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Google Tells Glass Users Not To Be 'Creepy Or Rude'

Posted by Soulskill on from the non-glass-users-can-be-as-creepy-as-they-like dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the biggest worries about the rise of wearable computing is the ease with which random strangers will be able to record your actions without your knowing. Right now, it's pretty easy to tell if somebody's holding up their cellphone to take some video. But when everybody's wearing Google Glass, or something similar, it will become harder to tell. This has led to preemptive bans on Glass in certain places. Now, Google has published a list of Do's and Don'ts to tell Glass users how they should behave politely in public. Do: ask for permission before recording people. Don't: ignore the world around you, expect that people won't notice, or wear it during a cage fight. Most importantly, don't 'be creepy or rude.' Google says, 'Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends.'"

5 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. But... by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    Creepy and rude nerds are their target market. How's that going to work?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:But... by bloodhawk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I certainly don't trust Corporates or governments with power, I trust the average person with power to monitor me a 1000 time less. The average moron has no respect for anyone elses privacy or rights and thinks what they find acceptable trumps everyone elses rights to decency.

    2. Re:But... by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Interesting

      which is why Glass will never take off.
      Consumer products are only successful if they're marketed to cool, sociable people, not loser nerds with no lives.

      I'm their target market.

      I'm not a creepy nerd either. I'm a middle-aged business man with a nice wife, a nice house, a reasonable car, and a reasonable job that requires me to inspect and manage engineering works in progress.

      I have always obtained and used the best mobile recording tools for the job: Digital cameras as soon as they were available. Those Olympus electronic voice recorders/transcribers. I still have a Compaq Concerto tablet PC from the early '90s, The first Palm Pilot, and several later iterations of the marque. Win CE PDAs and phones. Nokia N800s. Several varieties of Android phones and tablets. If a tool saves me time, it makes me money.

      If I could get a Glass, I'd be using it now. It's a tool, not a toy and will succeed or fail based on how good a tool it is.

      You can call me a Glasshole if you like. I don't care, as long as it's making my job easier and better.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  2. Glassholio by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's very smart of Google to recognize that "Glasshole" is an inevitable slang term to be applied to some (most?) Glass users. They're trying to get ahead of the term and define it to apply to only the worst kinds of users.

    Still, they face an uphill battle if they hope to create a positive public image for Glass. If only 1 in 10,000 Glass users behaves in a socially unacceptable way, that one person will be the focus of endless sensationalist news coverage.

  3. Re:Degausse by LordKronos · · Score: 5, Funny

    Working on a ranged degausser for any glass user pointing it in my direction.

    Wow. I didn't realize google glass was storing its data on magnetic media. Or do you mean that the eye piece is actually a mini CRT?