Slashdot Mirror
Man Physically Assaulted At McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glasses
RockoW writes "Steve Mann, a long-time researcher of computer vision systems, (i.e. Augmented reality, Digital Eyeglass) had an incident at a McDonald's in Paris, France. He was assaulted by three men during his visit to get food with his family. They had a problem with his digital eye glasses and tried to take them off his head. 'The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.' The men also tore up Mann's documentation and a letter from his doctor explaining the device's use. Fortunately, the rough treatment of the device caused it to keep recent images in its memory, instead of quickly overwriting them, so Dr. Mann has pictures of the men who assaulted him."
It's important to clarify (as I had to RTFA to realise this), that he claims he was assaulted by 3 employees of McDonalds
This wasn't a random assault by other customers at some shady McDonalds at 3AM, nor was it an assault by a typical skinhead -- from the photos the alleged perpetrators were McDonalds Management.
He's not the first person to claim McDonalds staff in France assault their customers.
yes, this is probably fake, why didnt he went to the police and press charge? Why didnt he called the police and identified those persons? bullshit, this is
From the article:
I also contacted the Embassy, Consulate, Police, etc., without much luck.
Him being a foreigner, I'm frankly not too surprised that the police were not helpful.
Can't believe some of the comments so far. This guy has been strapping computers to his body for 34 years, by his own count. He's been on slashdot many times in the past, and had run-ins with airport security a couple of times before:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/02/03/14/2051228/airport-security-vs-cyborg-steve-mann
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/01/10/05/2237200/a-computer-display-in-ordinary-sunglasses
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/00/08/08/1256229/more-on-the-linux-wrist-watch
So it's very unlikely to be a fake. According to the article, he's contacted the police and Mcdonalds' with out any response. Based on his past experience with these types of situations, I think he knows exactly what he is doing in seeking some publicity.
Assuming the blog post was indeed written by the real Steve Mann, a guy who has been doing this wearable computing stuff for a while, I think we can trust that it's true. (And if he didn't write it, I would expect to hear something from him, saying that it's a fake.)
It's also not his first altercation related to his wearable stuff. See, for example, this Slashdot story from 2002.
He is the guy who INVENTED wearable computing and all the technology behind Project Glass.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Dashboard cameras in cars do the same thing - if there's an impact then they save the current video clip and do not overwrite it. Not so difficult to do.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
McDonald's France is mostly a branding entity, and that the restaurants themselves are franchised. Most of the restaurants are small limited-liability, self-owned enterprises that lease out the brand, inner organization + recipes, and general appearance. They do have a deep, continued relationship with the brand itself, through the regular auditing, the training of employees and the management courses provided along with the branding. The branding entity does own some corporate restaurants, and apparently the Champs Elysées venue is among them, so this contact information may not be useless in this particular case.
As a side-note, a simple web search turned out this french newspaper article about the director of this particular restaurant, Khader Aissani, who happens to look closely like the "perpetrator 1" identified in the original article's photos.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
And based on my past experience, as a french citizen, of being assaulted and turning to the Police for help, I find his claims of getting no useful response completely realistic and plausible.
However, once this incident becomes more widely known in french-language blogs and media, it'll quickly attract a lot of attention and will probably elicit an official (outraged) reaction of McDonald's France, and maybe cause a few interviews of politicians trying to look like they're concerned. That's how it works here.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
And it's on: famous french blogger Maitre Eolas relayed the news much earlier this morning (does the guy even sleep ?), which then was picked up by L'Express (national newspaper) half an hour ago. It will be all over french social networks for the next couple days. Apparently the restaurant is not owned by McDonald's, it is a franchise owned by the limited-liability society Elyrest.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
" They basically confined their Arabic minorities in ghettos for a generation, which prevented those minorities from acquiring French culture"
Bull shit.
They confine THEMSELVES! It is exactly the same here in Germany. The Muslim popular stays in their own areas. They choose not to integrate. The parents forbid their children from pursuing relations with non Muslims.
You cannot blame the local population when immigrants refuse to integrate. We all know how understand Americans are about this sort of thing. They love it when Mexicans speak spanish to them. They would never say something like, "learn English you Mexican".
Based on the pictures kindly provided in TFA, they were all boring-looking caucasians in generic 'knowledge worker' garb(complete with outward-facing photo-ID badge on belt in the case of the mental giant who decided to assault the guy with the camera attached to his head while wearing photo ID...)
While I recognize the (statistically, perhaps, er, 'tentitatively validated') American reflex to assume that 'assaulted' and 'mcdonalds' in the same sentence signals a wacky story about the violence of the degenerate classes, it appears that the French golden arches crowd is slightly different...
For the local police it is a hassle and a insuficiently documented event, it would be the same in about any country.
The only way to progress (unfortunatelly) is to contact a local lawyer, or the local Bar association http://www.avocatparis.org/
And come back with the lawyer, explain that you want to sue for :
- damage
- discrimination (a latter to the HALDE) (the anti discrimination authority in France)
- moral pain
Seek cost of trial + damage + punitive damage, let's say (since it's not quite as expensive in France) 100 000 €
And the answer will be quite different.
And it has nothing to do with France as such but everything with the mindset an international Franchise breeds in the loosers who have to work for them.
The "Garçons" in a local Brasserie might be haughty and unhelpful, they might speak no or little english, but they couldn't care less if you have a gizmo on your head or not, they are not afraid you will "copy" the "secrets" on the price list, or maybe focus on dirt and make a film "exposé" for the media.
Moreover going to a mac donald in France is really not a very good idea, but the one on the champs élysé is one of the worst (he could also go to the one on "rue de flandre" chances are that the level of inteligence is similar, at least it had a similar reputation a couple of years back).
I'm not condoning physical violence, but I think wearable recording devices _should_ be resisted by the general public. I would have sided with the victim except for the fact that he has presented these (crystal clear) images that he saved onto the device. His defense is that the device is for improved vision, yet improved vision does not require images to be retained. Retaining images is the part I am against.
You could have bothered to read the article, you know:
The computerized eyeglass processes imagery using Augmediated Reality, in order to help the wearer see better, and 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 by the then non-functioning computer vision system.
As a result of Perpetrator 1's actions, therefore images that would not have otherwise been captured were captured. Therefore by damaging the Eye Glass, Perpetrator 1 photographed himself and others within McDonalds.
You're correct in that a wearable device could be saving pictures without your knowledge, but the discussion is one of policy and based on a hypothetical that has not occurred: he did not intentionally save any images. Your particular outrage at the victim here is misplaced.
It's pretty clear from the article that his device does not permanently record anything, but simply has a ring buffer that stores the last short while for processing. The victim would not even have had images of his assailants if they had not broken his computer while assaulting him, freezing the ring buffer in place.
So the Germans work in factories making Porsches and BMWs and send them Greece where they're bought by people who have never done an honsest day's work in their lives.
When I say "bought", I mean that they pay for them with money borrowed from the Germans, that they then refuse to repay.
Those evil fucking Nazi bastards! What Teutonic cunning came up with the duplicitous plan of giving people stuff for doing nothing? It's 1940 all over again.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."