The etiquette guide to Google Glass

May 7, 2013 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Lo and behold, we are already anticipating the effects that Google Glass will have on our everyday social interactions! And the view is a bit jaundiced. The Wall Street Journal this weekend catalogued in a most amusing article all the ways wearers could offend, accompanied by 1890s-vintage illustrations (modified) of said gaffes, and what courtesies wearers should exercise whilst wearing in public:

 

  • Always remember: You have a camera on your head (so easy to forget)
  • Use voice commands only when you need to
  • Don’t use Google Glass to make phone calls in public (what then, pray tell, is the point?)
  • Give it a rest sometimes
  • Don’t be creepy (a tall order)
  • Let people try it on

Unfortunately, the writer reminded the Eye of the unfortunate time around 2004-6 when Bluetooth earleechespieces became the rage among Masters of the Universe and office tech nerds–the item you most wanted to rip off said ears and stomp sans merci into the ground, which fortunately dimmed its popularity. Of course, the article includes a Gallery of Previous Offenders just to show we naysayers how wrong we will be, how benign this all is….

Oh, but not so fast! Jason Perlow in ZDNet’s TechBroiler considers Glass as Cybernetic Headband, or Cyband, that in current design it is flawed in being too much in one device–and a massive security risk. Not much of a leap, because the ‘Explorer’ version has already been jailbroken, opening all sorts of nasty possibilities for stealthy surveillance by sociopaths. It’s Alice through the ‘Evil Glass’. Mr. Perlow also has a torturous view of the future, when we are Beyond Google Glass: 2034 into full-blown Augmented Reality implants. A dystopia that makes one scream. The Eye is now checking residency requirements and travel itineraries (boat and seaplane only) to the remotest parts of New Zealand or Tulabonga… [Editor Donna: We ask our readers to help keep The Gimlet Eye in civilization. Please help the Eye see that GG is not all bad! Your comments please!]

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/surveillance-ban.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Update: And the revolt continues with locations from Vegas casinos to Seattle dive bars telling GG that they are No Wearing Zones–but the NY Times article spends 20 percent of its space on a long-dead Twitter/photo controversy. More to dine on about the jailbreak plus, courtesy of the worthy anti-GG blog Stop The Cyborgs and Jay Freeman’s blog Saurik. (Photo courtesy of Stop the Cyborgs)

Previously in TTA: The Gimlet Eye weighs The amazing lightness of Google’s Being There vs The Private Eye, and storms the barricades with The revolt against Google Glass

The amazing lightness of Google’s Being There vs The Private Eye

April 26, 2013 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Perhaps it is The Google Gimlet Eye’s peevishness at this late hour, but mentioning this company in conjunction with ‘privacy’ lately makes the Eye Goggle. First there is the sheer howling irony of chairman Eric Schmidt’s interesting definition of the Digital Dark Side in this past weekend’s Wall Street Journal, a state of data mining and real-time behavioral monitoring that applies to totalitarian regimes like North Korea, Iran or (more…)

Google Glass and healthcare: VCs agree

April 16, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Much to The Gimlet Eye’s consternation, Google Glass is getting the healthcare rush: big-time tech VCs Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures (of course). The group dubbed ‘Glass Collective’ (hmm) promote surgical use, assistance for the disabled and (of course) self-tracking. MobileWorldLive

TechCrunch reports that the first prototypes are starting to ship and are first going to 2,000 “Glass Explorers” who signed up at a major developer conference last year. The Eye observes that Google needs them badly–to start writing apps and debugging the prototypes. But were you one of those who signed up to pay $1,500 so you could Ultimate One-Up your friends? There will be a yet-to-be-determined delay. The Eye believes it cannot be long enough…because this next article contains one Big Blinking Concern After Another, including but not limited to the illicit acquisition of data and all sorts of things the appsters can do to really make Google Glass A Bad Thing in Google Glass and Surveillance Culture (Slashdot). Update 16 April pm: Gizmag reveals Google Glass specs, so to speak.

Google Glass: a proper potential in healthcare

March 22, 2013 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The Gimlet Eye and your Editor have had a tête-à-tête and finally have agreed on something other than the oeuvré of Jean-Pierre Melville. The Eye remains In Revolt on Google Glass but barely…barely…concedes a proper, limited role in health. Overlooked in the overheated hullabaloo: for normal people, it can aid in actions like looking at food and counting nutritional values or ‘fullness’, sending and receiving information on fitness tracking, identifying pill bottles; for physicians, nurses and clinical staff, as an adjunct to telemedicine, visualizing monitoring on a patient and recording an exam or report. This Editor can also see potential in surgery, particularly the minimally invasive type which are camera and data-driven. This EHR Intelligence article is short and refreshingly hype-free. (But readers, rest assured that The Gimlet will continue to keep a restless eye on Mr. Brin and his devilish device’s developments.)

Look at face, calculate pulse

March 21, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

Japan’s Fujitsu is developing software that measures increased pulse through changes in facial color. There’s a projected health use, but this Editor’s guess is that the real market is security systems in airports, banks and other secured sites, if Fujitsu can get it right in their anticipated year to prototype. According to the article, “a recent iPhone app from MIT [Cardiio] works similarly. MIT has also developed software that exaggerates that color change so it’s visible to the naked eye.” But don’t tell Google–they’ll put it in Glass. Smartphone Tech Measures Your Pulse By Looking At Your Face (Popular Science)

The revolt against Google Glass

March 18, 2013 | by | 7 Comments

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The Gimlet Eye’s meat-locker temperature gaze on Sergey Brin’s latest device for world domination.

Now I, the Gimlet, read with the appropriate horror Editor Donna’s version of March Madness, ‘Smart tech=dumber people‘, denying any fit in Eye Life for Google Glass. After all, one does not properly stroll down a boulevard rubbing featureless glass or mumbling Brando-like into the air, except when disdaining spectacularly bad taste in ornamentation (piercings, tattoos) and dress, or lack thereof. Thus Glass has no job to do, unless it has the ability to screen the collected works of Jean-Pierre Melville or the best roles of George Sanders on demand. However, Google does not ladle les billions into development without thoughts of further gathering the biggest of data to sell on all that is holy (or unholy) in our lives, eroding whatever privacy we have left, in order to keep Mr. Brin’s yacht in diesel and deck wax enroute to the next TEDx or remote island. Thus the Eye raises a glass to the new ‘refuseniks’ who cry ‘Stop the Cyborgs!’, rebelling against a world where “privacy is impossible and corporate control total”, cleverly inserting sharp-nailed fingers in Google’s spy-in-the-eye.  After all, WWBS? (What Would Brando Say?) Google Glass: The opposition grows (CNet)