Google Tells Glass Users Not To Be 'Creepy Or Rude' 341
An anonymous reader writes "One of the biggest worries about the rise of wearable computing is the ease with which random strangers will be able to record your actions without your knowing. Right now, it's pretty easy to tell if somebody's holding up their cellphone to take some video. But when everybody's wearing Google Glass, or something similar, it will become harder to tell. This has led to preemptive bans on Glass in certain places. Now, Google has published a list of Do's and Don'ts to tell Glass users how they should behave politely in public. Do: ask for permission before recording people. Don't: ignore the world around you, expect that people won't notice, or wear it during a cage fight. Most importantly, don't 'be creepy or rude.' Google says, 'Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends.'"
Re:But... (Score:0, Insightful)
which is why Glass will never take off.
Consumer products are only successful if they're marketed to cool, sociable people, not loser nerds with no lives.
They must be new here (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be used to make porn. It will be used to game casinos. It will be used to record cops. Someone will use it to case a place for a robbery. It will be used in divorces. It will be used to document various offences as decreed by Jezebel. It will be used by police to enable face recognition of people like they do licence plates.
What the fuck do they think will happen?
Glassholio (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very smart of Google to recognize that "Glasshole" is an inevitable slang term to be applied to some (most?) Glass users. They're trying to get ahead of the term and define it to apply to only the worst kinds of users.
Still, they face an uphill battle if they hope to create a positive public image for Glass. If only 1 in 10,000 Glass users behaves in a socially unacceptable way, that one person will be the focus of endless sensationalist news coverage.
Google being social retards (Score:3, Insightful)
Humorous that Google is having to tell people to not be creepy or rude. They've finally woken up to the fact that Glass is inherently antisocial, just like all those people who hover over their phones in public as they do constant texting/facebook updates/emails. If someone's gonna do that at a dinner out then they might as well have stayed at home on the bed eating dorito's and watching some mindless flick on tv.
Commonsense bottom line: If you're wearing Glass when you're supposed to be doing something social, then it should be taken off. Everyone should understand in their guts what a social gaffe it is to wear a rig that could be constantly recording while doing something in a supposedly-relaxing social situation - like a party. If they don't then they come out on the lower end of the bell-curve for empathy and on the higher end of the bell-curve for the massively socially inept.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate replying to myself, but since we don't have a way to edit...
The ones with the cameras have the power. Governments with CCTV have power. Corporate overlords with CCTV have power.
Protesters recording police abuses have power if they record it, but if they don't record it usually they lose.
Activists recording business abuses have power when challenged since they can expose problems, but no recordings and they find themselves sued to oblivion.
Drivers in Russia with dashboard cameras have power when people jump in front of their vehicles.
When the people have the cameras, they have the power. Sadly many individuals equate cameras with power so they feel powerless when they see another individual with a camera. Just give everybody cameras, let them record everything. Power to the people, and all that.
Be Rude (Score:5, Insightful)
You think in 15 years everyone won't be recording all the time? They will be.
Whether it is Google Contact Lense, Apple Retina Display Phone or Acme Eyeballs --- there are going to be cameras everywhere.
So let us adjust.
Re:Surveillance cameras? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. But video from those CCTV cameras don't readily get uploaded to youtube.
Needs a recording LED, like everything else (Score:5, Insightful)
Google needs to put in a hard-wired LED that's on when recording. Yes, you'll look like a Borg when you're recording, but that's a small price to pay for others' comfort.
Can people still obscure it? Yes... but if I see someone walking around with a Google Glass *and* a bit of black electrical tape over the front, I know I'm dealing with a complete d-bag and can treat them accordingly.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
better list (Score:5, Insightful)
2. get a life outside of social networks and the internet
Re:Q about glass (Score:3, Insightful)
The camera exists on the device. You should assume that people will have rooted it so that any notificiation of recording will be disabled while still allowing recording.
Re:Glassholio (Score:3, Insightful)
No. "Glasshole" is just a term created by a bunch of individuals so obsessed with themselves that they think that every Google glass user is recording them all the time when the reality is you're very likely to be an incredibly boring nobody. It's amazing how obsessive people are about their own privacy because "OMG Camera" without realising that if someone wanted to video tape them without their knowledge there's nothing they can do to prevent it. Seriously there's hundreds of small spy cam style products and Google Glass is definitely not the first company to put a camera in a set of glasses, and then at least they are distinctive glasses and some fancy frames with a hidden camera.
The reality is recording consumes a shitload of battery life. GG lasts about an hour of continuous recording, but for some reason people seem to think that's all the device is for / capable of.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)