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Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

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Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#41

Post by mayanksinghal »

OGinparadise wrote: post #38

What a shame, you are going to miss on all these ads that Google has them lined up for you. Google Glass apps might even sell the fact that your voice is coarse today and convince Johnson & Johnson for $1.50 off a cough medicine. Or use an app analyze your toilet bowl before flushing to see if Kellogg's cereal would benefit your diet. Or suggest some new makeup to your girl friends, maybe it's the lighting but it see…

Disclosure: I work at Google.

I wanted to explain myself when I downvoted you, but I am just going to say that I would rather be a glasshole than be that bitter.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#42

Post by IanCal »

"There's no way of even knowing if someone else is recording you through their glasses from somewhere in the cloud."

I wonder if the author makes sure to turn their monitor to face the wall when they've finished working so hackers can't film them while they sleep.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#43

Post by mayanksinghal »

ghshephard wrote: post #37
Shenglong wrote: post #3

I used to withhold face-palm reactions to opinions that differed from my own on the premise that all views deserve to be heard, but there is so much ridiculous opposition in the world now, that it's become burdensome. Even reading this trash article was in just about all respects, a horrible waste of time.

I really have no idea, based on your short comment, what your position is on omnipresent surveillance. I, for one, have no problem supporting bars that promise an ass kicking to anyone who shows up wearing google glass - I'm hoping we all quickly agree that, with clear exceptions (repair jobs, field surveys, photo shoots, reporters) - that they won't be an appropriate social use of technology.

> I, for one, have no problem supporting bars that promise an ass kicking to anyone who shows up wearing google glass

Bars can just ban photography and ask their customers to not have Glasses on without the need of any sort of ass kicking. I would never go to a bar that advertises ass kicking as a feature - independent of whether I have/wear Glasses or not.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#44

Post by OGinparadise »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #41
OGinparadise wrote: post #38

What a shame, you are going to miss on all these ads that Google has them lined up for you. Google Glass apps might even sell the fact that your voice is coarse today and convince Johnson & Johnson for $1.50 off a cough medicine. Or use an app analyze your toilet bowl before flushing to see if Kellogg's cereal would benefit your diet. Or suggest some new makeup to your girl friends, maybe it's the lighting but it see…

Disclosure: I work at Google. I wanted to explain myself when I downvoted you, but I am just going to say that I would rather be a glasshole than be that bitter.

Disclosure: I work at Google.

Or changing the world one ad click and one snoop at a time. (since you started it)

Fine. Being bitter, assuming I am, can be transitory. Once your sell your soul for a salary, you can never get it back.

You have a couple of years before "Googler" becomes a toxic word. Maybe less, given Larry's focus on squeezing every penny out of the ecosystem, so plan accordingly.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#45

Post by fhars »

Snoptic wrote: post #12
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, I'd have less problems with Glass if it were developed and sold by a company that has nothing to do with advertising and has little interest in users' data (maybe like Canon, Nikon, or JVC). But even then, I wouldn't want to use it. I also won't interact with people while they are wearing Glass. I do not like it when people take my picture without my permission, and Glass is practically a spy camera. W…

This is idiotic opposition. Spy cameras exist. Bluetooth earpieces exist, Glass is interesting for what it receives (the server software integration) and for its HUD, not what it caputures and transmits.

Then why doesn't it come without a camera?

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#46

Post by PostOnce »

What would life be like if everyone wore a spy camera that transcribed all conversations and uploaded them to various internet services all the time? If you knew everyone you ever talked to recorded it all and put it on the internet?

Once your data is recorded, you can't take it back 30 years down the road if you decide you don't like the direction the company has taken, or if privacy laws have changed to no longer be in your favor. The data is already out there. If you think changes in the TOS are bad now...

And your info won't just go to Google. There will be apps. You'll "Post this conversation to Facebook" or something equally stupid. Now fifty different niche websites are accessing things you said to your friend that you never uploaded. (Also, remember seeing in the news that some jobs require your facebook password as part of the interview process? What if that became more common? What if it wasn't just facebook, but everything you ever did, said, or saw happen?)

Our personalities will change, too. We'll become accustomed to constant and total self-censorship

People's data will be subpoenaed too, or just made available for general monitoring in some dictatorship somewhere. Maybe you once had a conversation with someone who later is investigated for something, and out of context your conversation sounds terrible. Now they investigate you. This investigation won't lead to a conviction, but it might fuck your life up for a few months. And that's an optimistic scenario.

I don't really believe it's stoppable though. We're not taking smartphones back. This is just a smartphone strapped to your head. We probably will tell people not to wear them in certain places, but how long will that last? We'll get used to it, like we got used to the TSA. Technology is only going to get more ubiquitous. Maybe we can fight fire with fire. The cypherpunks have been doing it for a while.

Play devil's advocate sometimes. Google Glass may end up being the best thing ever, but we should always question things. If the answer to the question is good, then it doesn't matter that we asked, but if it's bad... we'll be damn glad we did.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#47

Post by smtddr »

mdwrigh2 wrote: post #34
smtddr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The glasses are already getting banned... http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2013/03/10/the-ban-... I drink gallons of Google-Koolaid, but even I can see(pun intended?) that Google glasses is going to have some social issues. Even I will be a bit uneasy talking to someone wearing them.

They admitted it was a publicity stunt: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2013/03/10/seattle-bar...

argh! well now I know. :-)

I'm still guessing a ban will happen somewhere.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#48

Post by corporalagumbo »

Resistance to technologies like Glass is pointless. They're going to happen, and a whole lot more to boot, like it or not. People running around demonising Google or Glass are just silly - Google is just one of the few global entities with the necessary resources and vision to consciously make the next big steps in a pretty plain sequence.

The real question is adaptation - as Clay Shirky says, it's all about learning how to work with the wind, not against it.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#49

Post by snogglethorpe »

stcredzero wrote: post #21
potatolicious wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought Segway's failure was simply because it created more problems than it solved. It was expensive, large, you had to find somewhere to park it, you had to remember to charge it, it came with an aura of snobbishness (at that price tag, not entirely undeserved). And it solved... what? In suburban America it doesn't go fast or far enough to get you anywhere in reasonable time. In urban America the distan…

It solved problems for cities and city planners. A Segway user could be like an enhanced pedestrian. You could have fewer stores serve a larger populace. It didn't get to do this because it didn't solve its own chicken and egg problem.

There are other, better, technologies in the same solution space, e.g. bicycles, which are more useful, familiar, vastly cheaper, more reliable (e.g. don't need charging, simpler all-mechanical design), and already have tons of existing infrastructure. Bicycles have drawbacks (e.g. the "what do you do with it" issue common to almost all vehicles), but nothing that the segway doesn't also have.

The segway solved nothing. It was a neat toy.

Re: Google Glass: The Opposition Grows

#50

Post by potatolicious »

redact207 wrote: post #13
pavs wrote: post #8

I am a gadget geek just like any nerds out there. I like the concept of Google Glass but the practical application scares the shit out of me. Google Glass in its current form is every advertisers/data-miners perfect wet dream. I can see myself smacking someone for taking videos/pictures of me without my consent, by holding a camera right in my face. Google Glass almost legitimizes that kind of behavior. "Oh I can rec…

The video doesn't prove google glass is invasive. It just shows that people don't tolerate jerks too well. Even without the camera, having some weirdo come up and stare at you without having the decency to respond to you is of course going to annoy people. Nothing to do with technology.

Indeed. The premise is flawed to begin with. From the link:

> "If a complete stranger holds a camera to your face you know what he is doing and you have a legitimate reason to tell him to stop doing it, most of you will probably object to it."

As a street photographer, that last part is entirely false. The vast majority of people have no objections to being photographed in public - almost all reactions I've ever gotten have ranged between "huh? meh" and "oh cool!".

The reactions he got in the video was because he was behaving like Lord Regent of the Universe, not because he was recording someone. My unscientific estimate is that >95% of the people I've ever taken pictures of (all strangers, almost all without seeking permission beforehand), are either ambivalent or downright approving.

Which goes towards the point: Google Glass is the vehicle for the problem, not the problem itself. The problem, as it has always been, is with assholes.

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