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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

#131

Post by akamaka »

Coming from Steve Mann, I'm a little bit hesitant to take this story at face value.

A while back, he had a run in with airport security about his equipment: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circuits/14MANN...

While I don't deny that the security guards could have acted more respectfully, it seems like Steve went out of his way to put himself in a situation that he knew would be problematic. Why couldn't he have removed the equipment before returning to the airport? Also, some of his claims seemed exaggerated, like that his equipment couldn't be x-rayed or that he became disoriented in the airport with having his wearable computer.

If he's looking to make a point about cyborg rights, fair enough, but my opinion of him is that he doesn't come into these situations with an attitude that avoids misunderstandings. I think that another person in this same situation would have at least been able to communicate with the McDonald's staff and determine what the problem was.

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

#132

Post by scoot »

"when the computer is damaged, e.g. by falling and hitting the ground (or by a physical assault), buffered pictures for processing remain in its memory, and are not overwritten with new ones"

This sounds bogus. The stills presented in the post suggests they were taken by design rather than some random stills "remaining in memory" after the alleged assault.

There are frames from earlier in his McDonald's visit that it would not make sense to still exist in memory for "processing". I'm not questioning the alleged events, but wondering why he would give such an unlikely explanation of the existence of these stills? Is it illegal to video in a retail establishment in France?

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

#133

Post by rewind »

mrb wrote: post #116
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…

But this McDonald's is located at 140, Avenue Champs Élysées! It is arguably the one at the most prestigious location in the whole France. This is just one block away from the Arc de Triomphe, on Paris's most famous avenue. I have eaten there myself: http://goo.gl/maps/ofMu I highly doubt it is a front for a shady business. It would be like claiming the Apple store next to Central Park, New York City, is a front...

If a customer was treated like this in an Apple store, you wouldn't call it a front, but it would be really strange. If a customer was treated this way in an Apple store, and Apple franchised their stores, and the owner of the franchise controlled the staffing, the argument would be valid. Apple and McDonald's can't really be compared the same way in the context of Paul's suggestion.

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

#134

Post by antihero »

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…

To be honest what fucking business does anyone have for assaulting someone for wearing special glasses?

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

#135

Post by jlgreco »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #122
jlgreco wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You throw out the merchandise with the highest profit margins while reporting fake sales. Bars are traditionally popular for money laundering because everyone pays in cash, liquor has absolutely insane mark-up, and it's really easy to pour it down the drain. I imagine a fastfood restaurant would not work as well, but who knows.

Plus if you're not automatically controlling portions, a bottle of liquor can have a very wide range of plausible drinks-sold-per-bottle. Probably by a factor of two or so.

Exactly. You can easily get a few hundred dollars from a single bottle if you do it right. Just think of all those 10-15 USD mixed drinks that have maybe a shot or two of booze in them.

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

#136

Post by hollerith »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #117
dsirijus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Absolutely, the guy is a frickin' genius! All I know is we have three things: 1) A patent for the 'eyetrap' issued in 2003 with another 8 years or so to run. 2) A huge company with > $100B in the bank who has made a big publicity play betting on their technology that, on the surface clearly infringes. 3) No statements either from either party that a license is in place. In fact the Google Glass page should say "this…

>A huge company with > $100B in the bank

Google doesn't have > $100B in the bank (citation: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=goog+Balance+Sheet). You are probably thinking of Apple.

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

#137

Post by Oxryly »

robomartin wrote: post #126

> but I could use some help and advice as to how to resolve this matter This is bound to not be popular on HN, but, so be it. First bit of advice: Don't be such a dork. Respect others, their space and privacy. People don't want cameras pointed at them all the time. You might. I certainly don't. You can't just walk-up to people wearing a bunch of hardware and not expect a variety of reactions. If someone asks you to t…

Well good on you taking a reasoned but unpopular position. I agree that the description of the events seems to leave out a bit, particularly the emotional content of the interactions. The rig does look intimidating and I'm not sure how I'd react in person.

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

#138

Post by arandomJohn »

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…

Nonsense. I took a camera phone photo at a McD's in Hong Kong earlier this year and several employees freaked out and they all came over to ask me to delete it. Are ALL the stores with no-photo policies mafia fronts?

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

#140

Post by scoot »

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…

The resemblance between Google Glass and his "Glass" is striking, but the use of the comparative picture and the emphasis on the similarity of the name is at odds with the main thrust of article describing the alleged assault, suggesting an ulterior motive.
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