Eric Schmidt: Google Glass Critics 'Afraid of Change,' Society Will Adapt 331
curtwoodward writes "Eric Schmidt came to Harvard this week to discuss his new book, but many students really wanted to know more about the implications for privacy and social interaction once Google Glass starts hitting the market. Schmidt cautioned against jumping to the worst conclusions, saying that society always tends to adapt to new technologies — and he's hoping for etiquette rather than government regulation. Of course, that's what you would say if you used to run a company that has been fined and paid settlements to regulators for the way it scoops up data and tracks users. But Schmidt also doesn't have much patience for critics: 'Criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of change, or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society.'"
Segway (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Segway (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because the Schmidt spent millions of dollars developing a product doesn't mean it will be a success - only time will tell that. The Segway didn't crack the market, and google glass might not.
Personally speaking, I wouldn't mind something like a ruggedized google glass for snow boarding, long distance running, or other sporting activities where you want to track things like speed, heart rate etc, but I can't see myself wearing something like that on a daily basis just to walk around town.
But maybe there is a segment of society that needs to know the location of the nearest burger joint stat, and doesn't have the attention span to remember how to get there without walking into walls unless the directions are drip fed to them every 5 seconds. There are certainly many other multi-billion dollar industries out there from which I have never bought a single product.
Re:Segway (Score:5, Interesting)
I think his comment was aimed more at those who simply don't want to be recorded 24x7. Although this is becoming the norm in some of the larger metro areas across it's not all that common in the U.S for example.
I actually find I'm not all that comfortable with it either and I'm no criminal. It just has a bit of a creepy vibe that's hard to ignore.
It's also hard to ignore Google primary business profit motive. Couple that with these, and the likely place that these sorts of clips, photos, and video's will end up, and it just turns me off to the idea.
My personal opinion, but it is what it is.
Re:Segway (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that the people who buy it will have more of say than people who don't. There's many reasons why one might not buy one other than finding the whole thing to be repulsive. Not to mention that the people using them are selling out the rest of us.
FB was a similar problem and is pretty damning in terms of nipping this in the bud before it gets out of control. With image databases and face recognition technology, those of us that haven't handed over our data don't have any means of opting out of the system, we're included because some other wankers don't value their privacy or ours sufficiently to respect that we didn't ask to be labeled.
So yes, it might fail, but there's no way of guaranteeing that it will fail and or that the rights of people that don't want it will be respected. And Schmidt himself can go to hell.
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Personally speaking, I wouldn't mind something like a ruggedized google glass for snow boarding [...]
That already exists, the Zeal Z3. One third the price of google glass, speedometer, temperature, altimeter and more inside the goggles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9u1mUlK8qg [youtube.com]
I have never seen somebody wearing these while snowboarding, nor would I want one, but there you go.
Re:Segway (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook is a better example.
How many people post things to facebook every minute that they later regret? Now with google glasses such postings are basically going to be automatic.
Crap I don't like the fact that Amazon has my shopping history from 1997 on there. I don't need to see what books I bought back then and that information isn't even public.
Big words... (Score:5, Insightful)
... coming from a man who only has to be a part of this "society" when it suits him. He's not subject to the surveillance culture since he can hang out in his private office or home.
Oh, by the way, people who are afraid of drones being used by the public are just afraid of change [guardian.co.uk]. You should totally try to adapt.
Captcha: Infringe
Re:Big words... (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, he's a bit of a loose cannon, if I was a Google executive, I'd think about ways to muzzle him.
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and you'd be going up against a guy that directly controls your own livelihood, a man who as you describe is a vindictive bastard and the billionaire head of an advertising giant tentacled throughout pretty much everything on the web.
He'll get muzzled by the only people that can, if/when glass fails and/or when google has a bad quarter and the investors come calling looking for a publicly visible head on a spike.
Re:Big words... (Score:4, Informative)
Either CNET crossed his creepy line [telegraph.co.uk], or maybe he shouldn't have been doing some things in the first place [eff.org].
If only we could start over... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm reminded of Scott McNealy, formerly top dog at Sun, who (in)famously expressed a similar "privacy is dead" kind of attitude and believed everything belonged on the network rather than distributed/client-based. How's that working out for them?
I'm not sure getting rid of Google or Facebook will be quite so easy, but I am increasingly convinced that the tech world would be a better place if they disappeared tomorrow and we were forced to take a fresh look at how to do the kinds of things they do instead of many people just using them by default. There is way too much power over real people's lives being concentrated in a couple of US corporations with a track record of abuse, some morally questionable people running the show, and very limited (by the standards in most of the first world) safeguards to keep them in check. It is far from clear that if we started over on questions like "How do we find information?" or "How do we keep in touch with friends and family" then we'd decide the current ways of doing various things are the best ones, or even good ones.
Google Glass is the new Segway (Score:5, Interesting)
Radical Change Product= Radical Change Product
Where can it be used legally? = Where can it be used legally?
How comfortable are people going to be when they see you have one and they don't? = How comfortable are people going to be when they see you have one and they don't?
Kinda Spend y - people who can't afford it will be all sour grapes. :-)
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It is simple, when you enter a place you should not use your google glass you stow it in your google pocket protector or google belt-loop calculator case. There will be a nice secondary market for google glass accessories like the nose-bridge band aid, rhinestone cat glass styling, and librarian style neck chains.
Re:Google Glass is the new Segway (Score:5, Funny)
I like the idea of running up to people and shouting "safe surfing off", "open ten tabs with pictures of goatse and tub girl", "glass, send e-mail to boss, include link to lemon party.com. send now.",
Re:Google Glass is the new Segway (Score:5, Insightful)
That's lemonparty.ORG!
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You know they said the same things about bluetooth headsets. People will think you are crazy!
Actually, we said, "You're going to look like a douche."
And that's what happened. Anyone wandering around talking to nobody looks like a douche. We called it exactly.
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Crazy? No, the argument was more that these things make you look like a dork, and the original ones really did.
It got better. The new ones are so small only make you an asshole. You can't see them, so when someone yells at you, check his ears before you punch him. If you see a Bluetooth headset ... well, punch him for that.
Re:Google Glass is the new Segway (Score:5, Insightful)
You know they said the same things about bluetooth headsets. People will think you are crazy!
People DO think you're crazy when you wear one. And an asshole.
Afraid of change (Score:2)
Re:Afraid of change (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the way people used to get annoyed by others using their cell phones in movie theaters. Now we've adapted, and know those old complaints were just fear of change.
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Bulltish.
My local cinema still instructs people to turn off before entering.
With 'flight mode' accessible from the power menu, not disabling calls is still plain rude in 2013.
If you must be on call, sit near the exit and set it to vibrate only.
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Whoosh!
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Speak for yourself. You're probably the asshole that won't put his phone away in the movie theaters. The light of screen itself is a distraction, regardless of what you are using it for.
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They also mocked Segway, Kin, the Spot Watch and Google Wave.
"Afraid of change" is a nonsense. This is a group of technology lovers. They love new stuff. They just have a variety of predictions about which products will/should succeed and which will/should fail. Not always correct, and often corrupted by company loyalties, but still batting better than average.
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Sometimes the geeks are so narrowly obsessed they miss the big picture.
The same geeks laughed at the PC like we do the IPAD when it came out because it was not as cool as the mainframe when doing word processing. Look whom won?
I bashed the IPAD too as I wanted a hip macbook and heard the rumors of a low cost netbook and found iOS a neutered cell phone OS. Boo! I was wrong and misunderstood that some people just didn't give a shit about a full featured OS. I missed the point as I was a geek who was narrow.
Sa
Are you free, Mrs Slocombe? (Score:3)
I guess it wasn't your English teacher.
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Actually, an iPad can, in a way, make/receive phone calls. I can use Skype or any number of other VOIP services and on the other end it is no different from any other phone call.
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Does an iPad include developer tools to self-host development?
It's a niche
Wait a minute. You're using the fact that it doesn't have developer tools as a reason that it's a niche?!
You've just won the prize for being the geek most out of touch with the real world.
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Let me summarize what you're saying: anyone who doesn't have an iPad is afraid of change? Do you work in marketing?
Sure society may adapt ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd say exactly the opposite. You've been able to attach a camera to a kite or a model aircraft for years. And there have been planes taking ariel photography too.
Nobody givers a shit. People's reaction? "Can I buy an aerial photo of my house?"
However point a video camera in the face of someone you don't know when it's not a social event, or use a smartphone whilst someone is trying to talk to you and they'll be pissed off. Have a video camera somewhere really inappropriate and they'll call the police.
Change? (Score:2)
They are cool, but in the same way wearable computers are cool.
Re:Change? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about niche needs. I know my use of a hud for motorcycle turn by turn directions would be niche, but I'm pretty sure Google's intentions are anything but. By convincing people to record and upload more data from more personal places, they're looking to greatly expand their data mining. I don't know about "don't be evil", I think their new moto is "just don't be obvious".
Change... (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
If this is your definition of change, you can shove it up your ass.
Re:Change... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but if you have something that you don't want anyone to fly a drone over, well, there just may have to be some regulations of drones...
Re:Change... (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
If this is your definition of change, you can shove it up your ass.
Yeah... If he believes that, when is he putting the web cam in his shower?
That is exactly what will happen with igoggles. (Score:4, Informative)
People (drunk, ignorant, criminal, other, or any combination of the aforementioned) will attempt to shove it up your ass...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/steve-mann-attacked-paris-mcdonalds-digital-eye-glass-photos_n_1680263.html [huffingtonpost.com]
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It will be like a never ending business meeting without the coffee breaks needed to get something accomplished, 'cause there is NO record or log running when you stand around the little coffee table and may speak freely without fearing that someone will jump up and yell "But you said X just (flips pages) 33 minutes ago!"
Pay attention to Eric (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to your new position as a lowly serf in the new digital order. Shut up and do as you are told.
criticisms (Score:5, Insightful)
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glass is a very worrying invention. no expectation of privacy in public is very different then lots of people being able to record everything they see. wait 'til a bunch of peeping tom videos start appearing, or people taking videos of kids on the beach, or until someone with glass gets shot because a dealer thinks they might have recorded that drug deal. the surveillance we have now, we can at least vaguely hope no one is using it for fap material, or won't put it out to embarrass us. does your nose itch? better not scratch it, there's three people with google glass over there and you'd hate for them to record it and put it up on youtube looking like you're picking your nose. is there even a light showing people that its recording? laptops sometimes have those, that'd be something at least
well, you must be new to the internet, that has long been peeping tom videos (called voyeurism vids), and yes, pictures of kids at the beach. Already online. Hey, even naked kids because you can find nudist pictures easy.
Drug Dealers shooting you because they think you recorded them, sounds like any of the Cop TV Show plots. Chances are if you stumble on any serious enough drug deal that they are carrying guns, they are going to be shooting you regardless if they think you recorded them or not. That o
Re:criticisms (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't being seen in public. It's being seen in public, and identified. And possibly doing something controversial.
First - identification. Google has already announced plans to use facial and clothing recognition to put faves to names (and their Google accounts). Now, whether or not the Glass user gets this information is irrelevant. It just means Google now knows where you are every minute of every day. All it takes is for some Glass user to capture you in the camera.
Next, imagine his argument of busybodies. He's afraid of drones flying over his house because it infringes on his rights to do as he pleases. But how about you? Not a problem.
And don't forget what having all that information tied to you is worth. Insurance companies would love to know what you buy at the supermarket - do you buy chips and pop, or fruits and vegetables? Your heath insurance premiums may depend on it. (Remember how we argue this with supermarket loyalty cards? Glass will be even more accurate).
Nevermind busybodies who keep track of people who buy videogames (videogames cause violence!), alcohol (alcohol abuse! drunk driving!, prohibition!), adult stores, abortion clinics, etc.
Re:criticisms (Score:4, Insightful)
It reminds me of the Isaac Azimov short story The Dead Past [wikipedia.org]. The premise is (spoilers ahead) that there's a government conspiracy to control and limit access to a Chronoscope which can view any arbitrary point in the past like a video recording, allowing them to research things like how the ancient Greeks lived. The protagonists fight to expose this conspiracy and make the technology available to everyone. Only to realize just after they've released the plans for building it to the world that the past begins an instant ago, and the device can be used to watch anyone anywhere in near real-time.
I never thought we'd be seeing a technology with similar consequences developed in my lifetime.
Re:criticisms (Score:4, Interesting)
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wait 'til a bunch of peeping tom videos start appearing, or people taking videos of kids on the beach, or until someone with glass gets shot because a dealer thinks they might have recorded that drug deal.
But, but Eric says:
Schmidt cautioned against jumping to the worst conclusions, saying that society always tends to adapt to new technologies — and he's hoping for etiquette rather than government regulation.
Surely this "etiquette" he mentions will save us all from ourselves.
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google glass good; drones bad (Score:3)
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I think Eric Schmidt believes privacy should exist up to the point where Google can monetize it.
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I don't mind change. Hell, a wearable computer? Gimmegimmegimme.
But when you do, don't forget to hand over the source. I'm not your Borg drone, technology I wear this close to my body has to be MINE, or you can keep it.
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No they aren't. Even if they carry bombs, it's the bombs that are weapons.
An obnoxious school of argument... (Score:2)
I don't know whether it qualifies as a fallacy, or has a name if it does; but arguments of this particular style always annoy me:
It's a selective application of an assertion that(while probably true where you are applying it) is true of so many other situations where you do not and would not apply it as to be completely meaningless.
Are opponents of Glass 'afraid of change'? In some sense, arguably, there is often a tinge of fear motivating a visceral dislike of some novelty. However, is there any new someth
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It's actually begging the question. The prior assumption is that change is something you should not be afraid of, that every change is progress.
Well, that is a perspective that died in the trenches of WWI and the camps of WWII.
blowhard shills (Score:2)
It's absolutely a fallacy, which falls under many names, starting with the Straw Man fallacy.
It's so ridiculous I had to look it up again.
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No. The strawman fallacy is the representation of the opponent's argument under a (perhaps superficially) similar or tangentially related position, one that is usually relatively easily defeated by some additional presented argument, and then presuming that by extension, the flaws that led to that position being defeated by the argument would indicate fatal flaws in the original position that was allegedly being r
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It's called ad-hominem attack and is pretty low on the "how good is your discussion position". It's basically a step up from "YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE, THAT'S WHY!"
A group of people who oppose something (or endorse it, depending on what you want to prove) and who is generally seen as "unfavorable" is picked out, everyone opposing/endorsing it is lumped into that group and then an argument is constructed around this negatively seen group and it is suggested that everyone opposing/endorsing something is in this grou
Google karma down (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but I'm despising Google more and more with every passing day. I think they are going to be right there with Microsoft if they continue down this path.
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I don't know about you, but I'm despising Google more and more with every passing day. I think they are going to be right there with Microsoft if they continue down this path.
Yeah... And now that I think of it, this IRS thing might not be that good an idea either...
I think you may be a little late to this party.
Same here (Score:2)
Gonna launch my works site shorly and removed my business youtube account, google+ and still have google local to remove. Singed up for Vimeo Pro to replace youtube, since I'm not a socail retard I don't do google+ and for now have to take it in the ass with search for a little longer. Be.sidees trying to havigate through the google account maze was quite frustrating.
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The problem is not the product itself (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that it's not running Free Software (as in speech). Such glasses deal with the private data of not only it's wearer, but also other people. Therefore it's of utmost importance that society, in form of at least the people having bought it, can decide what it does.
This clashes with the idea of it running Android which is just Open Source, but not Free Software. You cannot quickly modify your Android, every change is a fairly lengthy process involving the creation of an image and often even find
Re:The problem is not the product itself (Score:5, Informative)
So where does that lead us to? A device which watches us all, which sends much of that data to central services provided by Google, where that data will most likely be stored and can most likely be accessed by law enforcement agencies.
This is often repeated, but realize that it can't record all the time. There's not enough CPU power, storage, or always-on network connectivity. This was an intentional decision to get it into the form factor at the right price point. Typically it's for still pictures and streaming really tiny pictures over Google Talk. If your strip club or movie theatre has WiFi in it and allows you to access in the venue, you might end up streaming postage stamps to people, at best.
Plus it will be pretty obvious when you take pictures, since you have to touch it active and say "Glass, take picture". The bouncer will likely throw you out at that point.
It basically doesn't do any more that your ordinary cell phone, and people pretend to text with those while filiming, and they have better net connectivity and local storage, even with no WiFi access.
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Yes, but why doesn't Google free that protocol so you can run your own servers? I mean just being able to choose my own backend would make that thing much less problematic.
Sure not everybody will run their own servers, but I could choose to not trust Google but trust perhaps the local computer club running such a system.
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If they freed it, they would no longer have access to your information. They want it all to themselves.
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Yes, but I'm paying for the device, I have paid for it's development and production. It is only natural that I demand to own it so I can run any software on it I wish to and that I have no artificial hurdles in the process.
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You paid for it but you were not the one that developed and produced it. Payment does not always transfer ownership. You are free to demand all you want but payment doesn't always mean power.
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Yes, that's my point, it's my right to own it therefore I should demand it. Payment without transfer of ownership should be illegal. It's a fault in the laws that this is even possible.
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It is your right to own the physical device. You buy a set of Google Glasses, no one can take that set away from you. You don't own the software that makes it valuable. Let me clarify what I meant by "access to your information". It is not your information. It is Google's algorithms generating information, making it their information unless they agree otherwise. If you don't want them to do this, don't buy one. Just like when you buy a computer with Windows on it, you own the physical device, not the
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Yes, and changing that should be a high legislative priority.
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In 1984 (the book), they didn't have the resources to spy on every citizen all the time either. But you never knew when it's your turn to invite The Party into your home, so you better behave all the time!
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So where does that lead us to? A device which watches us all, which sends much of that data to central services provided by Google, where that data will most likely be stored and can most likely be accessed by law enforcement agencies.
Google Glass is the best example why we need Free Software on those device, otherwise it will become a privacy nightmare. If we don't draw the line here, just think how future prostetics will be. Do you really want some company to decide what your brain implant will be able to do?
Google glasses is the best example why we will need privacy jammers. Without access to the cloud, Google Glasses become next to useless. Of course, cell phone jamming is currently illegal.
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I'm not jamming your phone, it's just really bad reception around here, must be all that armored concrete in the walls...
Society will adapt (Score:2)
but that adaptation won't necessarily involve buying Glasses.
No you dolt, they come from adopters too. (Score:4, Insightful)
But Schmidt also doesn't have much patience for critics: 'Criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of change, or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society.'"
Fucking idiot. Criticisms don't only come from people who are afraid of change. Personally, I don't even consider my body to be what makes me "me", and would love to replace it all with sturdier mechanical parts. I love the rate at which humans keep making technology smaller and merging with it: Clothes are Wearable Shelters. Glasses are magnifying lenses you wear, and Contacts are glasses IN your eyes. We have titanium hips and even exoskeletons helping the disabled to walk again. Tech is great! Adding a digital camera and HUD to my optical systems sounds awesome!
However, I WANT TO CONTROL MY BODY. I don't value my flesh the same way others do, but I realize that it IS important to be able to control my body in whatever form it takes. I don't want to wear a prison. I don't want to wear a tracking device (unless I can control who can track it). I consider my clothes to be just a part of my body as I consider my bones. My skin is a mobile temperature regulating wetsuit perfect for being born on Earth and exploring a great deal of this Planet; I've grown quite attached to my body and its more temporary parts (shirts, hair, etc), and respect and care for my self-grown or artificial coverings; I would treat any replacement or modification thereof as equally valuable and deserving of care. Most of all, I want to be able to fix things if they break, and a replacement is a ways off -- That's a prime concern for anything I integrate with in a substantial life affecting way.
Fortunately my skin is self healing, it contains the data and systems needed to provide this function and I carry the repair mechanisms with me everywhere -- It's important to my continued exploration of this world. I know how contacts work exactly, their design is fully transparent to me. I know how to fix glasses and the mathematics for shaping their lenses are readily available to me. Where are the damn design documents, technical specs, and and source code for these new optical sensors you're selling me? If they're to become part of my body in a significant degree to change ME then I NEED this basic info, or we're at an impasse. I need to be able to know EVERYTHING about how they operate. If they're not just toys, if they will potentially help me change the life I live, then there are some CONCERNS and Criticisms that need to be addressed -- Firstly, your attitude towards my concerns, and secondly the degree of ownership I have over these new body parts we both want me to adopt.
I want to control my clothes. I don't want what I wear spying on me or sending signals that I don't want them to send. I don't want YOU to own MY BODY or everything that I do; Especially I don't want you owning copyright over all the things I see. There are a host of other concerns I have, but I don't care to voice them all here because I have better things to do than put forth questions into culture that will be ignored by the likes of Schmidt. If you shy away from the concerns of critics then I guess you don't care to reassure the people who are your prime adopters, most ready for change that you actually give a fuck about what's really important. The privacy implications become GREATLY increased the closer I integrate any technology with my brain, you fool!
Seriously, someone ought to filter this fucker's output because he's making himself out to be a fucking idiot. Let me get this straight, I shouldn't be able to give my eyeballs wings and let them soar over the land and see what they can see, but I shouldn't criticize people who want to co-opt my visions for marketing purposes? For someone who advocates adapting to social changes wrought by technological advances, Schmidt seems to be pretty fucking hypocritical when it comes to actually adjusting to the changes himself. That f
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That's pretty much it. It also amazes me how he instantly reached so low on the discussion pyramide. In my experience, ad hominem usually only comes on when someone is out of arguments, can't refute the points of his opposite, yet doesn't want to accept that he's wrong.
The Light of Other Days (Score:2)
Do we really want to be under that microscope? Oh well...we won't have a choice. Someone will build it, and we will gladly pay through the nose to have it.
how we should treat Eric Schmidt (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't leave anywhere near him. But people who do should start following him around in public. Filming everything he does, with a telephoto lens from afar if necessary. And posting it on the internet.
Because if he doesn't like that, he must just be one of those people afraid of change. If he's afraid of people recording what he's doing, maybe he shouldn't be doing it. Etc.
Sometimes we should fear change. (Score:2, Interesting)
If someone threated, for example, to CHANGE the relative locations of his facial features (to rearrange his face, so to speak,) I'd wager he'd be "afraid" of such a change too, the smug, hypocritical bastard.
We don't much like the idea of people walking around having the ability to snap photos without having to do anything making it at least a little obvious that they're taking them, the same way we don't like, 364 days out of the year, people walking around wearing masks and costumes that obscure their fac
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When did Google cross over to the Dark Side (TM)? Does anyone know?
Shortly after their IPO. With shareholders braying for handouts, making money became more important than not doing evil and with no effective competitor, two clever college kids started thinking that they were gods, above the petty concerns of ordinary men.
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A bad feeling?
Imagine that happening and someone records it and puts it on youtube... Now there's irony, isnit?
Arrogant Ass (Score:2)
Sounds like Beethoven telling his critics that his music wasn't written for them, but for future generations.
The difference being that Beethoven was one of the biggest creative geniuses of all time, and thus entitled to a bit of arrogance.
He is a hypocrite (Score:3, Insightful)
Change is fine (Score:2)
But I just prefer MY change over YOUR change, since MY change doesn't involve exploiting other people's privacy just to earn advertising revenue. My change would ban most advertising ... and it's time for YOU to stop fearing that.
Why doesn't he just get a webcam at his house, car (Score:2)
and anywhere else so we can see him 24/7 Oh yah he wasn't his privacy. Fuck off and your google (the love didn't last long)
Afraid of change? Hell no! (Score:2)
I've been waiting, dreaming, hoping for and a few more verbs that essentially mean the same for wearable computing. I wanted one the first time I heard about it, to some degree it was my initial drive to pick up microcontroller work so I could eventually build it, given enough knowledge.
What I'm not comfortable with is sending the whole data to Google. That's all I'm afraid of. That it may be the case that I don't really own them, in the sense that they will do MY bidding and not their maker's.
Society is not so much afraid of change (Score:2)
Not credible coming from him... (Score:2)
Yeah, where was "society will adapt, etiquette is plenty to solve this" when Schmidt was whining about private parties using drones?
Why was he whining about drones after his famous "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" idiocy?
So far as I can tell, this guy is absolutely free of any sort of comprehension that it's possible for other people to have different experiences or resources than he does. He is not a credible source on any topic to do with social policy or the impacts of anyth
Slimy, lying hypocrite (Score:2)
What a slimy hypocrite.
Eric Schmidt on a disruptive new technology Google has figured out how to profit from: "Schmidt cautioned against jumping to the worst conclusions, saying that society always tends to adapt to new technologies --- and he's hoping for etiquette rather than government regulation."
Eric Schmidt on one they haven't [slashdot.org]: "Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is urging lawmakers to regulate the use of unmanned aircraft by civilians --- and quickly."
Re:Yeah right, students concerned about privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Well played, AC... well played.
Re: (Score:2)
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Nobody "cool" knows these names. We nerds do, but the "hip" society doesn't.
Call them "Google goggles", That's uncool enough and everyone knows Google enough that it will catch on.
Re:Honest question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you could do something stupid. Everyone has the odd accident every now and then, a glass tipped, a spot of ice on the road where you slip, and let's not forget the good ol' split pants. Yes, these moments can be kinda embarrassing, but they're passing. A few people may see you try to keep your rear end covered as you do your best to get home without being seen, and it's horrible the moment it happens, but afterwards it's over. Some people may laugh about it, but it is forgotten 10 minutes later.
Not so with the internet.
All it takes is you wearing some kind of odd underwear or ... hell, whatever. Freak accidents happen. You slip, try to steady yourself with the table, knock it over, trip the cupboard with all the cake... you get the idea.
How long 'til it's a meme?
It will be embellished with some added photoshop pics and clever editing, making it look like your accident eventually tripped some nuke or something. I have to admit, my imagination for such things is a bit limited, but I guess everyone here can come up with at least one clever thing to do with it. 1% thereof might be funny enough to catch on.
Now multiply with a few million internet users.
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There should be something like Godwin's Law that says, whenever someone equates a forgetting memory of a single human to large-scale computer-assisted data-mining, he automatically loses and the thread ends.
Yes, I want to be able to lie about a minuscule event if I want to. And there's nothing wrong with that. Forgetting or not knowing is what makes society function. Knowing that not every move of yours is recorded is what keeps you sane.
If you never were in a situation that you were glad was not recorded o