Interesting Links for 14-04-2013

[andrewducker]

• Forecast.io - a really neat weather site (and app)
  (tags: weather )
• Mythbuster: "Strivers v Skivers"
  (tags: work uk welfare )
• Incredibly impressive pole-dancing
  (tags: dancing viaTeresaFloyd video )
• The victims of Christian homeschooling speak out.
  (tags: religion school usa )
• Reflections on Google Glass. (The Transparent Society is coming. How

Comments

[gonzo21]

The second a peadophile is caught using Google Glass to record children in a public space, it will be banned. In much the same way you're no longer allowed to take camera/video footage at childrens sports days.

And it will be used by perverts. Because every new technology is used to further human sexual interest.

In fact I can see endless problems when somebody, wearing google glasses, walks past some kids, and the parents think they have looked too long... It's lawsuits waiting to happen.

[andrewducker]

They may well ban Google glass from sports days, in the same way as current camera footage. But you're not banned from using a camera in a public place at the moment, and I don't expect that to change.

[bart_calendar]

My prediction is that Google Glass will fail on an epic scale in the marketplace so that we won't have to worry about these problems.

I can't think of any effective way to market them to non tech heads at all and I can easily see people who do try to wear them in public being socially ostracized very quickly.

To market a new form of technology you need to make people think they will look "cool" when they use it.

A device designed to make someone look like both a nerd and a pervert in public at the same time is not going to do well.

And there's nothing they can do that a decent smartphone or tablet can't do. And with a smartphone or tablet you don't look like a douchecanoe who is talking to himself while staring at a hidden screen that may or may not be recording everything around them.

The only non techhead market I see for this is for law enforcement, who will want to use them during traffic stops to demonstrate that they did ask the guy with a kilo of coke in his trunk if they could search his vehicle.

[andrewducker]

These things are tiny, compared to glasses. Give it a year or so and you won't be able to tell that someone isn't just wearing glasses.

[artkouros]

me likey the weather gizmo

[andrewducker]

I loved watching the clouds go overhead.

[kiffkin]

It seems to me that the Google Glass debate isn't just one of technology and using it to snoop, but also of public space and our relationship with it. There's a lot of implications regarding social inclusion and exclusion; in a wider sense, not just haves vs. have nots. And about how we interact with public space and with each other.

A few things I've been thinking about lately seem to be related to this - accessibility, town planning, various political ideologies. Going to have a ponder and try to get something tangible written down.

[andrewducker]

You may find this jogs a few things:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/fftransparent_pr.html

[kiffkin]

Thanks, it's an interesting read.

"The djinn cannot be crammed back into the bottle. No matter how many laws are passed, it will prove quite impossible to legislate away the new tools and techniques. They are here to stay. Light is going to shine into every aspect of our lives."

Absolutely. If it isn't Google Glass, some other technological system will turn up instead. It's not the technology itself that's the important consideration, but what we do with it and what its role in the power balance of society will be.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. It's coming, it's just a matter of when. It's our social systems which will have to evolve to deal with it.

[octopoid_horror]

This nicely illustrates one problem with Google Glass, from that article you linked: some of the people currently trying it are obnoxious and self-righteous

" As soon as we got inside however, the employees at Starbucks asked us to stop filming. Sure, no problem. But I kept the Glass’ video recorder going, all the way through my order and getting my coffee. "

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. The biggest likely cause of near-term failure is if someone does something really stupidly obnoxious before there's a known good use for it.

[momentsmusicaux]

I read 'forecast.io' in the same voice as 'scorchio!'.

I wonder if that's the intention...

[andrewducker]

Could well be, I hadn't even thought of that!