Slashdot Mirror
Eric Schmidt: Google Glass Critics 'Afraid of Change,' Society Will Adapt
curtwoodward writes "Eric Schmidt came to Harvard this week to discuss his new book, but many students really wanted to know more about the implications for privacy and social interaction once Google Glass starts hitting the market. Schmidt cautioned against jumping to the worst conclusions, saying that society always tends to adapt to new technologies — and he's hoping for etiquette rather than government regulation. Of course, that's what you would say if you used to run a company that has been fined and paid settlements to regulators for the way it scoops up data and tracks users. But Schmidt also doesn't have much patience for critics: 'Criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of change, or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society.'"
So where does that lead us to? A device which watches us all, which sends much of that data to central services provided by Google, where that data will most likely be stored and can most likely be accessed by law enforcement agencies.
This is often repeated, but realize that it can't record all the time. There's not enough CPU power, storage, or always-on network connectivity. This was an intentional decision to get it into the form factor at the right price point. Typically it's for still pictures and streaming really tiny pictures over Google Talk. If your strip club or movie theatre has WiFi in it and allows you to access in the venue, you might end up streaming postage stamps to people, at best.
Plus it will be pretty obvious when you take pictures, since you have to touch it active and say "Glass, take picture". The bouncer will likely throw you out at that point.
It basically doesn't do any more that your ordinary cell phone, and people pretend to text with those while filiming, and they have better net connectivity and local storage, even with no WiFi access.