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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.'"
Remember people walking around talking to themselves? Remember the "I'm not talking to you, I'm on the phone" hand gesture?
It combined being rude with wearing a dorky looking apparatus.
And that's what Google Glass is.
And underwent surgery in order to get rid of glasses as they were the worst annoyance in my life - so there's no chance of me using this product.
People don't realise just how much these things are going to negatively affect you - you are going to be cleaning them all the time, they are going to cause irritation and issue with our hair and the side of your head, they are going to range from being unnoticeable to unignorable literally in minutes all throuout the day.
That's my take on it all. The wearable aspect is just a poor substitute for what we have been "promised" in fiction, so until it brings the positives without the negatives that I already went to great lengths to avoid, I'm not buying into it.
[...]which destroys the privacy of anyone around you [...]
Spot on. That's the main issue with me. And don't tell me "oh but we've got smartphones already".
Glass is a whole new level of invasivity.
"Google Glass is scary because it's easier to record others!"
You have a cellphone in your pocket capable of doing just that, and pinhole surveillance cameras have existed forever anyway.
"Google Glass is scary because GPS!"
Your cellphone doesn't even need an active GPS setting in order to be tracked. As an Android App developer, I can just use a Network Location Provider and triangulate your position to within 100-1000 meters. If you have a cellphone, you're being tracked just as easily as with Glass.
"Google Glass is scary because it might serve me ads!"
That's from an early video parody of Glass. Ads are against Google's guidelines.
"Google Glass is scary because they're trying to get us to depend on it, then sneakily put in ads and spyware!"
Even if they do that, we've already got the dumped firmware for Glass. Just run a custom ROM on it.
"Google Glass is scary because some pseudo-libertarian tech journalist told me to be scared!"
Oh ok, I guess that explains the inconsistency in your position. Funny how all these former pro-corporate tech gossip douchebags are suddenly worried about your rights. Where were they 10 years ago? And for that matter, where were you?
Because they make the wearer look like a dork (not a geek or even a nerd).
I rank it right up there with Beats headphones.
So? Why would YOU hate a device that makes ME look like a dork? Why do you care what I look like?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What do you do in the future when people have robotic eyes? Wearable cameras aren't going away anytime soon. Google Glass is the very tiny tip of a huge iceberg. Assume you are being recorded at all times outside of your home. You may not like it, but it is a reality we live in.
Good-bye
He chooses what to post on to the internet. If somebody wearing Glass walks up to you, your property, or your workplace, you have no choice in the matter as to which of your activities gets uploaded to Google.
On the ad front, people said the same thing about android. I haven't ever obtrusive ads. Same thing with gmail and search, they are there, but entirely to the side.
Frankly this sort of advertising is far less intrusive then most offline advertising. Consider the omni-present ads on busses and taxis and billboards, the flood of intrusive ads on TV and radio. I would far prefer to substitute those for google's approach: show me something I might actually want in a very unobtrusive fashion.
On the privacy front, your argument is straw-man. Privacy is already destroyed, constant surveillance is the norm now that literally everyone is carrying at least one camera. Glass may well improve the situation by reminding people of that.
I've spent the last 8 months wearing a pair of sunglasses that contain a camera in the bridge, mostly because I see lots of stupid drivers on the road, but also because google glass has been coming along. I'm careful to remove the SD card fairly regularly, but in that 8 months only 3 people have questioned my very chunky glasses with half cm buttons on the left side.
People don't care about privacy, not until it's the "creepy" guy staring at them instead of the average guy.
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
Media playback seems to be one of the least demonstrated functions. The mains ones are the camera and notifications. I think it's the camera that has people most upset because when someone wearing Glass looks at you they are pointing it right in your face and you have no way of knowing if it is turned on and streaming live over the internet to other people or being recorded.
I can see Glass being massive for porn and voyeurism. We had better get the etiquette of removing it before entering the locker room sorted out pretty quickly. Are people going to take it off when entering the men's lavatory too?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I would be willing to bet that if you started telling people you were recording them that you would quickly find your self in the creepy category. Depending on the crowd and location it wouldn't surprise me to find out if you get the crap beaten out of you too.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Where do you get the idea that it's always on and streaming to google? Glass is aggressive about power savings.
I had a chance to try Glass last week in Chicago and I believe that the owner stated around 3ish hours of battery life for non-stop video recording. You COULD attach a USB cable while wearing them and keep a battery in your pocket.
Look at it this way: If Google had developed a new battery technology that fit in the current Glass profile AND was 'always on, always front recording' then Google would have much bigger news than just Glass itself.
Here before all but 8486 of you.
I think this touches on what is, in fact, the much bigger issue facing society today. While it's true that what you do in a public place is, by definition, a public act, the consequences of such an act have changed dramatically over the last few years. There is a tremendous difference between someone doing something stupid in public that is seen by maybe 10-100 people and then shared via word of mouth and someone doing something in public that is video taped and posted on the internet for countless millions to see. If I'm walking down the street and trip and fall and a few people see me that's going to be embarrassing, but it will be nowhere near as embarrassing as if my tripping and falling is recorded and ends up on YouTube.
The barriers to spontaneous recording like this have continued to fall, but barriers do still remain. If I see something happening on the streets right now I have to take out my phone (or camera), launch the camera app (which has become much easier), and begin recording. With glass, all I have to do is say something like, "OK Glass, record video" (or whatever the actual command is). This significantly lowers the barrier to capturing almost anything. There are certainly advantages to this when you're recording someone you're close to or who has consented to your recording (think capturing your kids first steps), but there are also tremendous disadvantages when it comes to privacy and strangers.
People on either side who are pretending that this is a simple issue are mistaken. Painting the issue as black and white, either everything is allowed or nothing is, ignores the intricacies of what's being discussed. Glass introduces an entirely new layer of complexity to the privacy debate that is separate from (but certainly related to) the debate about public webcams and government surveillance. I personally think that it's a good thing that people are at least thinking about these issues, as in the past they have largely been ignored. Maybe we can now start to return to an era where we appreciate the importance of privacy once again. The rules have to catch up to technology at some point.
People keep on comparing Glass to bluetooth headsets without actually reflecting on why we hate them. It bears repeating: we hate them because of those several awkward seconds where you try to reply, thinking you're being addressed. The "asshole" part comes when the headset user says something like "hold on, this guy thinks I'm talking to him" or something else that implies you're an idiot for not immediately recognizing the headset. It's embarrassing, and insulting, and dismissive. In short, it takes basic social conventions and protocol and rudely slugs it in the face. Said social conventions, even the customary "good morning" a fuel station clerk greets you with, is lubricant for the social gears of society, and those headset users are sand in the works. It's not the headsets at all - its the people using them that never apologize for the misconceptions they cause, or politely put their conversation on hold when they walk up to a pay window.
Everyone screams and wails about being "recorded in public," which I find hilarious, considering how much we're already recorded, tracked and observed. If you're in public, people can record you freely, and no court of law is going to give a rats ass that somebody was able to SEE you when you went walking around on a public sidewalk. No, the real discomfort comes from having a computer screen between you and the person you're talking to. Google Glass is the first step towards things like augmented reality and other such technologies; but the precedent we've all learned from is the Arrogant Headset Asshole; and so naturally that's the first association we make.
This is the problem.
It's not that Glass looks weird.
It's the idea that everyone and everything may soon be recorded, tagged with facial recognition data, stamped with GPS data, and floated off to the internet forever.
Wearable computing may have some exciting uses, but it ultimately portends the end of most of what privacy remains from government and others.
That is what people are reacting against.
Scanning these first comments, most of the complaints seem based on their own idea of Glass, or perhaps what they fear future devices may end up as, but not what Glass is today.
For example: It's crap as a media player (sound is poor, video is low-res and washed out) . It's not "always-on recording" or streaming everything to Google, and would rapidly run out of battery if you tried. It does light up when recording or taking pictures, like a regular video camera (and unlike phones or keychain camcorders). And Google specifically forbids ads on the whole platform.
Maybe one day some people will wear devices that are worth the hate, but Glass isn't it. Personally I see it all as another manifestation of the recent anti-Google narrative that's been so carefully constructed (e.g. ask yourself if you'd have the same reaction to "Apple Glass").
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
So recording someone is bad, but beating the crap out of someone is socially acceptable? Do you see tourists with cameras getting punched in the face often?
Seems to me a case of assault like you describe should be videoed.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I agree, the general public isn't as paranoid about privacy as many are here on Slashdot:
I've spent the last 8 months filming up women's skirts using a secret, hidden camera built into my shoe. Not one woman has complained yet.
I find people don't care about privacy, not until it's the "creepy" guy staring at them instead of the average guy filming them without their knowledge.
The difference here is that it isn't readily obvious if a person is being recorded. it adds a whole new range of 'creepy' to this gear. If you see someone holding a phone, they typically hold it in an almost horizontal fashion as they look down to navigate or browse. If you find someone holding a phone in front of them in a vertical fashion, it would be immediately obvious that they are recording or taking a photo. Glasses turns on the display, which could easily just be someone browsing, or doing any number of other activities. It's the fact that these could become mainstream, and could easily cloak that people are taking photos or videos with their target being unaware of what's going on. Only a fool states that only those doing something illegal have nothing to hide. EVERYONE has something to hide, be that a nasty habit of picking your nose, buying RID at the pharmacy, throwing Chicks with Dicks out in your trash, staring at your brothers wife's ass at the family reunion and having it uploaded afterwards, picking up HIV drugs at the pharmacy, etc. All of these things are potentially in the public view, but they are typically not readily available to be recorded an uploaded to youtube at the whim of a total stranger looking for 'likes' or a few laughs.
People have a certain expectation of privacy even in public, where a potentially live camera removes all doubt, and it can be uploaded to the net, which NEVER forgets.
Is it really that hard to understand why there is so much hate? Public surveillance is totally different in that the common public doesn't typically access it, and it's typically not available to upload on a whim to the net where it could potentially live forever.
it has benefits just as much as problems.
imagine if a cop knows he is being recorded by an unknown number of devices. You think he's still going to try to abuse a situation?