
Is this the future of Project Glass? - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/is-this-the-future-of-project-glass-20120728/
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dkokelley
Interesting video. A bit dark at the end, though. It bothered me seeing how
disengaged both characters were when they were on their date. It's considered
poor manners to have your smartphone out during a date, but what would happen
if there was no visual signal to indicate that you were checking your social
networks during dinner?

To me, these thought experiments put us close to the realm of 'post-scarcity'.
What happens when first-world society can replace physical goods and
entertainment with virtual ones? It's fun to think about.

~~~
potatolicious
Meh, alarmist tripe. People aren't _that_ stupid, and as with any new
technology there will be a period of adjustment.

When smartphones first hit the mainstream, people had them out _everywhere_ ,
and yeah, you had a lot of cases where people checked their email during
dinner with friends and whatnot.

But now that the technology has matured some, and we've gotten used to it,
we've developed etiquette around its use. We can no openly frown when someone
whips a phone out at dinner, we even play phone stacking games to make fun of
the phenomenon.

So sure, when something like Glass comes out we will go through a brief period
where we're abusing the uses and social acceptability of this device to no
end. But that too will pass and will settle into a steady state that is
nowhere near as dystopian as these alarmist videos would have us believe.

~~~
taligent
Unfortunately you just don't get it.

I and many others DON'T LIKE BEING RECORDED.

It is a gross invasion of our privacy, illegal without our permission and
opens up innumerable issues should I do something that could be classed a
crime. And absolutely no amount of "getting used to it" is going to change
that.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> illegal without our permission

Unless you're in a public space, of course.

> absolutely no amount of "getting used to it" is going to change that.

The Amish believe something similar about phones in the house - the belief
that a stranger being able to reach out and interrupt you at any point is
detrimental. The rest of the world seems to have adjusted okay, though.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I keep Facebook chat turned off for a very similar reason.

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minikomi
Alternative ending: she leaves, he appears disappointed but a closeup of his
mouth shows a wry grin slowly appearing. Cut to her on a new date, switch to
her view of a completely different looking guy. It's going great!

Outside shot of the couple reveals it's the same guy - he's just overlayed a
different face on his own.

Cut to game wall .. "hidden identity" badge pro level

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corporalagumbo
Amazing video. Dystopian, yes, but dystopian visions are a useful
counterbalance to the optimism and short-term thinking of most day-to-day tech
news and discussion. It outlines the negatives of what could develop in the
future, and it gives us all a jolt - shit, we realise, this stuff needs to be
taken seriously. The imperative now is for us to monitor the development of
these technologies and see that the negatives are minimised and the positives
optimised. Because of course there are plenty of positives. This technology
could have absolutely amazing applications - just like all of the technologies
we are haphazardly developing, there is awesome potential for both good and
bad. The difference in outcomes will derive from the choices we all make as
they emerge and mature.

Summary: a bit of fear is healthy here. Now it's time to start imagining the
opposite of this video: how could such technologies make our lives and planet
amazing?

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graue
There are plenty of positives in the film — the cool flightsim, the lack of
need for a physical TV, help with cooking... heck, the dating app was even
helping improve the dude's love life up until he revealed he used it at the
end. I think the point is that these helpful augmentations, taken too far,
become harmful.

But if we really want to improve the world, I like the counter in the fridge
telling you how many days each food will stay good. That could be enhanced.
What if, when you know you have too many zucchinis, you could click a 'share'
button and instantly offer them to friends in your apartment building, so they
end up in a neighbor's stir-fry and not the trash? Or let Sight predict your
cooking habits for the next week based on past behavior, so when you're
shopping, it can beep, put a red outline around the zucchini and say
"recommend not buying - likely to rot before use." This kind of tech could
seriously reduce food waste, which is a big deal in the developed world. I
don't have a citation on hand for how much food gets thrown away in the US,
but I believe it's over 25 percent.

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joezydeco
Funny that I haven't seen one mention of gamification in this thread. To me
that was the big takeaway here. When Glass/Augmented Reality/whatever-its-
going-to-be-called hits, this could probably be how most people will interact
with it.

It's all over this video. Watch the guy get frustrated when he doesn't get a
perfect score chopping cucumbers. Note the high-score table in his closet.
Even the "Wingman" dating app is pushing him to succeed via goals and
achievements.

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purplelobster
If you found this interesting, I can recommend the 3rd episode of the British
show "Black Mirror".

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ChuckMcM
If it comes to pass, it will create a huge gulf between people 'with'
augmented sight and those without. That would not be helpful.

~~~
pjscott
I remember when there was a gulf between people with cell phones and people
without. Then cell phones got super-cheap. More recently, smartphones were a
"digital divide", but that won't last long either.

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karpathy
Nice video, but it is a mixed bag of interesting and implausible. In
particular, it's unfortunate that the video had to be mostly wasted on the
implausible date scene, with an app reading emotions (such as impatience) and
suggesting things to do or say. I'd say that is in fact the perfect example of
what NOT to expect in any foreseeable future.

~~~
sp332
Actually the Affective Computing group at MIT has been actively working on
this since at least 2007. They had a fully functionaly prototype last year.
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128191.600-specs-
tha...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128191.600-specs-that-see-
right-%20through-you.html?full=true) and
[http://theinstitute.ieee.org/people/profiles/rosalind-
picard...](http://theinstitute.ieee.org/people/profiles/rosalind-picard-
develops-specs-that-see-through-you)

~~~
karpathy
I'm not surprised that this is a research topic but compared to all the other
applications, I still think this will take much longer to get running
reliably.

They are working on centered, pre-registered faces and stationary cameras.
Once you add low-quality sensor that moves with the head (introducing huge
amounts of motion blur to the image), and rich, real-world scenes full of
other distractors, the technology will fall apart.

I'm certain we'll get hacked up implementations that work half the time if you
keep perfectly still for some of the very basic and easy to tell emotions such
as happy and sad, but it will mostly be a disfunctional joke for a long time.
Time will tell!

~~~
sp332
Faces will be pre-registered with Facebook (and the Face.com tech they just
bought). Anyway if it's that useful, people will learn to keep their heads
still while waiting for the computer's assistance :)

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jmduke
The scariest part about this video:

Comments on it saying "well, it had a frightening turn towards the end".

The video opens with someone eschewing physical activity for literally
wriggling on the floor, like a fish out of water. Streamlining activities like
ordering food or selecting clothes, but each step we remove from the process,
each abstraction, is another human interaction lost, another retreat into
hermitage.

I don't want this future.

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sodiumphosphate
Who's to say that wriggling on the floor in a virtual reality simulation isn't
the next Pilates or Yoga? Also, the girl referred to her jogging gamification
and navigation app.

Isn't it plausible that many more people would exercise with the added
encouragement training that such technology could provide?

Streamlining mundane activities frees time for more interesting ones.
Augmented reality might enhance human interaction, rather than diminish it.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtful comment, but I thought I could counter it
with some devil's advocacy.

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fear91
"The real" Google glass is the bluetooth 2.0, if you know what I mean.

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saraid216
I thought it was odd that the video's producers apparently don't know anything
about the seduction community subculture, despite barely managing to side-
swipe it in the dating app references.

I suppose I could see that they were trying to make it about AR, rather than
PUA stuff... but really, all I saw was a criticism of PUA practices and
nothing significant about AR issues except that they make PUA practices
easier.

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velodrome
Humans -> Androids

