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The Glass Bicycle

dcurt.is

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Re: The Glass Bicycle

#151

Post by jlgreco »

badgar wrote: post #145
jlgreco wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not saying he's going to take them to court; he is saying that he will refuse to interact with them. He is perfectly within his rights to do that. Comments about legality or western perspectives on privacy are off base.

> Comments about legality or western perspectives on privacy are off base. If you want to participate in Western society, you need to be able to interact with people who will observe you in public. My parent poster does not accept the basic implications of being observed in public. It's not at all off base to point out that his fundamental understanding of privacy is in conflict with the world around him.

There is absolutely no such requirement. Where would such a requirement come from, and how would it be enforced? It is an absurd fabrication. The ability and right to ignore people in public has a long and proud history in western society.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#152

Post by wtallis »

hnriot wrote: post #143
VengefulCynic wrote: post #10

To my mind, the Google Glass is far more like the Microsoft Tablet, the Tesla Roadster and the Palm Treo: the initial realization of a concept that, before now, didn't exist in the world at all. It seems incorrect to compare it to the iPhone and the iPad because both of those were taking technology that had existed in the tech community for years and reimagining them in a way that appealed to the general public. As a…

The Treo was not new, the Blackberry already did everything the Palm did years before.

Nope. The Treo 180 was the first Treo that had phone capabilities, and it was released in 2002. The first BlackBerry that had phone capabilities was also released in 2002, but the first BlackBerry that didn't require an external headset to talk with wasn't released until 2003. BlackBerry was in no way years early to the smartphone market - they just approached it from a different angle.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#153

Post by bane »

sp332 wrote: post #17
bane wrote: post #13

If anybody wants to get a good idea where something like glass could go, read the Phaethon series starting with "The Golden Age". It's a bit of a tough read, but the author spent some serious time considering the implications of a civilization built around always wearing these kind of devices at all times. Glass acts like a layer on top of the real world, consider then that as the technology improves and the number o…

It doesn't really project itself over your field of view. It's a smallish window in the corner of your vision.

I would imagine that much of the reason for that is that it's a v1.0 product. Accurately registering the display over reality at such a high resolution is no doubt a very hard problem...but one that could be solved.

Short term, glass introduces the concept of this kind of device to the masses.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#154

Post by badgar »

jlgreco wrote: post #151
badgar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comments about legality or western perspectives on privacy are off base. If you want to participate in Western society, you need to be able to interact with people who will observe you in public. My parent poster does not accept the basic implications of being observed in public. It's not at all off base to point out that his fundamental understanding of privacy is in conflict with the world around him.

There is absolutely no such requirement. Where would such a requirement come from, and how would it be enforced? It is an absurd fabrication. The ability and right to ignore people in public has a long and proud history in western society.

Again, the parent poster rejects the basic implications of being in public: people observing him and knowing what he did in public. He is offended by people seeing him, hearing what he says.

Disagreeing with being observed is incompatible with Western life, since you can't get very far without leaving your private property. I do imagine in 50 years or so, you'd be right: you'll be able to live an entire life in (say) America without ever leaving your house. I'm not sure I'd want to, but the parent poster clearly requires it, if he can't handle being perceived.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#155

Post by jokermatt999 »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #136
pazimzadeh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully this is just the MVP.

No, replacing what you see instead of adding to it is a much more difficult and tricky problem. I wouldn't expect it in the near future in a consumer application.

To expand: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-n...

The whole blog has a lot more about AR/VR from an informed technical view, but I recall this being the most relevant post.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#156

Post by denisp18 »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #33

I would like my next car Google Glass enabled. It could display turn by turn directions, warn of upcoming traffic, and let me know what services are available at the next exit. I can also foresee Google Glass being very useful for complex, domain specific tasks that require your hands: surgery, automobile repair, home construction, cooking, learning to play an instrument, dealing cards, sowing, tying flies etc.

Several cars already have HUDs that do these things.

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/newvehicles/3series/touring/2012/s...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-up_display#Automobiles

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#157

Post by jlgreco »

badgar wrote: post #154
jlgreco wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no such requirement. Where would such a requirement come from, and how would it be enforced? It is an absurd fabrication. The ability and right to ignore people in public has a long and proud history in western society.

Again, the parent poster rejects the basic implications of being in public: people observing him and knowing what he did in public. He is offended by people seeing him, hearing what he says. Disagreeing with being observed is incompatible with Western life, since you can't get very far without leaving your private property. I do imagine in 50 years or so, you'd be right: you'll be able to live an entire life in (say)…

He has every right to hold whatever opinion on privacy he wants, and he can act on those opinions in any legal fashion he wishes.

If he intends to drag people to court and thinks that will work, then he is delusional. If he is just choosing to abstain from unnecessary contact with people who are wearing cameras? Not my cup of tea, but so what? He can do that all he wishes.

I have some rather similar rules that are less extreme but applied much more often in practice. For example, I refuse to interact with people on public transit or on the street when I am wearing headphones. You could say I am "offended" when people try to talk to me when I am actively ignoring them. Big whoop. You find his expectations of social conduct unreasonable. Big whoop.

You can say that I "can't" have that attitude towards social interaction in public, or that he cannot, but the simple fact of the matter is that we can. We have the ability and the right to choose how we wish to interact with others.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#158

Post by notatoad »

adam wrote: post #65

It's interesting that in HN comments, most people are very excited for the arrival of glass. They think of it as something that will enhance their lifestyle, their productivity, etc. If you read comments about glass in other forums such as at the bottom of NYTimes articles or other more general public media, most comments seem to be just the opposite: fear and paranoia about the arrival of glass in terms of privacy,…

The general tone here on HN is positive, for the most part people who aren't interested in glass stay out of the glass threads and comment on the things that excite them. The naysayers exist - I personally think it's a terrible idea, and I'm not a "naturalist" or somebody who cares overly about privacy. I just think it's a goofy idea.

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#159

Post by MaysonL »

mietek wrote: post #140
DanBC wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google Glass is [...] the initial realization of a concept that, before now, didn't exist in the world at all. I don't understand. Heads up displays have existed in various forms for years. We've had versions that cover one eye, or that use lasers onto the retina.

Please let me know where can I buy a personal retinal projection display today. Preferably, without having to mortgage my house.

Buy or build, what a decision: http://eclecti.cc/hardware/blinded-by-the-light-diy-retinal-...

See also: "Retinal projection displays for accommodation- insensitive viewing", Ph.D. thesis

http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:27769/eth-2776...

Re: The Glass Bicycle

#160

Post by tjmc »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #87
GHFigs wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitability of miniaturization notwithstanding, it's slightly challenging to imagine a less obtrusive version of something whose defining property is that it sits on your face. Maybe in five years we'll all be wearing smart-monocles. Who knows?

And in ten years smart contact-lenses. It's not hard at all to imagine.

Not hard to imagine but very hard to do. There are several huge challenges:

- Power. Contact lenses are too small to hold batteries that will last for a reasonable period of time. You could possibly use inductive coils in conjunction with regular eyewear but that means a fair electromagnetic field aimed right at your eyes and some obvious health risks.

- Optics. This is actually 2 issues - First, you can't focus on anything that's literally right on your eye so you'd need to do something very clever here. Possibly direct laser projection from the lens to the retina. Second, all the electronics in the lens will be opaque and could occlude your regular vision. Let's suppose you can move most of it to the outside of the lens (as with coloured contacts now), the HUD part is still going to cover part of your pupil. So it needs to be really tiny and still produce a clear image. Not impossible maybe but very hard.

- Health. Less of a showstopper, but contact lenses need to breathe. Impeding the flow of oxygen to the surface of the eye can lead to corneal neovascularization - the growth of blood vessels over the cornea. So ideally these contact lenses need to be gas permeable as well.

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