Thirty-Five Arguments Against Google Glass. Google Glass is a snazzy set of specs that will part the Red Sea if you tap it from the right angle.
It aims to fuse smartphones and computers into a hands-free user experience more pleasurable than sex, religion, and world domination combined. Glass is not yet on the market, but the news of its existence cut a hew through Mountain View with the strident fife of an unpaid piper wooing unsuspecting kids into a dark cave. It inspired Google co-founder Sergey Brin to publicly announce that he felt less male with the thick tools that came before. Some wondered why Brin didn’t just hold hard to his smartphone and slam down shots every Friday night like the rest of America. But when your net worth is $23 billion, different rules apply. Brin was good enough to describe his new instrument to the Wall Street Journal last September: They are, uh, a new form of computing, uh, that’s designed to really free you. Here are thirty-five arguments against Google Glass: Metadata may create more headaches. How people might misuse Google Glass. A video has been posted online that echoes concerns about the introduction of Google Glass, the web giant’s augmented reality spectacles.
Advertisement How we moderate. Life through a lens: Will Google Glass turn us all into drones? Google Glass was demonstrated at SXSW this week, prompting much debate about whether the tech giant's latest gadget will change how we see the world.
But more than that, what effect will real-time, heads-up data have on our consciousness over time? Ed Castillo, head of planning at TBWA\Chiat\Day in New York, goes through the looking-glass... The demonstration of Google Glass at SXSWi has aroused – or at least has coincided with – Twitter activity from technologists and ad types (Twechs and Twads?) About everything from hyper-practical concerns to thoughtful accounts of how this innovation might change the shape of public life.
Even a cursory look at the digital echo emanating from Monday’s demo reveals the disruptive promise of this innovation. What follows is a surface contemplation of just a few of the issues that Google Glass use will raise, building toward a subtler, longer-time-horizon issue that I’ve not yet seen addressed by the Twechs and Twads… A blurring of bodies and bits. I, for One, Welcome Our Google Glass-Wearing Cyborg Overlords. You may have noticed the Google Glass backlash is well underway.
Once we were thrilled by the promise of the eye-level connected screen and camera technology; once we poked satirical fun at it. But no more. Now, it seems, we've reached the stage of being threatened by it. One dive bar in Seattle banned customers from wearing Glass; given that no consumers and few developers have their hands on the tech yet, and Google HQ is 700 miles to the south, this was a little like your local doctor's office banning human cloning. Still, the bar got plenty of media attention; no doubt other establishments have taken note. An online campaign called "Stop the Cyborgs" is offering Google Glass ban signs for free download, as well as stickers and T-shirts. All in all, it's an uncomfortable time to proclaim what Eddie Izzard dubbed "technojoy" about the prospect of a whole new category of gadget.
But fear not, fellow cyborg-lovers. We've Been Here Before Smile, You're On Google Glass Image courtesy Google.