Even before the bad reviews Google Glass seems lame, lame, lame. Should be a giant hit in a few years, wonder who will be the one to perfect the experience and make all the money.
I am certainly not a Google fan, and I care about privacy issues. But seriously, this discussion is far from reasonable.
Go to any specialised electronics shop. You will find cameras (still and video) and microphones / voice recording systems in all form factors. Stuff looking like fountain pens, knobs, jewellery, watches, glasses... Tons of that wannabe spy stuff, most of it far less expensive than Google's Glass. Pretty much all of this stuff can be used without anybody knowing, all of it is far less obvious than Google Glass (and most of it might have longer battery life).
So. Why is Google Glass a problem, and all these other articles are not? Because we have never heard of them? Because they are not mass market (which Google Glass at the current price point certainly isn't either)? Because they are not from Google?
Is the difficult part Google's coupling with location services? The fact that the could easily add facial recognition at some point? What is the real problem? People taking pictures or video without you knowing certainly isn't. There are several ways to do that.
I never saw the appeal of Google Glass, and if someone were wearing it on their face while interacting with me, I would be concerned about not having their full attention, or getting recorded without permission.
Mind you, Google Glass is just the beginning and it's only a matter of time before we get a HUD with all types of information integrated into sunglasses, windshields, goggles, binoculars, etc etc.
With Google Glass, it's just not seamless or naturally integrated, so it not only makes you look stupid, but it makes others uneasy.
And given that Google is a personal information peddler, it's easy to see why people would not want what and who they see stored in some Google server for advertisers or the NSA.
I am certainly not a Google fan, and I care about privacy issues. But seriously, this discussion is far from reasonable.
Go to any specialised electronics shop. You will find cameras (still and video) and microphones / voice recording systems in all form factors. Stuff looking like fountain pens, knobs, jewellery, watches, glasses... Tons of that wannabe spy stuff, most of it far less expensive than Google's Glass. Pretty much all of this stuff can be used without anybody knowing, all of it is far less obvious than Google Glass (and most of it might have longer battery life).
So. Why is Google Glass a problem, and all these other articles are not? Because we have never heard of them? Because they are not mass market (which Google Glass at the current price point certainly isn't either)? Because they are not from Google?
That doesn't mean you can go to any place and make a recording.
Because it's right there on your head and you can make a recording any time (and post it to Facebook), sometimes as easy as blinking an eye. Surely you can see the difference right?
Is it legal if you're recording something on other people's property with a spy devices? Can somebody sue you if they found out you use these stealth devices recording and posting it to Facebook? Have you ever ponder these questions?
When using a phone or a camera, it's a little obvious your filming or taking a shot. With Glasses, you're just wearing it and people don't know if you actuly recording or not. So privacy concern is real.
It'd be so much better if the GG showed a red light when they're recording. Also, it could help if the camera objective had a lid, and it's clearly visible if the lid is on or off. You could place the lid on the objective, and people would know for sure that they have nothing to fear.
Oh, so now it's only recording voice, not video. Cool, everything is fine now... NOT!
The key difference between that and e.g. the iPhones recording ability: you can turn on recording with the blink of an eye, without anyone knowing. With the phone, you either have to be recording all the time, or have the phone in some sort of ready-state to turn it on without pulling it out, launching an app, etc.
There's a reason why even things like smart phones are prohibited in many places, the last thing we need is these headsets going everywhere.
One of the pioneers of personal devices like these was a shy researcher who could never remember people's names. But, just like the Big Bang Theory guys, he needed to do so in order to help get grants at university mixers.
So he built a portable computer hooked to a camera in his glasses, along with face recognition software. When he met someone, he recorded their face and introduction. Later, the process was reversed so that his earpiece would read back the intro for that person.
To me, that is pathetic. I love it when people are upfront about these kind of things and have no problem giving them my name again. What will tick me off is if I find out the person isn't really being authentic and using tech to remind them of my name.
Looks like tech will take away our communicating with people, which doesn't seem like a good thing. A bit like Facebook, where everyone will just try to out-funny the previous poster, instead of having a discussion.
Something like Google glass may be very useful e.g. for doing inventory in a warehouse, packing mail order shipments, accessing medical records during medical procedures, capturing instructional or documentary video close up in confined spaces, etc.
However I'd smack it off everyone's head who'd dare to cross my property line wearing one...
The Borg has no place in public, regardless how many uneducated but knowledgable techno geeks believe that doing everything that can be done is progress without deeply questioning if it should be done, and for what purpose and whose benefit.
If people are too lazy to pull out a smartphone to look something up in Wikipedia then they need to be smacked, or they know so little that they have to look up so much that it matters. In that case however more technology is not a solution to a lack of studying.
you're using the exact same arguments as those used 40 years ago against calculators
And they are just as valid then as now. If you need to pull out a calculator to calculate a lunar orbit, then that's OK. But if you have to pull out a calculator to figure out how much a 20% tip is, then you have a serious issue.
The mind works only as well as it's exercised. Just like a workout is "painful", if you want a healthy body, that's what it takes. And if you want a healthy mind, able to think, then the pain of learning and exercising one's mental abilities is just part of that. Delegating everything to a machine means your mind becomes a undifferentiated grey mush.
One just needs to look at the lack of logical reasoning skills and lack of language skills displayed by the vast majority of people these days to see where things are going. Worst of all, in times past, stupid people knew they were stupid and they were hiding under a rock; today the dumber they are, the more entitled they feel, and their uneducated rants destroy the signal to noise ratio just about everywhere one goes.
What is the real problem? People taking pictures or video without you knowing certainly isn't. There are several ways to do that.
The privacy and the annoyance are 2 different things. The privacy is of course a serious subject, but you can't ignore the annoyance either. Even if I'm not doing anything wrong, I don't like to have a camera on my face. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is filming everyone. If a guy films me with his GG, I'll ask him to stop, and if he doesn't want to stop, I'll make him stop, even if I have to break his expensive toy.
If some persons are completely fine with the GG, great for them! But they have to respect the persons that the GG make uncomfortable. It's like with cigarettes: when you're a smoker (and a civilized person), you respect the non-smokers.
By definition, if you're wearing Google Glass, you're a dork. So, it doesn't matter how cool you are before you put it on, once you do you're a dork.
Cool, I love being a dork. Like it or not in the very near future devices like this will become the norm. It's just a matter of time till Apple has a Google Glass type device in their product line which will then ultimately kill off the cell phone.
Me too, I'm very excited by this kind of device. I dream of a head mounted display with the resolution of a computer screen (or even better). The GG have a poor resolution, but they'll certainly boost this kind of technology.
I also understand that the GG must have a camera for the augmented reality. But where I think that Google is missing the point, is when they present the GG, they only show people filming what they see. Head mounted cameras exist since a long time, and they have better resolutions than the GG. The GG should be something completely different.
I've been super excited when I've heard that Google launched the project Glass. But now that I've seen the product, I know that I won't buy it, and even worse, I know that I will be annoyed by the persons who'll buy it
The mind works only as well as it's exercised. Just like a workout is "painful", if you want a healthy body, that's what it takes. And if you want a healthy mind, able to think, then the pain of learning and exercising one's mental abilities is just part of that. Delegating everything to a machine means your mind becomes a undifferentiated grey mush.
You wouldn't delegate everything to it though, just the things it was better at, such as (as you said) big number crunching or remember lots of tiny facts. Human memory is not that great, I personally look forward to the day when my hat can remember things for me.
<span style="line-height:1.231;">I've been super excited when I've heard that Google launched the project Glass. But now that I've seen the product, I know that I won't buy it, and even worse, I know that I will be annoyed by the persons who'll buy it </span>
Yea, I wouldn't buy one either but I'm definitely excited that this technology is being pursued. I'll wait until the device is built into a normal pair of glasses, impossible to tell the difference between a normal pair or Google Glasses.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Quote:
Originally Posted by muppetry
Calculators rarely seem to pose a threat to ones privacy and personal space.
And by "rarely" you mean "never."
Well, never in my experience. There are some strange people posting here though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitz1
I fully understand the dork and privacy issues.
But, GG is also an incredibly useful tool, not only in niche markets.
Imagine when hiking and you get directions from GG.
Or better, where flora and fauna are recognized and GG explains you everything about it.
Going around in musea can be much more fun and instructive
The thing is, the possibilities with a device like GG are just limitless
I predict a device like GG will be a hit. Not an instant hit but therés just too much value in the proposition that it'll be DOA.
I agree GG could be very useful and informative but the camera use could be too intrusive for general use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitz1
you're using the exact same arguments as those used 40 years ago against calculators
I disagree,the calculator could never be used in a manner that could be considered as an invasion of a person's general privacy expectations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Realistic
I agree GG could be very useful and informative but the camera use could be too intrusive for general use.
I disagree,the calculator could never be used in a manner that could be considered as an invasion of a person's general privacy expectations.
You're misrepresenting my post.
I was referring to the 'knowledge' part of rfca's argument not to the privacy issue.
I agree, I should have been more specific.
Considering the big picture, I think there is no way to avoid borgification of the human species.
The advantages (brain controlled artificial limbs, enhanced brain functionality, ...) are simply to great.
And yes, it will come at a steep cost, but then again we might want to have another look at privacy and how to enforce it
like putting a privacy lock on data as facebook does. Now, please don't say FB privacy is a joke. I know that. But that's more related to
the way it's implemented in FB, not on it's core principles. One might think of obfuscating images based on some privacy settings from the
person whose picture is taken, ...
Wearing Google Glass is like you're holding smartphone in the "recording video" position all the time wherever you go. No wonder people felt uneasy.
You can say "hey! my finger ain't on the shutter" but nobody will care.
Go to any specialised electronics shop. You will find cameras (still and video) and microphones / voice recording systems in all form factors. Stuff looking like fountain pens, knobs, jewellery, watches, glasses... Tons of that wannabe spy stuff, most of it far less expensive than Google's Glass. Pretty much all of this stuff can be used without anybody knowing, all of it is far less obvious than Google Glass (and most of it might have longer battery life).
So. Why is Google Glass a problem, and all these other articles are not? Because we have never heard of them? Because they are not mass market (which Google Glass at the current price point certainly isn't either)? Because they are not from Google?
Is the difficult part Google's coupling with location services? The fact that the could easily add facial recognition at some point? What is the real problem? People taking pictures or video without you knowing certainly isn't. There are several ways to do that.
I never saw the appeal of Google Glass, and if someone were wearing it on their face while interacting with me, I would be concerned about not having their full attention, or getting recorded without permission.
Mind you, Google Glass is just the beginning and it's only a matter of time before we get a HUD with all types of information integrated into sunglasses, windshields, goggles, binoculars, etc etc.
With Google Glass, it's just not seamless or naturally integrated, so it not only makes you look stupid, but it makes others uneasy.
And given that Google is a personal information peddler, it's easy to see why people would not want what and who they see stored in some Google server for advertisers or the NSA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreyfus2
I am certainly not a Google fan, and I care about privacy issues. But seriously, this discussion is far from reasonable.
Go to any specialised electronics shop. You will find cameras (still and video) and microphones / voice recording systems in all form factors. Stuff looking like fountain pens, knobs, jewellery, watches, glasses... Tons of that wannabe spy stuff, most of it far less expensive than Google's Glass. Pretty much all of this stuff can be used without anybody knowing, all of it is far less obvious than Google Glass (and most of it might have longer battery life).
So. Why is Google Glass a problem, and all these other articles are not? Because we have never heard of them? Because they are not mass market (which Google Glass at the current price point certainly isn't either)? Because they are not from Google?
That doesn't mean you can go to any place and make a recording.
Because it's right there on your head and you can make a recording any time (and post it to Facebook), sometimes as easy as blinking an eye. Surely you can see the difference right?
Is it legal if you're recording something on other people's property with a spy devices? Can somebody sue you if they found out you use these stealth devices recording and posting it to Facebook? Have you ever ponder these questions?
Eventually wearing computers will not be considered weird or geeky, it will just be something everyone does. They might not be glasses though.
Oh, so now it's only recording voice, not video. Cool, everything is fine now... NOT!
The key difference between that and e.g. the iPhones recording ability: you can turn on recording with the blink of an eye, without anyone knowing. With the phone, you either have to be recording all the time, or have the phone in some sort of ready-state to turn it on without pulling it out, launching an app, etc.
There's a reason why even things like smart phones are prohibited in many places, the last thing we need is these headsets going everywhere.
Flip the silent switch before taking a pic; it won't 'sound the shutter sound'.
To me, that is pathetic. I love it when people are upfront about these kind of things and have no problem giving them my name again. What will tick me off is if I find out the person isn't really being authentic and using tech to remind them of my name.
Looks like tech will take away our communicating with people, which doesn't seem like a good thing. A bit like Facebook, where everyone will just try to out-funny the previous poster, instead of having a discussion.
And they are just as valid then as now. If you need to pull out a calculator to calculate a lunar orbit, then that's OK. But if you have to pull out a calculator to figure out how much a 20% tip is, then you have a serious issue.
The mind works only as well as it's exercised. Just like a workout is "painful", if you want a healthy body, that's what it takes. And if you want a healthy mind, able to think, then the pain of learning and exercising one's mental abilities is just part of that. Delegating everything to a machine means your mind becomes a undifferentiated grey mush.
One just needs to look at the lack of logical reasoning skills and lack of language skills displayed by the vast majority of people these days to see where things are going. Worst of all, in times past, stupid people knew they were stupid and they were hiding under a rock; today the dumber they are, the more entitled they feel, and their uneducated rants destroy the signal to noise ratio just about everywhere one goes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dreyfus2
What is the real problem? People taking pictures or video without you knowing certainly isn't. There are several ways to do that.
The privacy and the annoyance are 2 different things. The privacy is of course a serious subject, but you can't ignore the annoyance either. Even if I'm not doing anything wrong, I don't like to have a camera on my face. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is filming everyone. If a guy films me with his GG, I'll ask him to stop, and if he doesn't want to stop, I'll make him stop, even if I have to break his expensive toy.
If some persons are completely fine with the GG, great for them! But they have to respect the persons that the GG make uncomfortable. It's like with cigarettes: when you're a smoker (and a civilized person), you respect the non-smokers.
Cool, I love being a dork. Like it or not in the very near future devices like this will become the norm. It's just a matter of time till Apple has a Google Glass type device in their product line which will then ultimately kill off the cell phone.
Then later we will all have devices like this;
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic
Then later we will all have devices like this;
Me too, I'm very excited by this kind of device. I dream of a head mounted display with the resolution of a computer screen (or even better). The GG have a poor resolution, but they'll certainly boost this kind of technology.
I also understand that the GG must have a camera for the augmented reality. But where I think that Google is missing the point, is when they present the GG, they only show people filming what they see. Head mounted cameras exist since a long time, and they have better resolutions than the GG. The GG should be something completely different.
I've been super excited when I've heard that Google launched the project Glass. But now that I've seen the product, I know that I won't buy it, and even worse, I know that I will be annoyed by the persons who'll buy it
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcfa
The mind works only as well as it's exercised. Just like a workout is "painful", if you want a healthy body, that's what it takes. And if you want a healthy mind, able to think, then the pain of learning and exercising one's mental abilities is just part of that. Delegating everything to a machine means your mind becomes a undifferentiated grey mush.
You wouldn't delegate everything to it though, just the things it was better at, such as (as you said) big number crunching or remember lots of tiny facts. Human memory is not that great, I personally look forward to the day when my hat can remember things for me.
Yea, I wouldn't buy one either but I'm definitely excited that this technology is being pursued. I'll wait until the device is built into a normal pair of glasses, impossible to tell the difference between a normal pair or Google Glasses.