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Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

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Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#101

Post by hexagonc »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #74
chao- wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what came to my mind as well. I can't decide whether or not the comment is supposed to be serious. On one hand, I can't think of many above-board reasons that a restaurant employee would tackle you for having a tiny camera, or rip up medical documentation. On the other hand, the jump straight to a mafia seems a leap too far. Yet if we are going to speculate, I don't see a criminal explanation as significantly…

Page is down, but doesn't Occam's Razor handle this situation adequately? He ran into a random violent asshole. It can happen anywhere at any time to anyone.

But it wasn't a random violent asshole. It was three violent assholes which doesn't seem random to me.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#102

Post by Semaphor »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #69
heyrhett wrote: post #11

I find it really hard to believe that Steve Mann would have some kind of medical condition that would lead a normal Dr. to prescribe that Steve Mann wears the computer vision glasses that Steve Mann invented. I'm sorry he was harassed, but this story really smells of one of the oldest ways to gain media attention on the internet: Step 1: Get screwed by a big company (this is the easy part) Step 2: Write a blog articl…

What I don't understand why clearly things have been manually blacked out (or whited out in this case). Why not show their face? I agree this story smells in a dozen different ways. Rather than the mafia I'm wondering if Steve Mann is perhaps seeking to establish some documentation in order to assert IP rights against a very wealthy company which has made very public announcements about glasses that augment your visi…

> What I don't understand why clearly things have been manually blacked out (or whited out in this case). Why not show their face?

I don't know, maybe because not everyone like a mob with pitchforks?

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#103

Post by jlgreco »

saboot wrote: post #21

Can someone illuminate why a recording device would illicit such a harsh reaction? I can understand businesses wanting to avoid someone stand there with a video camera, but does France take this more seriously?

Security personnel often react irrationally to photographic equipment. The only unique thing here is that in this case the equipment was attached to his head.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#104

Post by rdl »

pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

I think that fails Ockham's razor.

I worked for Steve Mann about 15 years ago. Calling him the father of wearable computing is an understatement -- he was the father before it was even possible to create, and yet managed to make it happen essentially on his own a decade or more before it should have existed -- the JFK Apollo of wearables out of his own pocket.

However, he is probably not the least suspicious person when dealing with stupid rule following automatons -- a true hacker in that way. If anyone could make slightly scared and overly paranoid security guys worried, it is probably Steve. Super friendly if you engage with him, but not going to err on the side of social graces over pushing tech forward.

I am pretty sure this was an honest ignorant understanding by some worried people and sort of emphasized out of proportion -- I remember a similar incident at Boston Airport.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#105

Post by ChuckMcM »

Jach wrote: post #84
ChuckMcM wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand why clearly things have been manually blacked out (or whited out in this case). Why not show their face? I agree this story smells in a dozen different ways. Rather than the mafia I'm wondering if Steve Mann is perhaps seeking to establish some documentation in order to assert IP rights against a very wealthy company which has made very public announcements about glasses that augment your visi…

> …I'm wondering if Steve Mann is perhaps seeking to establish some documentation in order to assert IP rights… This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen on this page yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aeyeta...

Your argument is that because Dr. Mann is an academic he wouldn't sue Google? On the contrary for someone who has put as much of his life into augmented reality, to see Google Glass hit the press where essentially this giant $250B company is going to change the world with his ideas? Especially where he is the sole inventor and assignee?

I don't know about you but that movie has played out so many times as to be cliche. Generally the professor's college is the one doing the suing as they get assignment rights to research but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I'll be the first to admit I'm awfully cynical about patents these days, and I sure as hell know that if some patent litigator saw Mann's patent he would ask Dr. Mann if he was being compensated by Google. If not that same litigator would probably have a moment of giddyness as he offers to get him that compensation. Could be a big payday, and money is a powerful motivator.

I'll take it all back if Mann says that Google has already licensed the patent. Otherwise my bet is on the legal sharks.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#106

Post by dsirijus »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #73
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

A much more plausible explanation of a story posted by a newly created account to a popular tech aggregator about a technology which competes with (and possibly pre-dates) Google Glass, with a picture of Google Glass on the same page, is that a patent [1] suit is about to break out. A cynic might think they were trying to harvest accesses from internal to Google IP addresses so that as of today they could show 'knowa…

My thoughts exactly, though my sentiment is that Steve Mann deserves some thought from Glass engineers.

I've been following his work for some years (decades) now, and while he is an "interesting" person, he has made many leaps in both design and tech involved, as well as testing.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#107

Post by Zenst »

Zenst wrote: post #97
ppod wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should delete that right away. What good do you think is going to come of putting his home address, phone number, and wife's name (!?!?!) on the internet?

It is already on the internet, blame google and bing for making it easy to find. EDIT ADD It is also on facebook, and so many other places. Googling his for i email address is a hard one to find but pulls up that address alot. So write him a letter saying that attacking a disabled person infront of his family is just not acceptable.

Oh you bunch of drama lama's - I deleted it though I'll repeat his email address:

CEO's email address jim.skinner@us.mcd.com

But seriously his home address along with the other mcdonals executives are a 5 year olds googling efforts away. I reveled nothing new that was not liberly plastered all over the internet.

Maybe if they handled complaints better then people would not have to write to them directly and or sue them directly, food for thought.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#109

Post by scarmig »

supervacuo wrote: post #79

Surely the only take-away from this is that McDonald's is a terrible place. Didn't we all know that already? It's still helpful to try and do as much damage as possible with this story (ideally getting some money or at least an apology for the victim), but make no mistake that the company structure will make this vanish into the æther in no time. The long-term solution: just don't go there.

Regardless of whether MacDonald's is the salvation of the human race or the reincarnation of Nazi-ism... I think it's pretty obvious that this wasn't some plot from corporate to beat up guys weiring eyeglasses that are medically integrated with their body.

It's the unordered work of some violent thugs, though their motive remains to be seen (or even if they're actual employees or something else).

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#110

Post by firebones »

chao- wrote: post #50
richardv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you enacting Poe's law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law I seriously cannot tell, and you didn't wink at the end? Since McDonald's are easily franchise-able, I suppose they could legitimately be used as a Mafia Front... But really, Poe's Law? wink ;)

This is what came to my mind as well. I can't decide whether or not the comment is supposed to be serious. On one hand, I can't think of many above-board reasons that a restaurant employee would tackle you for having a tiny camera, or rip up medical documentation. On the other hand, the jump straight to a mafia seems a leap too far. Yet if we are going to speculate, I don't see a criminal explanation as significantly…

Three other ideas:

What about French laws related to health (are they like NYC and trying to enforce health policy through food ingredient restrictions?) Could that be something they would not want getting out by accident?

What about French labor or immigration law? Could there be some violation that they didn't want documentary evidence of?

McDonald's as a corporation protects the intellectual property of their operations with great effort (but usually in the court of law--as when a manager might try to start their own burger place using the official playbook). Not sure what competitive advantage he could get from a few minutes in the store, though.

But all of these really hinge on the employees thinking that the wearer a) wasn't a government official or inspector (confrontation would just bring more heat and/or b) that the wearer was of lower or weaker status. Mall cop enforcing a poorly understood "no pictures of the mall" policy over-zealously seems like the most likely case--maybe rooted in anti-terrorism paranoia.

(Or else maybe the guy made the mistake of ordering a Royale with Cheese and these employees were not Tarantino fans...)

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