

Google Glass Explorer Edition comes with extreme restrictions - api
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/google-may-remotely-deactivate-glass-if-you-sell-it-or-lend-to-a-friend/

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api
Since the PC, every iteration toward new form factors has come with
progressively less freedom and openness: PDAs, smart phones, tablets, and now
this.

IMHO Microsoft's dominance was the big threat to open computing in the 90s,
but _feudal devices_ and feudal security models are the big threat today. The
open source movement successfully countered the threat of the Internet as a
Microsoft fiefdom, but what can be done to counter this? Especially since
these big players have locked down these form factors with massive patent
thickets around their UIs and interaction metaphors.

Technologically Glass is awesome, but politically and socially it is
_horrible_ , nightmarish, and insane. Imagine if Microsoft proposed that in
its new version of Windows they could:

* Remotely deactivate your computer.

* Videotape everything through your computer's camera and upload it to their servers and do whatever they like with it.

* Constantly track your location and do whatever they like with this information, as well.

* Forbid you from selling or even lending your device. (Granted, this restriction is probably temporary... but still... the fact that they _can_ and _would_ do this...)

* Control what software you may run, and under what terms.

* Demand that all software developers follow their precise and very nit-picky guidelines.

The outcry would have been deafening.

There has been some outcry around Glass, but little around smart phones which
are only marginally better. And much of the outcry about Glass has been framed
as ludditeism. If anything, the idea of going back to feudal models of society
is ludditeism. This issue is more complex than "new technology baaaddd!" vs.
"new technology gooood!" It's about what we are _doing_ with our technology
and how it shapes our society.

Edit: interesting thought: if Microsoft wants to become relevant again, the
single biggest move they could make would be to array themselves in opposition
to this trend. Never going to happen... probably too big of a culture shift
for them... but it would instantly make them relevant in mobile if they
offered a platform where you, the user, have total control and which built in
privacy awareness as a central feature. Basically build things like "little
snitch" and friends into the OS, open all the APIs, create tools allowing
users to monitor what their devices are doing, etc. It wouldn't even have to
be open source... just... maybe I can coin a new term here... "open agenda?"
As in "your device has no agenda but yours?"

