LeVar Burton On Google Glass

An anonymous reader writes "While he acknowledged that technology needs to keep going forward, LeVar Burton didn't seem comfortable with the idea of using Google Glass. '"It disturbed me. I was skeptical... [and] I'm a person that's very open to technology." That's the reaction LeVar Burton, the man best known from Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: The Next Generation, first had when encountering Google Glass backstage at Engadget Expand. Burton, a self-described edutainment pioneer, acknowledges the disruptive power new technologies can have on media and culture — after all, he did help transform television into a worthy educational tool/babysitter with his PBS program. But even with that storied success, and his company's current inroads into digital with an iPad Reading Rainbow application, Burton still had a "knee-jerk" response when confronted with Glass. Although his celebrity status and the resulting paranoia could have something to do with it.'"

Comments

OK let's get something straight here -

[Anonymous Coward]

... Burton still had a "knee-jerk" response when confronted with Glass. Although his celebrity status and the resulting paranoia could have something to do with it.'"

When you have employers looking at Facebook and college admissions people looking at Tweets, um yeah, the average guy needs to be paranoid. You better be paranoid!

And it's not just self published stuff. How many of you have had friends and family post pictures of YOU without asking?

*raises hand*

It happened to a friend of mine. She wasn't drinking. The waitress was asking us to pass drinks down the table. her friend just happened to snap a photo when she had a drink in each hand - and then she posted the photo on FB.

And with editiing?

Good grief, I can video anyone and with some creative editing, make them look horrible.

And when you are say, trying to get a job, the person who's looking you up isn't going to contact you and ask what the story is! Fuck no! They are going to draw their own conclusions.

People will take any little bit of information about someone and turn it into a complete profile about someone.

It happens here all the time - people draw conclusions about others just from a single post.

Re:OK let's get something straight here -

[Bogtha]

There's lots of problems with Facebook, but let's not pretend you're completely helpless about other people's photos of you.

If you're tagged in a photo, you can exercise your privacy controls over it. If you aren't tagged in the photo, a prospective employer isn't going to see it when they look at your profile.

Re:OK let's get something straight here -

[wickerprints]

Not all technology is great, and questioning what constitutes an appropriate use of technology is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it fair to characterize such people as having "knee-jerk" reactions. Who is the summarizer to assume or claim that Mr. Burton hasn't been thoughtful about his reservations, or to imply that he is being paranoid because he's a celebrity? That is, quite frankly, insulting and corrosive.

Re:OK let's get something straight here -

[tftp]

The behavior of feudal lords and HR people is caused by the same reason: mistrust. And they are not entirely wrong here. Many people - just as you are saying - are good, honest workers who always separate their work and their free time. But "many" is not a specific number. IMO, not more than 25% of all workers are inclined to maintain such separation. Some of them do not want; some cannot; some do not care; some are interested to work as little as possible. The majority of workers allow some leakage of their off the clock habits into their on the clock activities. Employers do not object to some of that, but abuse of trust is not a well defined line in the sand. Given the choice, HR picks employees who are less likely to become a liability. You can claim all you want that on weekends you are a completely different person than on weekdays, but nobody is going to spend time on evaluating your statements - unless you are a unique employee who has unique skills. Many programmers are like that, but very few accountants or pizza delivery people are.

Besides, as I said in my example, if you are doing your daredevil stunts on weekends, it does not matter how honest you are if you are in a hospital with 123 broken bones, unable to complete that complex project where you are the leader. The same will happen if you get arrested, or lost in the woods, or sick - those are objective factors that do not depend on your intent. I knew people who got injured in a game of hockey and had to spend some days away from work. You would say that this is normal behavior and normal accidents that all people have from time to time, and that is true. However this does not prevent HR from selecting only those applicants who present below the average risk. After all, this is the primary function of HR - to evaluate applicants and to select only those who are the best for the company. This does lead to rejection of normal behavior; but what can anyone do about that?

"Celebrity?"

[Animats]

Never heard of this guy.

There are bad, overhyped ideas that are well executed and actually work. The Segway, for example.

A few historical examples:

• The S. S. United States. Fastest transatlantic ocean liner ever built. 3 days, 10 hours from New York to England. Worked great. Still afloat and being restored as a museum ship. Built too late - by 1952, airliners were already crossing the Atlantic.
• Home control. Tried over and over since the 1950s, first with 24VDC relay systems, then X10 ("X10! X10! X10!...") in the 1980s, and now being re-hyped again. Works fine. Solves a non-problem.
• Maglev trains. Work fine. Go fast. Track costs too much.
• Supersonic airliners. The Concorde worked well for decades. Supersonic booms over land were unacceptable, which limited routes. Supersonic fuel consumption is 3x subsonic. Just not economic.
• Short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft. Not quite a flying car, but workable aircraft with very low stall speeds and very short runway requirements have been built for decades. Just taxi out of your driveway and take off on the street, right? No.

Google's head-mounted things may be in this category.

ooooh, ooooh, I get it!

[Gordo_1]

LeVar Burton played Geordie LaForge on Star Treak -- a character who could not see except by virtue of a digital visor he wore. Now the actor in real life tries something that's also sorta similar -- if you wave your hands, squint your eyes and gesture knowingly. What are the odds! The parallels must have been mindblowing! Life imitating art! The jokes must now write themselves! Queue the Benny Hill music...

The problem with Google Glass

[NynexNinja]

The problem with Google Glass is not the hardware itself, it is the privacy implications of using the device, which sends everything to an untrusted third party. It would be different if they offered the option of never communicating with their network, but they don't offer that as an option. So, essentially anyone who has an agreement with google (NSA, FBI, other governments, other companies, etc) will get copies of your location, pictures coming off the camera, video, microphone data, etc. Those issues alone are the reasons why I would never actually use one. Until Google is serious about separating the umbilical cord from devices like this from talking to their servers, it remains a serious problem about ever using it for anything long term. It's bad enough you might be already using an Android or iPhone device which does almost the same thing, minus the video and audio stream.