gets snagged on something. The first time that happened with the Glass and the quick-release didn't let go, there goes my glasses and Glass, leaving me blind and out hundreds/thousands of dollars.
Like many, I imagine if I were to buy one it would be with corrective lenses, which means then I would have to carry a second pair of normal glasses with me so I can put the Glass away when I'm indoors -- while it may be alright to put your headphones in when you're outside on the street, I'm not 16 anymore and can't get away with looking like I've got my earbud in sitting at my desk or having lunch with a colleague.
A cord would solve a problem with old technology. The point of this is to do things a new way.
I don't really think Glass makes people more recordable, it just makes that recordability more obvious, and therefore makes people less comfortable. Maybe it'd be a good thing to cope with the reality that we're always under watch these days.
Of course, you could point to ubiquitous CCTV and other public place cameras, and you would be right - and I have a problem with that development as well. But those are (at least where I live) required to be clearly marked so I can avoid going to those places if I so choose.
Glass is only useful for certain tasks mainly where our hands are not free and we're away from our computers. For most of us, Glass is pretty much useless throughout the day. As a developer, there is nothing Glass can do while coding that a second monitor couldn't do better. When I joined the explorer program, I thought I would constantly be using Glass. I found Glass most useful while driving (responding to texts and hangout messages but NOT for directions* ) and I intended to use it while cooking.
But since driving with Glass is a grey area and I didn't want a hassle with the police, that pretty much limited my use of glass to cooking or occasionally hiking as long as you don't mind getting the unit all sweaty.
I don't think Glass belongs in public at all (restaurants, bars, etc). It serves no function besides being creepy, though it does occasionally help nerdy people meet woman as it's a great ice breaker (seriously).
* None of these reviews ever mention that the Glass display is only active for a second or two when directions is activated. This is surely to save on batteries. But it's simply no where near as useful as a normal GPS which is always on.
So... does that mean the man would like to have a "spy" camera that also probably happens to send who knows what to a company with less than good privacy behaviour history? (no, I'm not saying that Google is harvesting all data so they can one day set up the New World Order).
But I think google's strategy is right: get a foothold before the technology is ready. Then, when devices are smaller, it will all be there. Their big deficiency is that they haven't found any real users yet...
My advice is simple, and something that engineers find impossible to do: remove the cool feature of a camera. Bang, privacy concerns gone, but still a revolutionarily useful product in other ways. And before long, people will accept they never really had privacy, so you can put it back.
Note: I expect this is what Apple will do.
10-100X improvements in battery, data, latency, storage, etc. If it gets to the point that it just records everything. You can go back and rematch your conversation with Aron or read a transcript of your meeting with the design team.
Yes it will run hot, or take tilted pictures, etc. But that's the point. And really, this rant actually helps Google more than it hurts them.
Some retailers allow for longer periods; e.g. Amazon allows for a month instead of just two weeks.
This device was not invented to keep in your pocket. When mobile phone first came out, it was giant and you had to carry it by hand. No one expect it to be small.
> Point 1 (eye contacts)
God. I am not sure how you would do that unless you (1) shoot some light beam into your eyes, or (2) have glass cover up your eyes like in Star Wars.
That's not a valid point to ask for refund.
> Point 2 (not a good listener)
Fair point but speech recognition's problems are known and are hard to fix. Not good enough reason to return - no AI with speech recognition today is capable of fixing all those problems in an open environment.
> Point 3 (batter)
That's a good point. But it should be expected, somewhat, given its tiny size and the amount of computation it has to do plus wifi and bluetooth connection.
> Point 4 (Bulk, not pocket friendly)
As I've said above, god, this is the one of the least valid reasons to ask for refund.
> Point 5 (frame doesn't hide Glass!)
This is also a ridiculous reason to ask for refund.
The point of clip-on shade isn't to hide Glass. It's so that you can use glass even when it's sunny outside. Or because people want to look cool.
> Point 6 (Tilted photos)
Okay fair point. Technical stuff to be addressed.
> Point 7 (Directions drawbacks)
Fair point. Technical stuff to be addressed. Driving while using Glass is really dangerous. but hiking with Glass without touching your phone (but enable your phone use data) is kinda cool.
> Point 8 (earbuds)
I agree the earbuds are pretty... hmm, not stylish. I'd like to have cordless earbuds. Like one of those for people with hearing problems.
> Point 9 (advertisement stories vs reality)
This is a marketing trick. I always use Facebook's Home and Paper as example. On the ad side they look amazing but in reality your fb dashboard could just fill with memes and cat pictures. Boring.
> Point 10 (10. Too little, too soon)
Not a valid reason to ask for refund at all. I mean this is explorer edition. Hello???? Hellllllo???? Even if this was version 100000000, you still have rooms for improvement. Future is not here yet, because future is non-stop. Tomorrow is a different future.
Sorry. If I were Google, I won't refund. I don't mind taking back your Glass and give it to yeukhon for free.
For now he's done something you apparently did not do, which was to buy the thing and give it a work-out.
Of course, Google and customer service are rarely used in an affirmative sentence of any kind but still, that's how you're supposed to deal with this.
Of course, GG doesn't work like this so this isn't a reason for a refund, but it is still a reason NOT to buy them.
And whether it is "state of art" or not, I don't know, we'll have to wait and see, it does seem to solve a lot of issue that GG have, now whether they will manage to 'make it real', that's another issue..
This reviewer is inventing reasons to give the device a failing mark after getting to play with it for a few weeks. Glass has it's problems, a couple of which are mentioned in the article, but overall the article is just terrible.
The conspicuousness point is also trueish, but overblown. The sunglass clip-ons do reduce the visibility of the unusual headwear, they just don't eliminate it. From experience with our set at work, people out in public react considerably less when the sunglasses are clipped on. It's not going to fool someone you're in a direct conversation with, but you get fewer odd looks. Obviously this is with one of the subtle charcoal colours, and not the day-glo varieties. I would argue that you shouldn't be fooling someone you're in a direct conversation with anyway. If you want to do that, there are other tools for single-party recordings.
So we're down to 4.5 points out of 10. Not accounting for uneven ears, sure. Battery life, sure. Bulk, maybe. Voice recognition? It's actually pretty good, for voice recognition. It just doesn't have the same capabilities as a human (no tech does, hence my original comment). We got a set straight from the US, it was responding happily to my broad, middle-Australian accent, and it would still recognise a colleague with a very strong French accent who passed by me saying "OK Glass, google porn" ("drive-by" commands are a different problem...), all with no particular calibration done. Voice recognition doesn't work with background noise? Even humans have trouble with that.
So no, it's a bad review all around, for both techies and naifs. It sets expectations for naifs that are impossible to achieve, despite there a few real issues being described. I personally don't think Glass is ready for the public yet, but this article offers a lot of misdirection on why.