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Glasshole

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Re: Glasshole

#101

Post by AndrewKemendo »

icebraining wrote: post #99
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #83

I think I am in the minority when I say I am looking forward to continuous backup of my day to day activities whether it be through sousveillance or from others. I am not in the "if you don't have anything to hide crowd..." in the least and am certainly aware of the ability of those in power to abuse it. My take on it however is, I am going to just slough off the mores which I would have previously been concerned wit…

I think you and I are privileged to live in relatively open societies, and to fit in well enough such that the worst that can happen is to be embarrassed for things we've done wrong. But what about people in less open societies, and who don't fit what society thinks should be the norm? For a gay man in a more conservative place, the "honesty policy" may imply great physical harm. And even if you actually fit in to th…

As I said in my post this is me being hopeful - I don't actually think it would work that way unfortunately. Ideally in your scenarios people would be able to release their own source data from their glass (or whatever) to provide context. The constant surveillance would be able to debunk all the stupid arguments against being gay, such as they lead deviant lives etc...; someone would be able to show a normal boring day coming home and having dinner with their partner and then falling asleep in the bathtub like everyone else.

The idea is that in a society that is basically completely honest and open no one will hold a "moral high ground" so it would basically be impossible for information asymmetry and thus natural variation would ensure that there is no "norm."

Again this is all hopeful, if doubtful.

Re: Glasshole

#102

Post by pavel_lishin »

jholman wrote: post #98
jacques_chester wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who work at places like Google have been known, from time to time, read science fiction. A lot of it comes true because someone says "yes, good idea".

If only someone would make real-life versions of those flip-open communicators from Star Trek TOS. Maybe someone at Motorola could do that. Or, on the subject of Snow Crash, if only someone would make that thing in Snow Crash called Earth. (Though if they did make it and then Motorola bought it, I expect they'd name it Motorola Earth, which sounds dumb. Unless someone bought Motorola first.)

On this topic, check out REAMDE - one of the characters makes a reference to ripping off Google Earth, but not feeling bad about it because Google Earth itself was directly inspired by something someone had read in a science fiction novel.

Re: Glasshole

#103

Post by sethrin »

acchow wrote: post #92
lmkg wrote: post #41

So I just remembered that I actually have some personal experience with this issue. My girlfriend is getting her PhD in computer vision, and one of her labmates was working on summarization algorithms (imagine a program that could take 6 hours of continuous footage, and spit out a 1-minute highlight reel). She volunteered to wear a camera for a day to gather data for him, and she asked me permission to do so while we…

Glass is simply paving the way for the future forcing us to deal with the privacy and social issues now. Eventually we will have video recording devices smaller than a grain of rice. What then?

These devices will have very poor image quality. It's not like making small lenses is hard; the properties of light mean that anything usable as a camera will be visible to the naked eye. Cameras can be small, but they cannot be arbitrarily small. Your "What then?" will never happen.

Re: Glasshole

#104

Post by acchow »

sethrin wrote: post #103
acchow wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is simply paving the way for the future forcing us to deal with the privacy and social issues now. Eventually we will have video recording devices smaller than a grain of rice. What then?

These devices will have very poor image quality. It's not like making small lenses is hard; the properties of light mean that anything usable as a camera will be visible to the naked eye. Cameras can be small, but they cannot be arbitrarily small. Your "What then?" will never happen.

"the properties of light" probably mean we won't have cameras as small as a speck of dust or a grain of sand. But a grain of rice is pretty big. Can you explain why you think that won't be possible?

Re: Glasshole

#105

Post by sethrin »

acchow wrote: post #104
sethrin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These devices will have very poor image quality. It's not like making small lenses is hard; the properties of light mean that anything usable as a camera will be visible to the naked eye. Cameras can be small, but they cannot be arbitrarily small. Your "What then?" will never happen.

"the properties of light" probably mean we won't have cameras as small as a speck of dust or a grain of sand. But a grain of rice is pretty big. Can you explain why you think that won't be possible?

You can shrink the lens and CCD down that far[0], but adding in a power source and data storage is likely to increase the size. Batteries are not tracking other improvements in technology. Additionally with a lens that small you're almost certainly going to want some form of image processing. You can move the problems of storage and process if you want to radiate or have a wire, but those introduce other concerns. Shrinking the entire package down to a grain of rice seems overly optimistic.

[0] http://lanmdagigi.en.ec21.com/offer_detail/Sell_The_smallest...

Re: Glasshole

#106

Post by mjolk »

marshray wrote: post #66
lmkg wrote: post #41

So I just remembered that I actually have some personal experience with this issue. My girlfriend is getting her PhD in computer vision, and one of her labmates was working on summarization algorithms (imagine a program that could take 6 hours of continuous footage, and spit out a 1-minute highlight reel). She volunteered to wear a camera for a day to gather data for him, and she asked me permission to do so while we…

The labmate recorded 6 hours of audio on you without your prior knowledge? That sort of thing can be downright illegal. That lab should have had some adult supervision. This illustrates why we can't let just let researchers and enthusiasts run wild with new (and old) privacy-impacting technology. Like nuclear and biomedical research, we need an ongoing public discussion about boundaries.

Biomedical and nuclear research potentially yields boons for the public good. Constantly recording your existence for the benefit of an online marketer does not.
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