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Is Google Glass Too Nerdy For the Mainstream?
New submitter some old guy writes "Marcus Wohlsen writing in Wired Business makes a good case for why no amount of marketing hype will cure Google Glass of its inherent dorkiness. 'Google Glass fails to acknowledge that walking around with a camera mounted on the side of your face at all times makes you look dorky. Think of the Bluetooth headset: it’s a really sensible way to use your phone without having to take it out of your pocket—so sensible that there’s really no reason not to keep that headset in your ear most of the time. But you don’t, do you?' He also makes an interesting comparison to the Segway debacle: 'If we were all riding around on Segways now, cities would probably be better places to live compared to the car-infested streets we still endure. But that transformation hasn't happened. And it won’t. Why? Because Segways are lame. They’re too rational. They fail to acknowledge all the irrational reasons people love their cars.'"
Betteridge's law of headlines is way off on this one.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Thread closed.
Because Segways are lame. They’re too rational. They fail to acknowledge all the irrational reasons people love their cars.
Yes, irrational reasons like ... rain. Or passengers. Or payload. Or personal security. Or range. Or speed.
Google Glass fails to acknowledge that walking around with a camera mounted on the side of your face at all times makes you look dorky.
Look, there are armies of douche-Borgs walking around with bluetooth earpieces in, thinking not that they fall enough below some painful threshold of dorkiness while wearing them, but rather that they look cool doing so. These are the spinning hubcaps of phone accessories.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
How did this get modded up? It's been made in in each of the billion previous glass threads that they have versions that can be fitted with prescription lenses.
>" 'Google Glass fails to acknowledge that walking around with a camera mounted on the side of your face at all times makes you look dorky."
It isn't just dorky, it is rude, creepy, and invasive too. The author and Google (especially the CEO) seems to just completely skirt the entire issue of privacy- not only for the user, but all the hundreds of "victims" around the user, every day. Take out your phone and hold it up in the air, pointed at everyone you pass, meet, talk to, sit next to, and see what kind of reaction you get.
So stop pretending it is just about fashion, it is really insulting.
When I see 50 somethings wearing bluetooth earpieces I'm inclined to think that in ten years they'll be wearing these goofy glasses too.
Let's be honest, walking around staring at your phone is nerdy too. So is pulling out your phone at lunch, and yet a lot of otherwise 'cool' people do both those things. Wearing sagging pants is incredibly dorky.
If the things provide actual, real benefit to a lot of people, then soon everyone will be wearing them. If they don't, then they won't catch on. Stylishness is a side-issue in this game. If it's useful, it will become stylish. Like a codpiece.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As a 50 year-old, I resent the fact that you think my cheap USB drive that I carry around on my ear with an old twist-tie is me trying to look young. It's just more convenient to carry it that way, really.
Thread closed.
And yet this is more or less the same thing they said about mobile phones in the early 80's. No more than a few k needed in the world or something similarly stupid.
I keep seeing people using that argument, for some reason. Not sure why, because that wasn't actually the case. Not even remotely. The issue with cell phones in the early 80's was the cost and the combination of size/weight/battery life.
Car phones were plenty common, and people wanted them. Sure, they were expensive. But claiming that people said they were too nerdy, or not many people wanted them, or needed them is, frankly, so far from reality the statement had to have first been made by someone who wasn't even alive at the time.
Well I do remember the 80s and the impending doom of cell phones. I also went out and bought one of the first ones. Whatever.
The difference here is that the cell phones solved a tangible problem: if you were not in your car or in your house, you were pretty much unreachable. Pagers could kind of stand in, but you'd still have to get to a phone to call back. Enter the cell phone and suddenly your grandma is texting all hours of the day.
Google glass on the other hand doesn't solve anyones problem, they deliver already available functionality (via the phone in your pocket) in a new and nerdy package.
... whatever
And the best part of it, those don't make you look dorky at all!
google glass does solve a problem. When you see that hot chick walking down the street and you're like, damn, i wish i could record that. Well now you can(tm)!