I work in a school. These devices will inevitably be banned in such places. It's already a bit risky to take photos of children - it has been suggested (albeit by an especially neurotic, paedophile-obsessed parent) that one of my colleagues is a paedophile for taking photos of school events. For a member of staff to wear these glasses at school would be risky, to take them into a sensitive area such as a boarding house or changing room, a career-ending move.
I can foresee that other places, like the bar in OA and hospitals, medical waiting rooms, lawyers' offices, etc, have an implicit assumption of privacy which would be infringed by these devices. Many conversations and meetings have similar unspoken requirements - if you might be recording or photographing me, I'm not talking to you. Wearing these to a blind date or job interview could be an immediate deal-breaker for many people. "You're recording this? How dare you!"
It doesn't seem unreasonable for people to ban these devices. The assumption of many potential users that I am happy to be photographed, recorded, uploaded and discussed is what needs to be challenged.
>I work in a school. These devices will inevitably be banned in such places.
I don't think that will be a problem, because there will never be such devices.
They are vapourware, solving a problem people don't have, won't have, and don't want to have.
Sure, Google might release them commercially at some point. Still,
they will go the way of the yo-yo, the Sony dog robot, the MiniDisk and other novelties.
Only geeks (in the unpopular, nerdy meaning of the term) lust after a thing such as Google Glasses. They are a 100% guarantee that you won't even get laid, and for something that you wear on your head, that's the kiss of death.
Like PDAs ten years ago? Except we all have those now, save for the name.
The problem that these solve is that most things you'd want to use your smartphone for aren't worth the time it takes to get it out, do the security numbers or pattern or facial recognition, bring up the app, etc. Reducing the overhead from 45 seconds to 5 seconds is an enormous win, it seems to me, quite apart from the head-mounted camera aspect that gets so much focus.
>Like PDAs ten years ago? Except we all have those now, save for the name.
No, we really don't.
Smartphones are totally unlike PDAs. Except if you call any small device than has a CPU a "pda".
Smartphones didn't get popular for doing what a PDA did. They got popular for doing stuff that PDAs never did. From 3D games to Letterpress, and from checking twitter and facebook, to taking photographs and videos, none of these were available for PDAs. Including making phone calls, checking the web in full and listening to music.
>The problem that these solve is that most things you'd want to use your smartphone for aren't worth the time it takes to get it out, do the security numbers or pattern or facial recognition, bring up the app, etc. Reducing the overhead from 45 seconds to 5 seconds is an enormous win, it seems to me, quite apart from the head-mounted camera aspect that gets so much focus
Why get the phone out? You could have a watch with necessary information (iWatch), or a voice command and output in-ear headset (Siri mkII).
I didn't have a PDA personally, but people I knew did, and I'm pretty sure they did things like check the web, listen to music, take (low resolution) photos, and check their email (which is what most at my workplace apparently use their smartphone for nearly exclusively). The other things you mention are a function of the improvement of the hardware or the existence of services (twitter, facebook), not being a completely different category.
I think to get to a similar appflow to what a HUD enables, you'd have to have both the iWatch and voice commands, and then you'd still be stuck raising your wrist to read from it, meaning you can't operate it hands-free. HUDs combine all the best uses of iWatch and bluetooth mic/earphone combos, and improve on them.
>solving a problem people don't have, won't have, and don't want to have.
I can see this being used in some situations where you don't want to hold a video camera - like recording your pov when you're skydiving, scuba diving, mountain biking etc
But then again, there are already helmet/bike mounted cameras..
There are thousands of problems that Google Glasses could solve. But life recording and answering how long a bridge is are terrible use cases. For me it makes far more sense to position it in firmly in the business and education sectors. And then provide the necessary back end services to support developers.
It ties in so much better with other Google services and works to their strength which is in solving big data problems. Leave the gimmicks to the others.
> There are thousands of problems that Google Glasses could solve.
And they leave it to 3rd party developers to solve them, it's similar to stock Android. Their calculator app is baseline, but the devs branch out more products with different features.
Police officers could wear them to ensure good behaviour from the police and public alike.
You could modify them to include a range-finder so surveyors could look at a building or room and measure it, just by being there.
You could use them for virtual reality applications -- "weak" VR since not fully immersive but nice to check out the proposed make-over for your living room.
Sports-people could wear them to give first-person views of the action.
They could be worn to workplace disciplinary hearings (or any other low-level legal proceedings) with your representative/legal counsel listening in and offering feedback. You could record everything, so could your counsel.
There probably are thousands of applications, but compulsively recording public spaces and the people in them is probably not the best.
One example we all know well. Car mechanic. Parts analysed from the video in real time to provide contextual information e.g. replacement periods. Asking questions about stock information from the suppliers. Looking at VINs to instantly see warranty/recall information from the car company.
Now if I own a car mechanic business I could never build this. But Google has all the technology today that just needs pulling together into cohesive services.
But instead of solving these real world problems they instead prefer to get embroiled in consumer privacy issues.
This reminds me of the advance-buzz based roll out of the Segway. One of the effects was that various municipalities enacted unfavorable legislation with regard to them. I really think that the high profile was the issue. Glass is going to have the same problem.
I think there's a law here:
Disruptive technology receives backlash in proportion to its advance press. The best bet for any radically new technology is to become useful and ubiquitous below the radar.
If you asked people 20 years ago how they felt about everyone walking around with palm sized video recorders, pointing them and taking video at whim, they would've been upset and prone to legislate against it, but because the technology advanced in quality slowly and had a free ride on cell phones, it became accepted.
Yeah, I thought of the smart phone angle of this too. The other day I was part of an airplane evacuation drill and I noticed someone filming me with his smart phone after all was said in done.
On one hand, I knew his intent was to film the activity and not me personally. On the other hand, I still felt a little annoyed about it. I might have said something if not for the fact that this technology is everywhere anyways.
You don't see people walking around with their phone held high constantly recording everything as they walk around. If you did then most people would be suspicious or concerned about what they were doing. And more than likely at some point they would be asked to stop.
People record video using smartphones of people they know. Not random strangers.
> So filming / taking pictures is already not allowed. It feels like publicity stunt, but nothing particularly weird, imho.
Google Glass is a new level of privacy violation. At least with a camera or phone one can see if someone is just playing a game or trying to record you. With Glass there is no visible difference.
The difference is that taking photos or filming with a mobile phone or digital camera is an explicit action that is usually obvious to the people being filmed.
With always-on gadgets like Google Glass, you can never be sure whether the wearer is recording you or not.
I guess that some people wearing Google Glass might not even be aware that they are violating someone else's right to privacy.
Therefore, it is certainly helpful to explicitly declare one's place a 'no recording' zone - if only to avoid events such as [1].
Don't you have to say 'OK glass, take a picture'? Seems a lot more obvious than using your phone, unless you can also tap the side of the case to take a pic. I could be casually checking my phone, and people on the other end wouldn't know I'm using the camera in a noisy place.
How good is noise cancellation on Glass anyway? Would it still work in a busy bar?
There are things HMDs are useful for besides recording/storing sense data. In fact, I would say, so many of them (and growing further with each new development), that a policy like this will eventually just become impossible to enforce--it would be like asking people to leave their phones at the door, or perhaps even their prescription glasses.
But, of course, this is still a problem that needs to be solved; never before have the barriers to recording everyone around you, unbeknownst to them, been so low. (Whereas before, only professionals--spies, reporters, hostage-negotiators, etc.--really bothered to go through all the schlep required.)
So, perhaps, in the future, a law will be passed requiring HMDs (and phones, actually--there's no reason they don't also count) to get a "privacy-zone" feature. Within range of any wi-fi AP emitting a "privacy-zone beacon", the HMD would be legally required to disable its recording features. This brings the barrier-of-entry back up to "have to jailbreak your HMD and override the restriction", which is similar to "buy a gizmo from a spy-store" in terms of difficulty, so I would say it's equitable.
Of course, then you could get police walking around emitting privacy-zone beacons, and other totalitarian effects.
The real underlying problem, causing things like that, is that completely technological systems are prone to social exploitation, because our own social mores aren't carried over into the technological domain. So, instead, we would want to rely partially on the technology, and partially on social enforcement.
A good balance might be: entering a privacy zone prompts you to disable your recording--a single "click" will do so, but you can ignore/cancel the request. Once you've complied, you can't re-enable recording until you leave the privacy zone. Also, the privacy-zone beacon will be aware of whether you've complied with the request. Thus, as the owner of a private establishment (e.g. a bar), you can simply activate your privacy-zone beacon and attenuate its range out to some distance beyond the perimeter of your building--and then have a bouncer who won't let people in until they see, among whatever other conditions--that they have assented to disabling recording.
>There are things HMDs are useful for besides recording/storing sense data. In fact, I would say, so many of them (and growing further with each new development), that a policy like this will eventually just become impossible to enforce--it would be like asking people to leave their phones at the door, or perhaps even their prescription glasses.
Really? I would like to read a list of those "uses".
Except if you talk about some kind of accessibility accessories, there's nothing that makes those glasses even remotely a necessity.
Even something like your glucose levels you can watch them from a device that's not a glass with a camera attached. Like your smartphone or a watch.
* Putting a "minimap" in your field of vision as you walk down the street.
* Letting you read a book--or consume an ordinary chatroom/news feed/other auto-updating thing--while standing in a packed subway car, or while laying in bed (no more weird-sideways-phone-holding-time), and never having to "put it down" when something needs your attention; you just look away, and then look back.
* Giving you to-do lists that you'll finally always check, because they can actually get "in your face." For that matter, spaced-repetition flash cards that come up exactly when you need them to optimally memorize things.
Also, a few more that involve sensory data input, but only to process it into something else (these could be high-level APIs that can safely be accessed whether or not "real recording" is enabled):
* Identify your contacts with visual recognition [can be just stored on your device--not some Panopticon database], and automatically pull up their contact cards/Facebook profiles. Everyone you've met gets a nametag hovering over them like in an MMO.
* Finally make QR codes useful: look at one and immediately see the thing it links to overlaid--and then bookmark it with a glance. This extends to other kinds of barcodes--for example, being able to see the lowest price for an item in a store by just looking at the UPC.
* Identify images, songs, movies, TV shows, etc., through passive submission to something like Tineye, Shazam, etc., or just by a "backing track" laced into the audio/video, that the HMD can detect. Never "lose" something you liked just because you didn't get to find out its name.
* Pair the HMD to a TV, then pause the stream whenever you look away from it. Pair the HMD to a computer, then lock it whenever you aren't interacting with it.
I think all of the above are of really marginal utility. I mean, todo's, maps, QR codes and media identification. Compared to the "you'll never get laid wearing these" it's a no brainer.
The most interesting parts (book, video) are not really applicable to the current (and next 10 years) capabilities of the display. And given the technology, maybe never.
We'd sooner have in-retina imaging that glass displays with the appropriate qualities.
""""The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses," the bar wrote. "And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators.""""
Nice. So a good way to make money is to go to the bar with Google Glasses, get your ass kicked (literally), and sue them.
I thought this was going to happen, and I think it's right to try and limit the scope of people filming everything.
You need to pull out a phone and aim it to take pictures or videos, and in some jurisdictions it is compulsory for digital cameras to emit an audible noise when shooting.
I guess in the end these head mounted cameras will have a small led so that you know when someone is filming you, and we'll be forbidden in places where privacy is expected or where recording is forbidden (cinemas, concerts, theaters…).
I too don't understand the love for Glass by the same group people who generally are anal about privacy. Talk about double standard. Would you be ok if I held a camera to your face, probably recording, while I am talking to you?
And the non-irony is that this security camera system is nothing like google glasses, in the sense that only the bar owners watch (and that's mostly if there's some security issue), it captures only from a certain fixed axis of rotation, and it doesn't get your snapshot on Instagram and Twitter.
Is the CCTV content available from google search? Am I tagged? Are my words recorded? Can that be linked on cross referenced? Can a future employer or pervert see the footage? If I slip up and expose myself, can a google search reveal that too?
The intent of the camera system is to have evidence if an incident occurs. I doubt the bar owner is going through it at the end of the night looking for which parts of it are interesting enough to post on Facebook.
Why can't I have my own evidence if an "incident occurs" that affects me? It seems like quite a double standard.
BTW, there are already a ton of cell-phone videos taken at that bar and posted to YouTube, so I doubt having a new type of recording device is actually going to make a difference:
I say good. And I am stunned by the reaction to it here. So, I must have a Sunday ranty thing....
Seems to me that people get all angry when websites violate privacy, but when the public are encouraged to violate privacy with cool gadgets, suddenly its defence-able. OK, so this is a bar. What about a playground? Nursery? School? Changing rooms? Tell me, how to I protect my privacy from google glass wearing people? How do I protect my kid's privacy, or stop my kids violation other's privacy?
Put it this way, if I'm taking a leak in a bar's wash room, and I see some bloke wearing google glasses looking down at "me", he's gonna get very hurt. No joke. No irony. Hurt.
It is simple: I dont want my urinating penis on the internet.
Sorry, call me prude, but I don't want that. Condemn me all you like, but remember I'm a geek hacker like you reading this, and that is how I feel about it. Now imagine a possible reaction of some non geek. OK, I don't do violence, frankly in reality I'm way more likely to be on the receiving end as I am physically pathetic, weak and useless, but this has great potential for a lot of people suffering real harm, either physically or virtually.
"Publicity stunt"? I despise this accusation. It is a pathetic cowardly throw away dismissal, which is designed to belittle those taking some action, in this case, to protect privacy. The message here is: Oh ignore them, its just a publicity stunt, nothing real or worth bothering with here. Move on.
Really? The great HN community suddenly belittles those who want to protect privacy? Really people? Thought this through or is this a knee jerk defence of cool technology? Dismissal as a publicity stunt implies attention seeking. Ok, fair enough. So in future, when we get a subject where people reply saying they have disabled java, flash, cookies, etc, due to privacy concerns, we will condemn them as publicity seeking attention seekers, right? Paranoid ignorant fool, yes?
People need to start thinking the implications of this through. Sure, for years we have been able to buy head mounted camera's, CCTV, spy drones, etc, but a google pushed product like this will hit mass market, and change the game radically and for good. Its not so much the technology, but how mass market it could and will become.
Let the timer begin now. How long until the first google glass wearer gets assaulted or worse for merely wearing google glasses in the wrong place?
Tell me, is the only privacy that concerns hackers the privacy expected while hidden behind a keyboard? Is no other privacy valid? Is the attempt to protect other privacy really merely a publicity stunt?
I don't like this one little bit. Yeah, very very cool technology. Hell, on that level I want one too. But lets have a long hard think about this. It really is a huge game changer with some serious implications.
It's all well and good to be worried about the privacy implications. The real question is, what can we do about it? Are we going to enact a ban on Google Glasses - along with any portable image and audio capturing device - and hope that people willingly play along? How will we enforce something like that?
At some point, we're going to have to accept that for better or worse, any notion of 'privacy' in public spaces is dead. The only thing we can do is adapt.
A bar is not a public place when it comes to restricting video surveillance. As private property, the owners can ban video and prosecute you for trespassing if non-compliant.
But Glass is just the current one amongst many future devices. What are we gonna do when we cannot even perceive the recording equipment ? Spies do this, and journalists are quite happy to use these techniques.
Someone with a 360 camera piped via fibre-optic to the recording device may not have to even look at 'you' to get the money shot you dread.
I think you're right that there will be a lot of urination videocaps, just for the Lolz or occassionally for perverts.
We are all in the gutter, some of us are looking at the stars, still others at urination-tube.com ?
> Seems to me that people get all angry when websites violate privacy, but when the public are encouraged to violate privacy with cool gadgets, suddenly its defence-able. OK, so this is a bar.
People already have eyes and memories. Head-mounted cameras like Glass and the Looxie are a way to preserve your own memory of what you were already seeing. Do you really feel that you have the right to wipe or degrade other people's memories? If you don't want someone to remember something, don't invite them at all.
> What about a playground? Nursery? School?
In general, all of these already have cameras everywhere, don't they? For safety?
> Changing rooms?
Changing rooms? Seriously? How many strangers do you let crowd into a changing room with you? Zero, am I right? So how could that possibly be a problem. As for similar situations like locker rooms, they already have the problem that strangers might be in there with you, with their eyes. I predict that as cameras go everywhere people go (and they will), we'll see a sharp uptick in single-person stalls in locker rooms. I would be far happier with that (at the gym, say) already; cameras aren't different from eyes in principle.
Edited as I got farther in:
> Put it this way, if I'm taking a leak in a bar's wash room, and I see some bloke wearing google glasses looking down at "me", he's gonna get very hurt. No joke. No irony. Hurt.
This is true whether he's wearing a camera or not, though, isn't it?
> It is simple: I dont want my urinating penis on the internet.
...or for people to see it at all, I'd expect. Once random strangers (like the guy in the wash room) are staring at you, the number of random strangers seems like a mere detail, no?
Smartphones were the beginning of the end of that difference. This is the obvious next step.
What about when this kind of tech is so small that it's embedded in contacts? Even if you think that's twenty years off, still, surely it's obvious that it's coming? It's possible not to notice that someone is video recording you at the moment, but soon it will be essentially impossible to know if they are.
I mind them both a fair amount, but not so much as double for the internet version. It would have bothered me enormously more fifteen years ago, but it's been obvious since at least 1999 when Brin articulated it in _The Transparent Society_ that this was coming. Privacy is going away in the long run, disappearing into "public" and "secret", and things you don't want to be public will have to be secret. Hence my statement about individual locker room stalls.
Since I found myself agreeing that this was going to happen, I decided that I would have to learn to accept that eventually everything about me would be public unless I went to extraordinary lengths to keep it secret. I'm 80% or 90% of the way there. :)
So, yes, there's still a difference in how I react emotionally to those scenarios, but for people born in 2020, I don't think there will be.
No trolling intended. I feel pretty strongly about mandated forgetting, which is what banning Glass seems like to me, given my use cases.
I expect my view will be the mainstream one within ten years, but I worry that we'll get some misguided attempts to ban camera or computing technology improvements in the meantime.
I don't want to sound negative but I can't hold it back.
Anyone who wears this spy gadget for no specific reason (eg. recording jumping out of a plane or something), but because it is "cool", is seriously delusional, and a poor fellow who can NOT make decisions about his or anyone else's wellbeing.
Why?
I understand that recording every move of your life is an interesting idea, at least it would be, in an utopian world. Unfortunately, we live in a world where approx 99% of people is being ripped off and oppressed by their government and co. Encouraging the behaviour of wearing this CIA sponsored hoax is just...
The 5-point cafe has had a history of publicity attempts - they used to have bikini clad women pay your parking meters if you bought food. They generally latch on to current events and try to leverage them to get people to come in more.
so how does one establishment that just honestly want to ban GG to protect their customer's privacy release a pre-emptive statement like this without having it looking like a privacy stunt?
It doesn't. Whenever someone with GG enters the bar, kindly ask them to remove the glasses. There is no need to publicize this bad, except as a publicity stunt.
Considering Google Glass aren't available for the forseeable future, to appear sincere you should start by being in a geographical location brimming with Google engineers. Google has a small but growing Kirkland presence, but it's not nearly the size of many companies in Seattle.
I don't think this is (purely) a publicity stunt, I expect all bars will ban these stupid things because it's asking to be punched in the face. It's a safety thing.
I can foresee that other places, like the bar in OA and hospitals, medical waiting rooms, lawyers' offices, etc, have an implicit assumption of privacy which would be infringed by these devices. Many conversations and meetings have similar unspoken requirements - if you might be recording or photographing me, I'm not talking to you. Wearing these to a blind date or job interview could be an immediate deal-breaker for many people. "You're recording this? How dare you!"
It doesn't seem unreasonable for people to ban these devices. The assumption of many potential users that I am happy to be photographed, recorded, uploaded and discussed is what needs to be challenged.