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Google Glass: What's With All the Hate?

An anonymous reader writes "Techcrunch takes a look at why so many people seem to make fun of Google Glass. From the article: 'Google Glass isn't even on sale yet and there is already a noticeable backlash against Google's first experiment in wearable computing. It's odd to see a product that was greeted with so much hype a year ago endure the love-hate cycle so quickly – even though there are only a few thousand units in the wild. Sure, we've done our share to popularize "glasshole" as a way to describe its users, but the backlash seems to go beyond the usual insidery tech circles.'"

7 of 775 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If somebody with any camera walks up to you, your property, or your workplace, you have no choice in the matter as well. The only difference here is that Google Glass isn't meant to be a camera but a display with a computer inside of it.

  2. Re:Something It Isn't by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

    So when do you stop recording? In public toilets? If you are in earshot of a private conversation in a restaurant?

    Use of secret cameras in public places, especially places where people expect some privacy, is illegal in many places. You need to be careful.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Re:Misconceptions by Chuckstar · · Score: 2, Informative

    It does not light up like a regular video camera. A regular video camera has a very obvious red LED the turns on when it's recording. Glass does not. Glass just has the screen light up. And you can't necessarily tell the difference between the screen lighting up because it's recording and the screen lighting up because the guy just go an email.

  4. Re: Something It Isn't by funkylovemonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except, no, that isn't the case, at least not in the United States. Neither is it in the case in Canada nor the United Kingdom. You have no expectation of privacy when you're in public, and unless someone tries to resell the image as part of stock photography or something you cannot stop them. You do have an expectation of privacy in a restroom, but no court is going to say you have an expectation of privacy walking in a park. And if a policeman did take my camera and destroy it, I would have action against that police officer. That is absolutely not legal and neither does a police officer have any right to make you stop taking pictures in public. There are exceptions, like military bases, federal buildings, or many private owned areas (like a football stadium), but for the most part you can take as many pictures of whoever you want in public areas and it does not violate the law.

  5. It's an intersection of concerns by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's an intersection of concerns with facial recognition, tagging and Big Tech's seemingly callous indifference to our privacy , all of that hitting up against our evolutionarily bequeathed intuition that when we walk along in life, we have more than a modicum of privacy amongst strangers. Basically people fast forwarded in their imaginations to (creepy... or otherwise) people using Google Goggles to look at us on the street and download a ton of information about us by matching our face to social media pictures of us or our house to information about us or our license plate to stuff people have said about our driving.

    Take a picture of something and start talking about it with everyone quickly becomes take of picture of something which identifies us and start gossiping with strangers about us in even ordinary people's minds.

    FB is bad enough. Now we're going to be tagged and bagged as we walk down the street. Hot girl? Who is she? Where does she live? Whoa look as this... DUDE!!!

    That kind of thing is fantastically invasive and creepy and it's exactly what will happen because all new technology becomes porn why? because we're monkeys whose chief and overwhelming concern was is and always will be reproducing our genes with the hottest thing we can land in order to maximize our genetic fitness. Even if you don't think that's the reason all new technology becomes porn, the fact is , all new technology becomes porn of some sort , if only gossip porn.

    So yeah, that's why people hate Google Goggles.

    Google should have, at all times and at all places loudly ferociously and very publicly defended the anonymity of their users come hell or high court subpena.

    Instead, they got Eric Schmidt :

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/217313/googles_eric_schmidt_ex_ceos_most_memorable_quotes.html

    "With Street View, we drive by exactly once, so you can just move." (if you don't like your residence being online)

    "I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions, ...They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."

    "If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence...we can predict where you are going to go,"

    "Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the Internet?"

    "One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market,....And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that."

    "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"

    If they were uniquely noted for their commitment to privacy, then maybe people would have trusted them with their faces. As it is, it's too late unwind it all and people are rightly concerned.

  6. Re:Something It Isn't by Alex+Belits · · Score: 1, Informative

    Really? I have a pen camera that I don't have to hold out to record with.

    Yes, you do unless you want to record the floor.

    I have a harness for my GoPro that doesn't require me to hold it out in front.

    Those cameras are easily visible, and if they weren't there would be just as much backlash against them.

    I have a pair of sunglasses with a camera built in that doesn't require me to hold it out.

    And using those is considered just as bad than any other kind of recording.

    I can even record on my phone without anyone knowing because it just looks like I'm using my phone.

    No you can't, phones are designed to make cameras absolutely blatantly obvious. If they weren't, there would be a lot of places where they would be banned.

    --
    Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
  7. Re:Misconceptions by dave420 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Incorrect: It does have a bright "recording" LED on the front which lights up when video or photos are being taken. It would help your argument if you knew what you were complaining about before actually complaining.