To Avoid Its A-Hole Problem, Google Glass Needs an Off Mode

Gawker's Adrian Chen put his finger on the prime problem with Google Glass, in succinct words suitable to Gawker. (Warning: incoming potty language.) This:

Wearing Google Glass is functionally the same as living with a smart phone held constantly at eye-level... If you come up to me with a smartphone held at eye level and demand that I interact with you like you're not being an asshole, you are an asshole. You are demanding social interaction on your wholly weird and unsettling terms. This does not change if the smartphone is tiny and strapped to your eye and made by Google. In fact, you thinking that this excuses your asshole behavior just makes you that much more of an asshole.

And I think he's right. We have social rules around cellphones for just this reason: Don't use your phone while you're in a theater. During dinner or a meeting, turn your phone upside down, so people know you have their full attention. Don't take cellphone photos of folks without their permission. And so on. Trouble with Google Glass is, it's on your face, making it quite difficult to apply similar rules to this new technology.

However, perhaps unlike Chen, I think this problem is fairly easily fixable by Google Glass developers themselves:

Give Glass an Off Mode. That is, a manual "off" switch that visibly and prominently shows people around you when you're not using Glass. I say "manual" because I think it should be a physical toggle, so people can actually see you move your hand up to go into that mode. I say "visibly and prominently", because people then need to be continually reassured when you're not using Glass, and when you are. Most obvious solution: A small LED light that shines red, when Glass is off, and green, when Glass is on. (It's possible a feature like this already exists or has been announced as upcoming, but I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the coverage.)

Do that, and I'd say most of Glass' asshole problem is fixed. Then again, that doesn't necessarily solve the "You look like a goddamn geek" conundrum.

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Comments

[Metacam Oh]

No it's much better walking around with your head down looking at your phone. It's much better going to an event and holding your phone up in front of your face to record it.

This is reality Hamlet http://singularityhub.com/2013/03/14/beforeafter-comparison-of-pope-announcement-shows-incredible-proliferation-of-mobile-in-just-8-years/

That is why the guy at Gawker has no clue what he's talking about.

[elizabeth (16)]

@Metacam. what the gawker guy is talking about is the glassheads who going to wander round streaming you to the world in realtime

not themselves. you

[Metacam Oh]

@elizabeth and how is that different than now? If people think they have any more privacy walking around now then they would with google glass they are kidding themselves.

[Maggie Darwin]

A switch? It will be defeated. Why not simply insist everyone who comes near you wering Glass take it off?

Then we all can decide who the real a-hole is.

[Adeon Writer]

The screen dosen't bother me so much as it's camera. I don't want to talk with someone who's pointing a camera at me, weither or not it's recording.

[Jo Yardley]

I will not interact with anyone so antisocial that they will not remove the damn glasses or turn off their telephone.
When you talk to me, talk to me, don't mess about with some machine at the same time.
Glad I don't have a mobile phone, even gladder I don't have those glasses.

[elizabeth (16)]

@metacam. is not about anyone kidding anyone. is about manners

people who don't have any point their phones and cameras. glassheads will do the same. is the main reason they will buy them. to get as up close and in your face as they can. and share your reaction to this with their mates in realtime and giggle about it

[Lisa]

Where do I download your downton abbey stuff for the sims 3?

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Remember when we'd all be interacting with computers using 3D glasses, or when all cars would have head-up displays on their windscreens?

Google Glass concepts may come about some time in the future but it will be a while before it will become acceptable socially. Mobile phones were simply phones out of the office or home, netbooks and tablets were similar changes. This is a new paradigm and we accept these about as well as we did during the industrial revolution

[Arthur Scanlan]

Could we at least wait until the technology has rolled out and people have proven to be assholes with it before leaping to conclusions about how rude people are going to actually use it?

The analogy of holding a smartphone out in front of you at arm's length sounds quite strained. To onlookers, it won't be anywhere near so obtrusive, and it will need to be nearly as ignorable to wearers, as well, for safety reasons ("sorry, officer, I didn't see that truck").

I'm not too fond of the idea of cameras trained on me all day, either, but there will most likely be a difference between capturing images for analysis and capturing images for recording. Enough people will be concerned about it that if bandwidth, battery life, and storage don't limit it, society will demand a solution. Google has been burned by privacy issues often enough in the past that if they weren't already thinking about this in depth, I'd be very surprised.

At the very least, if they're really rolled out to the general public at $1500, that will most certainly limit their appeal early on.

[Iggy]

Glass will not catch on until they are as unobtrusive looking as a nice pair of shades.

Meanwhile, we have not yet developed etiquette for our "always on, always on you technology" (Nod to Sherry Turkle).

We will, and I'm sure there will come a time when folks will take their AR glasses off out of politeness, as we now are learning to silence our phones.

Something that no technology can address: it's really up to other users to say to friends "I'm not hanging around you if you keep stopping to text / surf the Web / be somewhere else." I'd rather have fewer real friends with some empathy than a bunch of ADHD partially attentive wireheads.

When the technology enters our bodies one day, well...that's another problem.

[coco]

The convention for video cameras is that red signifies that it is on, and nothing when it's off.

I don't like your suggested etiquette because we clearly need to get used to being constantly tracked, and reminders of that fact will add insult to injury.

The killer Glass app for me will be the ability to identify and label the people nearby. I will pay a *lot* for that alone.

[Ballard Hill]

So now we are to be inundated by a plague of Glassholes, too? Can't wait!

[Wolf Baginski]

Mobile phones, unless you're using Bluetooth headsets, are pretty obvious. And the headset means the user can look rather crazy, talking at nobody in particular. The headsets could be more of a problem, but one which is self-correcting to a degree.

Google Glass drags you into somebody else's activity. Charlie Stross, in his novel "Halting State", described one possible set of consequences that such technology might allow. He does make the assumption that the tech is effectivelt universal, but how does it affect somebody's social behaviour if they're seeing the world as populated by orces and dwarves and hobbits, all part of a game they play as they walk down the street? (I think it may take a while to get to that point).

I can see the possibility of Google Glass replacing the Paintball Marker, much as HUD technology in Second Life mediates combat games. How long before people are out on the streets, pointing a finger and saying "bang!"?

And if you insist people have a little light telling you that you are being watched, what does it do to the potential for such tech to keep watch on such as the Police?

Anything could happen.

[Metacam Oh]

People walk around with Blue Tooth in their ear are they assholes? Do you think you won't be recorded video wise or even audio wise if you actually cant see the devise? You could talk to someone who has a tape recorder in their pocket recording everything you say but they aren't assholes because it's out of view? Some of you people are delusional. In a world where every intersection has a camera every car has a dashboard cam everyone has a device to record you are finally going to throw up your arms because you can actually see someone wearing it? If people wanted to secretly record you they can, without google glass..

[Metacam Oh]

This is reality here: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html?eref=edition

If Google Glass is where you draw the line, you are either misinformed, dumb, or just trying to get hits like the guy on Gawker

[Hamlet Au]

"People walk around with Blue Tooth in their ear are they assholes?"

Actually, yeah, that's pretty much the common assumption. It's even in the Urban Dictionary (see below). More to the point, the Bluetooth has been around since 1994, but adoption rates are extremely low, compared to standard mobile devices. Why? Maybe because of the "asshole" problem, but in any case, it doesn't boost much confidence in Glass or other wearable communication devices.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bluetooth

2. bluetooth
An idiotic looking device, used by unimportant people who want to look important. It is a wireles transmitter that is put on an ear and is hooked up to your cell phone, so no matter where your phone is, you can still recieve that highly anticipated, uber important phone call from your mom. It radiates a tacky neon blue when in use, yet most of the time it goes unused. Good for when driving, but when not on the road it makes you look sad and pathetic. Users deserve a drop-kicking.

[Riesstu]

I won't wear anything that makes me look like one of the Borg (iBorg?) Desktop PCs and phones that don't play ear-splitting music when they ring are good enough for me.

[Scarp Godenot]

Hey people. It really isn't ANY of your business what other people do with their electronic lives.

Your judgmentalism is YOUR problem. Face it, you are just another garden variety holier than thou, control freak.

Not to mention paranoid.

I know it's hard to face the fact that nobody cares enough about you to record you, but that is the simple fact of life.

All the whining in the world won't change a thing.....

[Connie Arida]

Of greater significance than the "nerdiness" or social "Faux pas" of google glass are the ramifications brought up by Mark Hurst at the Social Good blog. Worth reading here.
http://creativegood.com/blog/the-google-glass-feature-no-one-is-talking-about/

[Riesstu]

Hey Scarp. We aren't whining that nobody cares enough to record us: we whine when they do it without our permission.

I don't mind if it's some anonymous machine on top of a pole I can do nothing about, but when someone I don't know comes up to me with the same intention I would expect them to ask first.

Understand?

[Scarp Godenot]

I'm suggesting that it is paranoid that someone thinks THEY personally are being targeted and recorded, when the recording person just randomly has a device on.

And it is also paranoid to think that it is obvious that something nefarious is going on..

People just don't care that much about random strangers. They really don't have the time to care. They have their own lives to lead.

[Metacam Oh]

Hamlet bluetooth is a device so you dont have to put your hand to your head if you talk on the phone a lot. Because you perceive it to be douchey doesn't necessarily make it so. I think people who buy Alienware laptops are kinda douchey as well. Overpriced, over rated the only reason to buy them is to look cool, but thats just my opinion, does that make you a douche for buying one?

[elizabeth (16)]

@scarp -- yes they are. people are fascinated by the trivia of other people's lives

Facebook - the biggest congregator of human social trivia and minutae ever in our entire history on the planet. a billon accounts. half a billion of them actively engaging in the minute details of people just like them

Huffington Post - the biggest aggregator of news and current affairs. again ever in history. in the top 7 most popular articles today:

- Gyneth Paltrow Reveals Devasting Miscarriage
- Karl Rove Mocks Sarah Palin
- Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewards Fame is Tragic says Twilight Author
- Kate Middleton Almost Trips On Her Heels At St Pats Day Parade

this on a site where lead stories get 1000s of comments. over 14,000 alone for the Ohio Rape Trial verdict story

- one of the others in the most popular list is how to make a St Pats shamrock shake. it doesn't get more ordinary than this

+

heads up displays been around for years. has been used by pilots engineers surgeons etc for yonks. google glass is not designed for these people. they dont have any use for a cool looking pair of sunnys that double up as a HUD

the google glasses are specifically designed for the first group of people. ordinary people who are fascinated by the banality and trivia of the very ordinariness of their own lives. those they know: neighbours family friends. and strangers they bump into on the street. in the clubs. at the busstop etc

there are millions and millions of people like this. and when they get their glass sunnies on then they are going to drag everyone they look at into their banality

the question is: is this ok? that we, all of us, get dragged into this banality whether we want it or not?

[shirc desantis]

Out of interest, how shatter proof are these things...

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I've got no use for them until they integrate with my trifocals. But once they do, I'll be sure to get a pair. I frankly don't a whit what people think; I just hope they help me stay awake in meetings.

Let's face it, there are plenty of people in the world who have an inflated sense of entitlement when it comes to my undivided attention, and few of them are deserving of such a valuable gift.

[Hamlet Au]

"Because you perceive it to be douchey" -- dude, I didn't say I did. I said, "that's pretty much the common assumption". Personally I don't think using a Bluetooth per se is douchey, though doing so in many social contexts often is. But I was pointing out that many find them douchey in general.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

You might want to take a look at http://eyetap.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/physical-assault-by-mcdonalds-for.html before jumping to conclusions about people wearing devices resembling Google Glass.

[elizabeth (16)]

@Melissa -- is interesting guy that. what he not mention in his story is this:

http://www.glogger.mobi/

note the pic in the banner for the symposium.

note also that he promotes this glogger site on his own website

and on his blog he makes long arguments about how it is ok for him to surveill and camcord everyone he sees bc the government does it

yes he might be visually impaired partially in one eye. but that don't give him a pass to camcord everyone he sees

[Alazarin Mobius]

Aside from the inevitable iBorg comparison Google Glass is going to be an epic hit with the teen porn-voyeur market. Coming your way very soon on the Google Play Android Market: the Strip-O-Matic Pornmeister app that undresses anyone and everyone in your field of vision. No doubt there will be the 'mainstream' Playboy, Penthouse and FHM versions as well as the hardcore, S&M and fetish versions. Going to the corner shop for a pint of milk will never be the same.

The privacy, civil rights and gender activists will have a field day. Meanwhile the app writers and Google will laugh all the way to the bank.