Slashdot Mirror
A Year With Google Glass
Mat Honan, a writer for Wired, has posted an article detailing his takeaways from long-term use of Google Glass. He makes particular note of how the device's form factor is much more offensive to others than the actual technology contained within. For example, his wife wanted him to take pictures and shoot videos of their child's birth, but not with Glass: "It was the way Glass looked. It might let me remain in the moment, but my wife worried it would take her out of it, that its mere presence would be distracting because it’s so goddamn weird-looking." It can get unpleasant when strangers are involved: "People get angry at Glass. They get angry at you for wearing Glass. They talk about you openly. It inspires the most aggressive of passive aggression. ... Wearing Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the “explorer” program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face." Honan found most of the default software to be handy, but the third-party software to be lacking. Glass also facilitated his unintentional switch from an iPhone to an Android phone. He ends the piece by warning of the inevitability of devices like Glass: "The future is on its way, and it is going to be on your face. We need to think about it and be ready for it in a way we weren’t with smartphones."
"The future is on its way, and it is going to be on your face. We need to think about it and be ready for it in a way we weren’t with smartphones."
You can't fight time.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
No dumbass, we just don't like you aiming a camera and microphone at everywhere you look.
"I'm going to wear these obnoxiously ugly glasses that happen to record everything I see. People object to my presence, but that's fine, because I totally spent one and a half thousand dollars on this accessory that marks me as a smug upper-class, privacy-invading nerd. Google Glass is here to stay (and don't forget I was into it before it was cool)."
When I wear it at work, co-workers sometimes call me an asshole. My co-workers at WIRED, where we’re bravely facing the future, find it weird. People stop by and cyber-bully me at my standing treadmill desk.
You've got a standing treadmill desk, and it's GLASS people make fun of?
This guy's already living the douche life.
The ads are more relevant to his interests than ever before!
Trolling is a art,
Go f*ck yourself Matt Honan. I should invent a "Glasshole Killer" hat which projects a bright IR light onto the user's face effectively blinding the device's recording capabilities.
It will take hell or hight water to get "Glass" onto the people that spend god awful amounts of money on fashion and tech toys. The glasses are ugly looking AND imply that you're being recorded. There is resistance for a reason. The glasses need to be completely innocuous for this entire fashion/tech concept to take off. "
My wife has given birth to two children. I am fairly certain I could have been doing a mariachi dance on her forehead, wearing a clown suit while singing the chorus to "My Heart Will Go On" in between bites of a cheeseburger and she wouldn't have noticed, or cared. She'd probably object to me using any networked appliance (including my phone) to take photos of her lady parts, but even that she wouldn't notice until later (and the murder case might even make slashdot, as the google glass may have been the murder weapon).
The people who made it abundantly clear what I could and could not photograph, and what I could not video tape (i.e. anything), were the hospital staff. I suppose that should my children have later developed Autism, ADHD, or bad grades in algebra, that I would use the video footage to sue them. They would definitely forbid google glass.
"The future is on its way, and it is going to be on your face. We need to think about it and be ready for it in a way we werenâ(TM)t with smartphones."
- what can you tell a man with 2 black eyes? Nothing, he has already been told twice.
You can't handle the truth.
>> Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the “explorer” program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion
Um...OK. Self esteem problem much?
>> his wife wanted him to take pictures and shoot videos of their child's birth, but not with Glass
Maybe she's one of those "passive aggressive" weirdos who doesn't want video of their private parts uploaded to the Internet. Good luck in divorce court, man.
It will work out fine for all the people that really love technology but don't actually have any real life friends. You know who I'm talking about. No friends = no one to object.
Personally, I'm offended if one of my friends spends more than a few seconds staring at a smartphone in a social situation. Its OK if they excuse themselves from the group, but it isn't if they are sitting with other people and mentally somewhere else. Google glass is the same, but maybe worse because you think they are there but aren't.
I think it's premature to assume the ubiquity of google glass. The Nokia Ngage failed, largely due to the highly negative social factor of holding an odd large plastic brick to your head in order to talk ("sidetalking").
That is the problem, not that the people wearing them are "elit" but that you have no way of telling if you are recorded or not. Fix that and people will no longer be irritated by it... but it would beep constantly so people would not want to wear them any more. (Like a friend of mine says about his Google glass, The best feature is that now he can take all the pictures of boobs and asses he wants and no one is the wiser.)
No privacy, people will speak in the most inoffensive way possible. They already do in America, the character has been sucked out of this country a long time ago. A lot of recording of day to day things no one wants to see again nor should. A lot of fear as well. Google glass doesn't offend me because of its form factor but what it represents. Most older people will probably have the same reaction if you took a smart phone while they were talking to you or in their range, and aimed it at them, making it seem you were recording them in one way or another.
I talk with some people who wondered how I ever lived before the internet (well, to be accurate, before the www), where the only way computers tangibly touched my daily lifes were with crappy games. You know, the dark ages. They think they are the blessed ones. For me, it's the opposite, I pity people who never lived before the cloud, social media, the web, what have you. My grandkids will be asking me what privacy will be like, and I will lean back and try to remember. But then I have to remember they will be recording what I say with their contacts or something and I will just huff and tell them to get off my lawn.
And it's not "inevitable". Just hip fanboi hype.
Problem with Goggle Glass is that it's in your face. It's conspicuous. It may not be recording at the moment, but you don't know that for sure.
It's like, if I'm walking around holding a cellphone in hand with arm stretched out and pointed in such a way that it looks like I'm recording a video, and then started engaging in conversation with people while still in that pose, but now the camera is pointed directly at them, people will get uncomfortable. (unless of course the person I"m talking to wants to be recorded). It's in their face. It's annoying.
Google Glass is kind of like that, all the time.
Another example: you might be walking around in a city where it's perfectly legal to carry firearms in public if you have a permit. And say it's a shall-issue state where anyone can get a permit if they don't have criminal records, so a large percentage of the population does. Now you're in a crowded city area, and you *know* many of the people are packing concealed heat. But it rarely crosses your mind because it's not in your face. Out of sight, out of mind.
But suppose instead of concealed carry, people are walking around openly wearing their Glocks on their hips, AK-47s slung across their shoulder and so on. This is in your face. Your reaction is going to be much different.
(or at least, frames which look ordinary) then you'll see wider adoption, especially among people who already have prescription lenses. You'd go to LensCrafters or whoever, choose one of the Google-Glass-compatible frames from whatever manufactures are partnered with Google (with bluetooth, speaker, and camera embedded in temple pieces), get your custom lenses ground and overlayed with a transparent embedded heads-up-display, and voila.
I'm guessing that the hardware isn't currently there, or at least not in such a small size, but soon probably.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
s/Pentium of Borg/the Google
Take your Google glass
And shove it up your ass
Of course, I used to feel the same way about cell phone users, but here I am 20 years later and I can't remember how I functioned without a cell. I figured out the point when I stopped feeling hatred towards cell phone users. It was when people stopped talking so much and started texting instead. Eventually, there will be glass-type devices that won't be annoying. But for now, I hate them.
Just like
:)
http://www.youtube.com/user/SurveillantCameraMan?feature=watch
Only missionaries had a good time with him
Adverts straight to your eyeball, marvellous. SNOWCRASH.
Personally, I don't give a fig what they look like. They don't look particularly odd to me at all, and I would no sooner welcome someone pointing a cam-corder or smartphone at me for no apparent reason (or especially if the apparent reason was that I was giving birth at the time -- sheesh!)
"Class divide"? Please. $1500 is not a lot of money for plenty of hobbies that are popular among most classes that can scrape together any amount of money at all. How far will $1500 go if you are into working on cars? Riding bicycles? Doing anything that requires a reasonably capable personal computer?
Maybe Google Glass isn't what is turning people off of Google Glass wearers. Maybe it is the wearers that are turning people off Google Glass.
I am really looking forward to getting my Google glass. I believe what I am going to enjoy the most is watching the angry glares, given from a safe distance, of the keyboard warriors who vowed to kick the ass of anyone wearing glass, yet the closest they have ever gotten to fisticuffs in the real world is a round of Wii boxing before they had to collapse on the couch because they were too winded to go on.
Huh? You just described how everyone hates you for wearing it. Why would this be the future if everyone hates it?
I'm curious, could he be sued by someone who flashed him and he glass-posted it to the Internet? Where is the line drawn?
I come here for the love
Recording or not, probably is inevitable some sort of augumented vision in the future, something that would be as visible in your face as Google Glass for several years still. Will it be the future? Not sure, but the future will look like it in the essentials for sure.
Wearing Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the âoeexplorerâ program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face.
More likely: Wearing Glass separates you by telling everyone immediately that you are likely recording them without asking.
..just hold your own smartphone up by your face, as if you're recording them while you talk to them. Whether you are recording or not, I can't imagine the Glasshole won't be slightly annoyed by what you are doing.
Imagine you're using your laptop in the subway, some guy wearing Glass sits next to you, peeks at your screen for 1 second, and starts analyzing what you're working on, using his Glass.
PS: I wonder what Glass would have looked like if a human's ears were not located at approximately the same height as their eyes.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
That's planned for next year when availability is increased. It's the only thing that's kept me from getting them. For those places that don't allow it, I'll keep an extra, normal pair of glasses in my car, similar to what I already do with sunglasses.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Somehow I doubt that all would be required to make you forget you're squeezing a baby out is Google Glass. I'm fairly confident in saying nothing would do that, actually.
The technology is too new and foreign for most people to feel comfortable around it. Until this technology becomes more ubiquitous it won't be considered normal and okay. Another issue is that it's an offense to fashion and anything worn that is bizarre enough will receive strange looks.
Like a friend of mine says about his Google glass, The best feature is that ...
Wait until you start seeing a lot of pictures like that posted to the Internet, with little notes like "I took this with my Google Glass". You think the reactions now are hostile? You ain't seen nuttin yet.
I have another theory that plays on top of any feelings about monitoring. We're pretty comfortable treating cameras in general as eyes. Now imagine if someone has a third eye, and it's not even centered, it's just slightly one of their eyes. Trust based on eye contact is weirdly disrupted and you don't like talking to him.
Bluetooth headsets had a similar dynamic when it comes to setting expectations, as illustrated with some hilarity here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSV_CvoaCak#t=01m42 We've gotten used to seeing people walking along apparently talking to themselves; we can get used Google Glass, too.
Once it gets into the hands of the pubescents out there, any social norms may be thrown out the window. Today's kids grew up w/ the likes of FB/twitter/etc, and saw no problems with sharing everything about their lives on the 'net. Today, many or most do not care that they are constantly broadcasting their location to the ether, with GPS accuracy (I might add, as most of us put up with the fact that we broadcast our locations to cell towers at all times). Tomorrow's kids, once price and availability for Glass (or something like it) are more consumer oriented, will glom onto it as a favorite new toy. There will be lots of apps and utilities; new social sites designed for Glass such as FacePalm (tm) that the kids will flock to (until their parents learn how to use it); and they will create their own games and memes.
sr
Hey you kids, quit looking at my lawn!
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Problem solved! ...but you would have to wear a mask all the time...
as others hinted, but after skimming the top comments didn't see it spelled out: if you're wearing Google Glass, thanks to the NSA's intrusive surveillance network, you're spying on all of us for free, in fact you paid to do it. that not only makes you an agent of one of the world's most evil governments, it makes you a fool. I can promise you, I won't be passive-aggressive if I see you wearing them, I'll probably be in your face.
I've had Glass for a couple of weeks and the experience has been interesting. I live in a area w/ about 250,000 people and there are probably fewer than five (including myself) who have Glass. I've been wearing them around town to see how people react to them and so far it seems pretty positive. Some people just kind of look at me oddly, but many people recognize what it is and ask me what the experience is like. This is what I tell them: Sure, it's great to have access to (most) of the Google Now functionality without needing to look down at my phone. Text messages delivered to the HUD is handy, as is responding to them via voice. For the most part though, there isn't a whole lot these do yet, certainly not enough for average consumers to care. That said, the potential for business/industrial use is HUGE. Most people's first experience with Glass won't be as a consumer item, but rather as something they use for work. Think construction workers, or people who work in hospitals or laboratories. Many people will be exposed to these via applications in the work environment. You, as a consumer, may not be very interested in Glass, but there are many businesses who want/need something like this for their workforce.
Imagine NSA infecting Google glass - they will be able to see what you see without you knowing about it :)
Thanks Google
It's more like this decade's tablet. You can tell it's coming, but that doesn't mean a poor innovator like Google can just slap something together and throw it out there. It's going to have to be done by someone who actually knows that they're doing.
Just another toy for the NSA!
I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but every time I wear something on my head for more than an hour or so I get a headache. This goes for glasses, headphones, earbuds and all kinds of hats. So I will probably never use this kind of device (at least not a lot).
Anyone walking down the street wearing those should be included in a game of knockout.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the “explorer” program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face.
Really? You point a video recording device at people and you think they are getting annoyed because you are so elite? That comment says way more about the author of the article than it does about the people he interacted with.
I took this with my Google Glass.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Or, as a Glass user myself, I would simply look at you oddly and then feel sorry for the fact that you don't understand the technology, how it works, how you actually use it, and that you're so entrenched in your hatred for the device that you're willing to take hyperbole into the physical realm.
I don't understand the hate on this site. Maybe its Microsoft and Apple shills trying to drum up negativity about the device. Where I'm from (East Coast) people were excited to see it. When I was down in Miami with my company for part of an art exhibit that contained Glass, people were excited to see it. I can count on the number of thumbs on my right hand the number of people that were cantankerous and that was a guy who hated Google because he personally hated Sergey.
Maybe I just don't live in the right area to see all of this hate... Also, I seem to remember a post about an early iDevice that played music...
Look, aside from the fact that they're way too heavy and the battery and accouterments are a pain, your right to record people ends where my fist starts.
Comprende?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Wearing Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the “explorer” program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected)." You think this reaction is because people are all jelly about your glasses? REALLY??? YOU REALLY THINK THIS??? REALLLYYYY????? REAAAAALLLLLLLYYYYY???????? I am sorry my friend but you have lost touch with reality and I must help you back to ground. The reason people respond the way they do is because the second you look at them they are feeling like they are being spied on by you. Nevermind the fact that they are spied upon everyday by the government, the government keeps that out of their face. You however are pointing a camera at them and announcing it to the world. People don't like their photo taken without their permission, again nevermind that happens all day every day in public by security cams. Even if Google glasses became google contacts (which I am sure they will one day), if people know that you are wearing them, people are going to be uncomfortable around you.
Stick a small led on it so I know when you're recording, taking pictures or video or whatever and I'll be happy.
effectively blinding the device's recording capabilities.
Kickstarter, please? I'll pledge for sure.
2014 will bring us the first murder of someone wearing Google glass.
You're forgetting that /.'s audience has dwindled down to mostly just the paranoid libertardian techies.
Treadmill desks are actually cool. A lot of what I do is reading, thinking and typing - and (except for debugging really intricate logic), I do that as well whether I'm sitting or walking 1.6 mph. I am pleased with how my 2nd hand ikea desk + used treadmill is working out for me. An example: jerker-treadmill-desk (not mine, but a similar setup - I've read the jerker desk is out of production at Ikea, I was lucky enough to find one on craigslist).
So yeah, I'm a fan of the treadmill desk and recommend them.
Unless of course basic fitness smells too much of douchery for you, then never mind.
I will only consider it if I can change the voice activation sequence from "OK Glass, ___." to "Go Go Gadget ___!"
Koans and fables for the software engineer
My interaction at the local hospital. The 2 page contract you sign to get healthcare notes how you will have your picture taken (aka surveillance) and how you can revoke that permission at anytime.
Ask permission to record the woman who's refusing the revocation you are filing and when you ask for her name she covers the nametag and asks you to stop recording. Another older nurse tells you how you can't record any of them and then calls security that you are 'making threats' - and now without a recording the he said she said discussion is now very one-sided.
The real crime here - the nurse placing her middle finger along side her nose and then claiming she was not whipping the bird....she just had a nose to scratch isn't on video to go on youtube.
Recording everything around you has the possible effect of protect you from false charges by people in positions of power. So long as no one in power deletes or loses the videos that embarrass them.
I can see the potential in glass but I don't like the idea of Google being behind this. Like everything else made by Google it will eventually become an ad infested data mining device. Do not want. As a matter of fact, I am trying to move away from all Google services because their presence is starting to creep me out.
You think wearing Google Glass "separates you"? Well, so would walking around everywhere you go holding up a cell phone as though you're ready to take a picture or you're actively shooting a video.
I don't see people generally taking kindly to this behavior.
And why would that surprise you... unless you've drunk Google's kool-aid or you're a shill for them.
Buzz off, I say!
I'll punch whoever wears one in the face and end this orwellian nightmare.
Google has managed to come up with something even more intrusive than this classic evil scheme from The Phone Company.
For a small, wearable device. Whenever it detects someone filming/recording you with Google Glass, or the equivalent, it saturates the sensor of it with IR/UV/microwaves/EMP blast/bullets/whatever.
Sort of an anti-glass.
Or, possibly, we see our privacy slowly eroding, and people wearing glass as the modern equivalent of or the cheerleaders for this movement.
I view it as a stepping stone to more loss of rights, and you as their willing accomplice masking it as innovation and modernity.
To make the analogy: you're the sailor working on a slave ship wondering why people hate sailing.
These are too big, too obvious.
Best wishes,
Bob
"Maybe its Microsoft and Apple shills" said the AC writing a shout out for Glass.
Someone misses the point completely. Whether or not people have fifteen hundred dollars US to plop down on this meaningless spy recorder, people don't want to be spied upon by anyone, especial a fucking corporation sponsoring a dupe like you.
"People get angry at Glass. They get angry at you for wearing Glass. They talk about you openly. It inspires the most aggressive of passive aggression. ... Wearing Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the “explorer” program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face."
It wont stop until the Rest of Us have a chance at it - and that it is just as open as the Nomenklatura Edition is.
Once Google stops using these kind of shenanigans with their products, the better off they will be.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Glass is recording even when the red light isn't on.
This is just a wearable HUD, why is people so obsessed about people with glass being on a 24/7 stream of whatever the user is seeing?
First, nobody has the mobile bandwidth for a 24/7 stream. Nor the storage space. Nor the battery.
Second, you aren't that interesting when you are outside. No. Really, you really aren't. On the street every one of you, myself included, is as notorious as a gray pixel in a perlin noise image. Unless you live in a village where everyone knows each other, and even so, they already know you.
I have never seen a device creating such a level of paranoia and stupidity. You are supposed to be the smart guys, not the ones crying around like old men fearing something new. Stupidity like "hold your phone in front of them durrrr" or "punch them!" . Are you serious? Why not burn them at the stake, since you are talking unreasonable bravado, why not go the extra mile. Let's burn them all!
Fearing that magical device that surely records you without any action from the wearer. I assume that to take a picture you gotta press a button or say a keyword aloud or something, it's not gonna read your mind and turning you into a magical cyborg spy.
Of all people the people of slashdot should know the limits of technology better. You are just disappointing, I'd expect this from pitchfork villagers, not readers of "news for nerds", some hardware developers or hobbyists that know how stuff is supposed to work. You know how much taking photos and video drains the battery of a cell phone. This is a mere attachment to a cell phone, and is subject to the same limitations. Imagine a Pebble watch.
Sure, consider me a troll for being realistic, I got karma to spare. But if you want to believe in the magical device that will record you indefinitely, with an infinite battery, storage and network bandwidth so google can specifically see you scratch your crotch at a public place, sure, go ahead.
And, no, my privacy when I am outside doesn't bother me at all. I look my BEST when I am outside, please record me like that. I am precisely ready to be seen. And I am already being recorded at work, and my behavior is pretty impeccable.
And, besides, if google actually managed to produce magic to have a full stream of you talking to the glass user...you really want to be recorded being a little douchebag pointing your phone at him/her thinking you are making some heroic statement for freedom, but in reality just being a rude guy? I seriously doubt you do.
As for me, I like the idea, specially for potential AR stuff, but sounds like it will induce headaches easily. I might want to wait for an advanced second version or similar.
cause its rude and invasive, just like those cock knockers that cant take their eyes off the phone long enough to engage in a simple conversation, but these take it to the next level cause now your too fucking lazy to hold a phone, and you pretend your life is so important that you need a computer strapped to your fucking face 24 7
You're forgetting that /.'s audience has dwindled down to mostly just the paranoid libertardian techies.
The "techies" part is debatable.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
you don't understand the technology
It's a fucking recording device shoved straight in the faces of anyone you look at.
how it works
It fucking records things.
how you actually use it
Getting tired of repeating myself.
that you're so entrenched in your hatred for the device that you're willing to take hyperbole into the physical realm.
What hyperbole?
YOU ARE AIMING A FUCKING RECORDING DEVICE AT ANYONE YOU ENCOUNTER.
If you don't understand why people take issue with that, well - the term glasshole is apt, to be sure.
"Wearing Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the âoeexplorerâ program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face."
That's not why people were angry at you. They were angry at you because you were potentially filming them without their consent. If you had a big ass camera glued to your side, people would be angry too. What a jerk.
It can be stopped by a law book (at least in country where privacy is held at a premium like Europe, probably not in the US where privacy is substandard). And in case the law is too weak, since law book are so huge, you can still accidentally bump the glass off the head of somebody and let the heavy law book drop on the glass. After a while, people will start to get "it". As for making the glass innocuous looking, that would be a nightmare for everybody wearing classic normal corrective glasses, because you can bet we WILL be collateral damage. But glass being allowed and accepted by the big public ? Doubtful.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'd punch him in the face just for writing that, let alone wearing Google Glass.
Human eyes and ears are cameras and microphones, if only we learn to recall past events and transfer them to outside world.
You cannot hide anything in public places. It makes no sense at all.
"People get angry at Glass. They get angry at you for wearing Glass. They talk about you openly. It inspires the most aggressive of passive aggression. ... Wearing Glass separates you. It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the âoeexplorerâ program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face." [emph. added]
I agree and disagree with many of the above statements, but overall, I just think he simply doesn't get it.
People start talking about you openly because, hello, you are there with a device that can record their every action and every word they say, and you wear the device knowing what it can do, and without caring about whether other people like that or not. So if you allow yourself the liberty to disregard everyone else, why would you expect to be treated any differently? Maybe they think talking about you will make you stop, since for legal reasons they might not have any other way to stop you at most public spaces - besides common sense and basic social etiquette which you might consider learning about sometime.
And yes, wearing it might set you apart, but not because we might think you are 'special', or that Google thought you're 'special', but because it makes an obvious statement that you don't care about other people's opinion of being monitored and recorded without notice, which makes you a jerk (at least).
When meeting with GGlass-wearing people, I ask them to put it away while having a conversation. If they don't, then I shouldn't be talking to them anyway.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
So this would have been Google's approach to getting Glass on the air. Nobody is going to punch out a man in a wheelchair wearing Glass to free up hands that may have limited function. Once we get used to seeing Glass on the handicapped, the rest of us would already be perceiving it as useful for various kinds of hands-free work. Its coolness factor would be established, rather than that "glasshole" image.
> Maybe its Microsoft and Apple shills trying to drum up negativity about the device
They are probably developing their own prototypes, so, nope.