“It’s a Wednesday night, and I’m turning heads on the sidewalk. People are slowing halfway down the block as I approach. They’re whispering about me as I walk through the room. Strangers are watching me, sometimes even stopping me on the street,” Hayley Tsukayama reports for The Washington Post. “Why? Because I’m wearing Google Glass. And I hate it.”
“Headed into a week with Glass, on loan from a co-worker, I was prepared to review a buggy product. Glass, after all, is still in testing, and has only been released to developers, media and just a handful of ‘normal’ people who were willing to spend $1,500 on an untested product,” Tsukayama reports. “I expected tension headaches from constantly trying to focus on a floating screen above my line of vision. (I got only one headache, for what it’s worth.) I even prepared myself to be comfortable talking aloud to the product in public because you can control Glass through voice commands.”
“What I wasn’t prepared for was the attention I got. Sporting Glass put me among only a handful of people in Washington, and that meant getting a lot of looks,” Tsukayama reports. “I’ve heard just about every privacy concern raised about Glass, but, as the one wearing the device, I wasn’t expecting that the privacy most invaded would be my own. That type of anxiety should lessen over time, particularly as Google works with designer labels such as Luxottica’s Oakley and Ray-Ban to make prettier models. But anyone who opts to buy Glass should be ready and willing to become a constant topic of conversation and to answer questions from strangers… ‘Is she wearing Google Glass?’ ‘Is that what I think that is?’ ‘Are you recording, like, right now?’ ‘You look ridiculous.’ Or, my personal favorite, delivered deadpan, from a friend: ‘Oh. Hayley.'”
Tsukayama reports, “But beyond the personal privacy issues, I found that Google Glass is an intriguing device that has a lot of flaws. After more than two years in development, the number of remaining technical bugs is surprising.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Buggy Spywear.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Barry Coyle” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Through a Google Glass, darkly; surveillance of, by, and for the people – April 18, 2014
Spyware app can secretly take photos from Google Glass without user’s knowledge – March 26, 2014
Google Glass-wearing woman claims attack at San Francisco bar – February 26, 2014
Scoble: Google Glass is doomed – January 2, 2014
One year wearing Google Glass: ‘Look at that asshole’ – December 31, 2013
Why an Apple iWatch has better chances than Google Glass – November 6, 2013
Apple’s Siri lambastes Google Glass – August 26, 2013
Google Glass ban list grows; top 10 places banning Google Glass – August 7, 2013
Google Glass is the genius-idea equivalent of the Segway. yeah, it’s cool technology, but is only for people with no sense of self.
what a doofus. he was annoyed that everybody could see that he was wearing google glasses, that they don’t the right to know that he could be recording them all the time.
Twenty-five years ago, anywhere I’d show up with my Mac SE30, I was treated with contempt. It isn’t easy defending your choices when you’re being smothered by ignorance.
I stopped defending and bought a PowerBook 190. Lugging the lovable luggable lost out to color and a new found joy in my new toy.
An Apple hater just gave me a single star.
I have no problem with engineers, surgeons and a few other professions wearing these, but you’re a douchnozzle if you’re in public wearing them.
I don’t have people pointing their cameras at me and recording, so don’t bring up that dead argument…it’s not the same, but the outcome would be the same if anyone did shove a phone camera in my face.
Paparazzi point cameras at public figures for a living, not at you obviously, and it causes some to lose their cool, which makes for an even bigger payday.
but you’re a douchnozzle if you’re in public wearing them.
Too bad, soon you won’t even recognize these “douchnozzle’s” when Google Glass is wrapped in designer frames and prescription glass.
We have the ignorant to thank for that; spewing hate for a product they don’t understand, causing the developers to conceal it in “everyday wear”.
Quasimodo ring a bell?
I agree with you, that these glasses have their place in society and could prove to be beneficial myriad ways, but just like the Macintosh, which was ridiculed to no end, Google Glass will overcome the ignorance and prevail.
I’m not defending the douche nozzles who surreptitiously record those around them, but come on! not everyone is recording just because they’re wearing these glasses.
My Macintosh is not a toy, just because the ignorant say it is.
Retribution Ware: Laser Glass.®™
It has Google Glass recognition software written into it’s sensor ROM. A low intensity laser beam scans for Glass wearers. Once identified, the sensor focuses on the Glass’s camera. Once the target is its sights, Laser Glass shoots a 1,000 watt laser beam at the Glass’s camera and blows out its sensor chip. A game show “DING” sound is then played while a white target tick mark appears on the side of Laser Glass’s temples. If you fill up 20 target ticks, you receive the next upgrade of Laser Glass for free.
©2014, : – Derek Currie 😉
cool… but… what if an android phone came by… and it recognized it as something from Google and…
oh wait… nevermind…
In your mind, who would make such a product?
The person who gave me a single star is close-minded and isn’t interested in advancing the conversation.
A single-star means STFU here at MDN.
SSOB: The Secret Society Of Berzerkers. 😉
Where do we join and what does it cost?
Don’t call us. We’ll call you.
Don’t pay us. We’ll pay you.
I have no interest in joining the Google Collective. If I wanted to be a Borg, I’d go to acting school, and try to get on the cast of Star Trek. Both ideas are just about as silly as the other.
Resistance Is Futile!
What do you suppose will be Apple’s equivalent to Google Glass? Where will Apple put the cameras if not in phones?
The embedded camera is the novelty that is only going to grow, not go away. What is lost on most is, at the very least Google isn’t concealing the camera, it’s right there in the open, giving everyone warning.
Now that you have bashed this cool tech unmercifully, Google is left with no choice but to disguise the product by wrapping it up in designer frames.
This is the result of ridicule and scorn spewed by those who lose their minds whenever they see Glass in public. Well here we are, now we won’t know where the camera is anymore.
Ignorance is futile!
If Apple releases a product with a camera that wear on your face, meant to be worn all the time, I will lose a lot of respect for them.
Apple is all about changing the world, but in good ways, not just because they can.
——RM
“I will lose a lot of respect for them.”
So you’re saying not even Apple could make wearing a camera on your face cool? I don’t share your opinion. I respect yours though, but I can’t help but believe that a lot of scorn for Glass can be attributed to a handful of people who have abused the product, and more importantly, a groundswell of paranoia.
GoPro is turning that notion on its head and some of the best videos are captured using this product.
Yeah, but is GoPro meant to be worn everywhere? That’s the problem I have with Google Glass — the end game of this product is a populace connected to the internet every waking moment of every day. It’s actually not the camera that drives me batty as much as the idea that you’re supposed to have the internet in front of your face all the time. That just seems sick, as in literally unhealthy. At least people do put their smartphones away from time to time.
——RM
Evolutionarily, it took nature over four billion years to perfect the human asshole. Google can turn you into one in under a minute.
hahaha, good one.
The “Best Comment” of the year!
See my comment above. Who’d have thought Google could have such a profound effect on those who don’t even wear Google glass?
If wearing GG makes someone as asshole, just for wearing them, what do you call those who react violently whenever they’re around them? Guilty? Paranoid?
I submit, where Google went wrong is, in the marketing of this product. Because it’s been in Beta, Google didn’t bother to explain Glass to the rest of us, to dispel the ignorance that flourishes whenever the perception of Voodoo envelops small-minded people.
If GG didn’t contain a camera, no one would give a fuck!
Welcome to george Orwell’s 1984.
Instead of big brothers it’s google.
Game over for privacy especially if google gets it’s devices in your home.
they’ll sell the data to the gov’t, if the price is right…and it always will be if the gov’t can’t get a warrant to get the data for free
“After more than two years in development, the number of remaining technical bugs is surprising.”
That’s Google, perpetual beta, year after year.
“…People are slowing halfway down the block as I approach. They’re whispering about me as I walk through the room. Strangers are watching me…”
That’s coz they knew would you’d be getting punched in the diaphragm any second and wanted to watch.
Do you suppose NSA has already compromised these devices or the Google build in the back door for them?
The first comment on that article is truly telling:
“I just used my Google Glass while in Maui for a week. I loved it. This is my story of #GoogleGlass on my vacation…Enjoy!” And then he/she provided a link.
Yep, that’s the biggest market for Google Glass: attention wh*res. They want everyone to pay attention them when they’re out in public, and they want to document every stupid moment of their stupid lives so they can show it to the world.
“Look at me! I have Google Glass! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!!”
——RM
Why people think they have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they’re in public is baffling.