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 -

[crossmr]

But if you tag someone in a photo who doesn't have a profile, it won't matter. It doesn't link to anything.

It's a shame you're on a tech site but so ignorant of the technology that you're speaking out against. The way HR sees photos of your on facebook is because they find your profile and you have privacy set to public, and photos of you that friends tagged, which you approved are also sitting there publicly on your wall.

They don't find them via your friends profiles. They find them because of the connection to your profile.
So if you aren't on facebook, there is no profile for them to connect to, and they won't be showing up in any searches.

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?

Re:OK let's get something straight here -

[Anonymous Coward]

..or they find them because, you know, I don't have a social-media account but my dim-whitted cousin tagged me by name in a photo and when an employer types in "XYZ name and XYZ town they find pics of me on his feed. i have no profile so the tags float until i create an account and turn tagging off.

Search engines index all the shit they can.

You don't need a profile.

I know because it's happened to me.

-C.R.

Re:Kunta Kinta Speaks His Thougts and the World +

[hawguy]

listens? Why not ask Roger Moore? How about the closet guy, the ex-Mr Nocole Kidman? The dude is an actor. And from the last Sci-Fi, Syfi?, movie of the day, not a very good one.

Because he spent 10 seasons of TNG wearing a more advanced (and less stylish) Google Glass.

Marketed wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Glass is marketed in the wrong way. Just like Segway they're trying to hype it for use by everybody all the time and justifiably it's backfiring on them. They should market it quietly to niche applications, e.g. HUD-like instructions and videos for DIY jobs, easy-to-use trail maps / plant identification for hikers, or self-service tours for tourists. These are useful applications that don't impact society on a grand scale, and later on the public can decide if they want to adapt it to more widespread use, at their own pace.

Re:Everyone thought cell phones were stupid too.

[Zero__Kelvin]

I don't recall everyone thinking cell phones were stupid. When did that happen? I remember a lot of people saying "That's cool. I wish I were rich so I could have one too." I recall a small segment of the population saying that they didn't need one. I don't recall anyone saying they were stupid.

Re:Kunta Kinta Speaks His Thougts and the World +

[dottrap]

Brown Zune?

"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.

Re:"Celebrity?"

[SeaFox]

Never heard of this guy.

He actually is a celebrity, known amongst geeks for his character on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Asking his opinion on Google Glass is completely intentional, as his character on the series was a blind man who viewed the word through a device that sat at eye-level on his head [link to pics] and interfaced directly with the visual cortex. The device allowed him to see the world in an unnatural but heightened way far outside the normal visible light-spectrum, closer to electromagnetic spectrum (someone will reply to this and give exact spectrum/wavelengths I'm sure).

So some marketoid is trying to draw a parallel between the character's visor and Google Glass.

Re:"Celebrity?"

[Bite The Pillow]

"Never heard of this guy" usually means "I hang out everywhere, and the name doesn't ring a bell".

It could mean, "I know a whole crapload of celebrities, and while many of you might know him, he's not a blip on the radar".

Sometimes, it means, "I did a quick search to see if I could figure out which LeVar Burton you meant, and it could be a CEO in Chicago, or a babysitter in Shithole, LA."

From time to time, it means, "I have read every horsecrap shitfilled cockgargling arsemunching word you assfucks have written in the last five years and this fuckstain doesn't even appear in the retarded, window-licking, drooling masses of fools who have managed to bang enough keys in the form of a not-immediately-dismissable-sentence, posts that I have subjected myself to in that time, so you must not know s/him either."

In this case, it means, "I am not the target audience for the site I'm posting on, and I don't know this, and therefore everyone should ignore me because I'm an idiot who should take an arrow to the knee."

Re:Right...

[93 Escort Wagon]

One can be opposed to the "Google" part without being against the "Glass" concept - although I do somewhat lean in the direction you mention anyway (I've got a smartphone and don't really see the added value here).

I would not be opposed, in theory, to something like Google Glass that was completely under my control. But I've come to realize that using free services from companies like Google and Facebook means I also have to give away something I'd prefer they not have - more or less unfettered access to much of my personal data. And, perhaps more importantly, I've learned that even if I choose not to use those services, they're slurping up my information without my consent (via shadow profiles) if any of my acquaintances are using their services.

Re:I'm waiting for "Google Ass"

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Google will probably be at the end of discrimination lawsuits then. The standard for women is having two legs (though sometimes more than two is acceptable) and the standard for men is a car, a full head of hair, a full set of teeth, a job, a single person house, willing to pay for dinner (a coffee date is not acceptable) and willing to accommodate even the worst of character flaws.

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.

Ah, I see

[glwtta]

Apparently "knee-jerk response" now means "opinion I disagree with". Good to know!