How the Camera Doomed Google Glass | Hacker News Reader

How the Camera Doomed Google Glass

theatlantic.com

45 pointsprostoalex47 comments

The smartphone requires awkwardly peering at a glass rectangle, yet it effortlessly reorganized social norms, because it's so damn useful and interesting. So why didn't Glass do the same thing?

> I found that it was not very useful for very much

That's it. That's the real issue, not the camera.

Yep. Plus incredibly uncool looking.

A large % of the population these days participate in social media and seem to have no qualms about putting all their personal / private details online, despite that that might mean massive backlash if it goes viral, or at the very least a permanent record of any mistakes made (the internet doesn't forget).

To me, Glass got the backlash it did because there are still a lot of people who think that way of living is stupid. People are getting sick of 24/7 surveillance, and Glass was merely a great poster boy for that push.

It's also just dehumanizing to talk to someone with that on. They have a big camera / computer strapped onto their face. It's almost like trying to talk to someone when they've got their phone held up and are only half paying attention to you while recording. It just comes across as really rude to a lot of folks.

Also there is a massive difference between someone choosing to edit and share a curated set of best moments on social media with a more or less selected set of people vs having very little control of how one is seen with the eye of others (literally). Also funny how people learned to pose on a photo (hence take some control) but most people still gets shy in front of a camcorder. Google glass is perceived as someone holding a camcorder in your face all day long.

People are comfortable with things that they choose to do. People put up statuses, pictures, and all sorts of private info on social media of their own choosing. If someone else wears Google Glass and decides when, where, and if to take your photo, your choice of what to share and store is taken away. As another example: people are fine with group photos taken with their knowledge and uncomfortable with strangers taking their photo without asking.

I think the article's conclusion, that a camera should not have been included, is naive.

Smart glasses with no way to get visual input from the environment would be a much less useful product. So, that means having a camera, and if you have a camera you can record the input from it. I'll be very surprised if anyone ever releases smart glasses with no camera.

Having said that, I'm not surprised Glass isn't doing so well. I think our culture isn't quite at the point where an always-on wearable video camera is socially acceptable. Give it a couple of years, and it probably will be.

Doomed is worse than less useful!

> Smart glasses with no way to get visual input from the environment would be a much less useful product.

The only real use for Glass was a HUD + low quality camera, considering the positioning of the actual display. You don't need a camera for a HUD. Now if Glass went after augmented reality, then I'd totally agree with you.

Agreed. The camera never had any truly compelling use case - even the most basic one, taking a picture, was not actually a UX improvement over taking out your phone and doing it, especially considering the leaps and bounds by which phone camera (both hardware software) has improved.

There were some cool tech demos that exploited the camera rather impressively - facial recognition for one, but all of these are technological curiosities rather than mass-market useful. There was never a use case that seemed relevant to the everyday user where the camera was really all that useful.

I do think the camera contributed substantially to the failure of the product. More than the existence of the camera was how it was handled - no record/activity light as has been customary on many such devices, and the design of it felt viscerally like a hidden camera.

Which isn't to say Google intended to create a hidden camera, but in trying to make it blend and look like normal glasses it made the camera seem less upfront, more dishonest, and more intrusive than, say, a guy who is literally wearing a camera on his head.

I own a Glass, and I have to disagree, the camera was a very large improvement over using your phone. Hands free use and no lag between wanting to take a picture and taking a picture (winking to take a pic) make a huge difference in utility. I got some great photos that I couldn't have gotten otherwise while traveling with it.

Too bad it didn't have many other uses, and made being out in public kind of awkward.

The press made a big deal of the camera creeping people out, but in practice, the reaction was much more curiosity and interest than fear. I think the press just wanted something to write about, and in the absence of revolutionary abilities and interesting use cases, they wrote about its perceived flaws and did a bit of fear mongering.

Yes, the camera isn't socially acceptable. But glasses are. So they could've had a HUD that only responded to location- and audio-based cues - map with directions, walking tour, alerts that people would otherwise look down at their phone (or smartwatch) for, etc.

They could've made that work and avoided the stigma they ended up facing, until adding a camera was more reasonable.

Would that featureset have been that useful? Maybe not, but then was the Google Glass we got that useful? Didn't seem so.

Including a camera also made it hard to see past the camera. The only think people would ever talk about is the camera, and argue about whether people should have a camera on their heads, wonder if they would want to use a camera that way, tell people to take it off because of the camera. If there was no camera, I wonder what aspects of it's technology would have been the focus of discussion. Then again if there was no camera, would it have even appealed to people in the first place?

Me. I wanted something with a video heads-up like display (maybe with sound likely preferring BT/headphones). A radio, processor, memory, maybe a little storage ... but no camera.

Without the camera, the audio portion of the handsfree UI would be front and center - contextual visual updates based on geolocation, speech commands, you name it.

They tried too hard and didn't make a focused MVP, just a mess of stuff that might be cool.

One of the early big interviews about Glass featured Brin or Page (not exactly sure who of the two) telling that Glass is for taking POV pictures. And he talked about nothing else. While all tech guys (like me) where dreaming about augmented reality, or even just having some Android apps of choice in my view all the time while being able to walk around, all he focused on (and everyone since) was taking pictures. So it was intentional to not look past the camera I guess.

Are you talking about this TED "presentation"? http://www.ted.com/talks/sergey_brin_why_google_glass?langua...

Don't bother watching it. TLDR; Sergey stands awkwardly on stage for 5 minutes, telling you how isolating it is to whip out your cellphone. With Glass you can keep your head up, something he cannot seem to demonstrate himself - choosing instead to come across as isolated from the audience, distracted, and unprepared. 2 million people have watched this for some reason.

What am I going to use to do my life doccing and interfacing with Second Life while I'm zooming around on my Segway?

IMO... Design of the thing only took into account the technical side. If they're going to push new social norms... they should go full futurist. Maybe try redesigning the social cues... In lieu of a red camera light maybe some electrochromic lenses or mirror, and build social trust that way.

Paul Graham once wrote an article on the curse of implementing an idea when you had enough money: http://www.paulgraham.com/segway.html

They could have mitigated this trust issue by requiring people to hold a button on the side of the device to enable the camera. That would be a socially acceptable enough gesture that would signal: "FYI, I'm recording." just like holding up your phone to take a picture does.

This is why I wasn't interested in one. It's like the Glass team simply couldn't comprehend or bother to care why someone wouldn't want to have their camera pointed at people all the time.

Except that you already have cameras pointed at you 100% of the time.

If people are this uncomfortable about Google Glass, they had better start tuning in on the implications of everybody uploading selfies and videos on Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Hogwash. The number of times I see people actively aiming their lens at me is quite small despite the large number of smartphones and the like around me everyday.

If you can't determine the difference in social expectation from a watch that is literally pointed all the time vs your occasional "selfie" -- well, keep guessing as to why others were pissed to feel "potentially" recorded without consent.

Nearly everywhere in public (at least in a decent-sized city) you are highly likely to be captured on CCTV.

For which there are completely different expectations when compared to individuals on the street with a roving camera.

That is not globally true.

Here in Sweden for instance, public space can't legally be covered by CCTV without a permit. That means private entities can't just throw up cameras at random. Of course it happens anyway, but it's not "nearly everywhere".

And that's true in many other Europeans countries as well. And at least here in Portugal those permits only allow you to store those records for a specific purpose (security), for a limited time period (30 days) and can't be shared with third-parties.

Which are often out of view, at a distance, and at a high angle - definitely different than someone looking at you with a camera lens. Just ask someone to hold their phone's camera next to their head while they talk to you, you'll see.

I was in the train yesterday and there was a guy sitting across me, somewhat elderly so he held his phone up high. Looked like he was taking a picture of me (which he probably wasn't), which was awkward.

In the US, maybe. In the UK, definitely. In Germany, not so much.

Mind you, in Germany you're also not allowed to take pictures of people without their consent (with some exceptions). You could actually sue people who post pictures of you on Facebook without your permission.

As someone who has actually used Google Glass, the camera/videocamera was the very best part about it. The killer app for me (and others that I knew) was taking photos/videos of their kids. My daughter knew what I was doing when I pulled out my phone (and often wanted to take it from me), but she didn't know what to make of Glass and so I got a ton of great candid photos/videos of her.

That said, I was always VERY self-conscious wearing Glass, which doomed the experience for me for the most part.

Camera issue is easily solvable by visible LED activated when camera is recording. Phones are also capable of hidden video/voice recording, but nobody cares.

Usability is what killed Google Glass. Voice recognition does not really cut it. Joystick in ring on finger would be great. Or perhaps muscle sensor on neck to capture silent speaking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_speech_interface

> Phones are also capable of hidden video/voice recording, but nobody cares.

At least with phones it's clearly visible when someone is pointing a phone to something in order to make a recording or picture, which is not the case in glass.

The point about silent voice recording is valid, but, in general, people are much less sensitive about voice recording than video or picture. Maybe because identification using voice only is much less accurate and privacy obtrusive.

I don't have problems giving honest opinion anonymously to radio stations, but would never even talk to a tv guys.

Google glass "utterly improbable", "too smooth" and "a fantacy" according to Alex Feyerke who compares Microsoft visions and Google glass promos to an old vision video of the British postal office that include normal problems an realism in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPz_5-MEvcg

I think you linked to the wrong video.

No, it's the right video. Jump to 1m56s for the first (microsoft) video.

I'm not going to cry over glass, I just hope it hasn't doomed similar products.

I'm affected by prosapagnosia; When I first heard of glass the possibility that it could be used to provide facial recognition to aid my own shitty facial recognition seemed wonderful.

But then I read that google wouldn't allow facial recognition anyway. Until I read that I was prepared to get in as soon as possible.

Why didn't they just add a red LED to the front that turns on when recording video, and blinks after a photo is taken?

I'm going to presume this is sarcasm because that is literally exactly what they did.

What? I've used Glass, there is no "record light". It is perfectly possible, without hacks or nefarious programming, to take pictures and record video without any outward indication of activity.

Savvy people could try to spot Glass being used by looking for the subtle glow when the HUD screen turns on, but that's a very far cry from an actual "activity light".

I didn't realise that. Couldn't they have turned it into a laser? That way they could still queer their pitch by reminding people of the Borg, but at least I'd have a range-finder and look cool at discos or something.

Neither version I owned had this.

We tried one at work, for a week. You don't know half the time whether it's taking a pic or not.

I (personally) never liked the privacy implications of the thing, and was quite relieved when I saw that it looks at least as dorky as talking into a bluetooth headset. It looks even dorkier when you're looking at some invisible square up-right of your right eye (which was surprisingly clear, gotta give them credit for that). And to top it off, while you're staring and talking into empty space, you start tapping and stroking the control surface at the side of your head ...

Or maybe it was Magic Leap, which they invested in, and will probably be the next "Google Glass".

I agree that the camera has a serious social impact and it was one of the cause for this initial failure.

Unfortunately, I think we will also get used to this.

I like how technology like this self regulates.

amazing how mountable and wearable camera is ok with gopro and other similar solution but not ok with google glass...

I believe its not camera but elite and exclusiveness it created got backfired... (though typically it has worked well for other products launches like gmail etc.)

also 1500$ tag is bit over priced for a tech gadget..

Nash, http://joday.com

Who wears a gopro in bars and restaurants??

Is it really amazing?

It is OK with Google Glass, just not all the time - gopros are mainly used by narcissistic adrenaline junkies who want to record themselves doing awesome stuff like jumping out of an airplane. Usually not when walking down the street having a coffee. That would be weird.

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