I never asked for this...

But Google wants to give us augmented reality anyway.

http://g.co/projectglass

I don't know where they find time for research when they invest every moment into cataloging everything I do on the internet.

Might be too expensive...

Sweet, yet another surveillance and tracking device masquerading as a consumer gadget.

"Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law."

All that technology and I still can't tell what it's about at a quick glance.

2002 - take a look at a mostly-text page, get basic information in five seconds and more details in half a minute.
2012 - have to watch and click through a video to get the idea, would have to watch the entire video including fluff parts to find the relevant information (assuming there is any, which I can't even know!).

Progress!

I came here thinking this would be about Deus Ex, unless im missing something

sgt dopey said:

I came here thinking this would be about Deus Ex, unless im missing something

These are glasses that apparently have screens in them, also with the functionality of a smartphone. It's what's commonly called "augmented reality", such as HUDs and information about the world around you being displayed on a screen right in front of you. Deus Ex, is obviously full of this.

Wearing smartphone-style glasses? Isn't that like wearing a huge sign on your head saying "MUG ME"? Just like when the iPhone came out, it'll be easy to spot people wearing them and even easier to just swipe it from their eyes. Good job increasing crime rates, Google.

GreyGhost said:

Sweet, yet another surveillance and tracking device masquerading as a consumer gadget.

What scared me was the fact that they wanted it to be able to take videos. Who knows who will be seeing everything you can see? Plus, can you imagine trying to do tasks with ads popping up on your damn glasses?

The idea is kinda cool but I don't think I want all these things popping up in front of my eyes. Somebody could hack your glasses and make you walk into the wrong side of town. ;)

Krispy said:

Plus, can you imagine trying to do tasks with ads popping up on your damn glasses?

I can imagine a massive new market for targeted adverts opening up if the phone's smart enough to identify activities and patterns of behaviour. I can also imagine an major increase in the incidence of cancerous tumors, which is only to be expected when you have a microwave transmitter running non-stop in close proximity to living tissue.

Heh, if it can take videos and send them over the net, it's really an excellent espionage device. Smart phones can already be remotely activated to listen to you while you think it's turned off, one would be stupid to think that the same thing will not be true of these Google Goggles.

GreyGhost said:

I can imagine a massive new market for targeted adverts opening up if the phone's smart enough to identify activities and patterns of behaviour.

And give it just enough time to integrate that medical technology that can look at brain activity and extrapolate what you're thinking about.

A more serious concern is who's gonna blow good money on such a security and privacy liability with no real practical value, especially with the ongoing crisis and much more mundane but life- (and pocket-) threatening problems to tend to.

Normal people are NOT Fighter-Jet pilots that need critical info displayed literally in their face, and most don't realize that they can't afford to live in a virtual reality made of retarded posts, tweets and "targeted ads" for stuff they don't need in shops they can't access.

Until now, the marketing model for such devices was a sort of a mid-term lease at a "political price", so to speak, so most people could sport phones much more expensive than what they could buy privately on their own means. But to be monitored like that, no "political price" would cut it. Not even a negative one (being paid to use it).

Maes said:

But to be monitored like that, no "political price" would cut it. Not even a negative one (being paid to use it).

Hah! You underestimate the power of advertising and the gullibility of the people.

Just make a cool enough campaign, full of hip guys and sexy girls showing how cool they are with their iGlasses, and there you go.

If people objected to being monitored, they wouldn't go on facebook, tweet everything they do, and log everywhere they go in foursquare.

What does it bring them? Nothing material. Nothing concrete. But a weird sense of validation. That's how all these social networks function; that's how overpriced brands like Apple thrive: they don't sell you anything you really need, they sell you the illusion of belonging to a brotherhood of people who like you.

And it is important. This feeling that you belong to a group and you can be popular. You look at your growing number of followers on Twitter and find validation. You look at your growing number of friends on Facebook and find validation. You look at your growing number of subscribers on Youtube and find validation. You look at your growing number of watchers on Deviantart and find validation. Everywhere, the same thing. And people go for it. "Fav me! Friend me! Watch me! Follow me! Sub me!" They embrace the newspeak and the ideology of social networks.

Why? Because on the other side, life sucks. Nobody they see in the flesh care about them, since they live in a dense-packed urban center where everybody is a stranger and a potential threat. Never a word, never a smile. The government holds them in contempt, too busy kissing the butts of the 1% to care about lowly commoners. Mainstream media keep repeating the idea that they are useless, redundant, that Chinese workers are performing better than them for less and that therefore they deserve nothing. That expecting to have rights at all is to show an unjustified sense of entitlement. You are shit. You suck. If you were worthy of anything, you'd fly across the world in your own private jet to dine with world leaders in tremendously expensive restaurants, but you don't so you are nothing but a shit.

So you escape this brainwashing of with glee, to fall in another where you are treated with artificial respect. You might not have any dignity in either case, but at least you feel better when you are a cow to be milked dry rather than a meek to be stomped on.

This is why when the social situation becomes too blatantly unjust, the people do not raise up to overthrow their oppressors anymore -- instead, they raise up to loot stores and steal sport clothes and iPhones. They don't want dignity, or freedom, or democracy, or a future they can look forward to, no; they want the artificial validation that comes from mindless consumerism, like a morphine shot to forget the pain about how much society sucks and how much all the dreams of yesterdays are turning into nightmares.

Gez said:

And it is important. This feeling that you belong to a group and you can be popular.

This explains why I don't give a fuck. If those people discovered Doom and Doomworld, their lives would be better and their real identities safer.

IMO, in recent years there has been a -false- perception that somehow everything has become more "open", more "free", more tolerant, that suddenly Joe P. Random's opinion or voice counts etc. and that old social and legal conventions and common sense don't apply. Well, guess what...they still do. And Joe P. Random's opinion still counts for nothing, only that now he can't even take it back, because he slandered it all over place.

About the rest of your post: you are right, and so far governments have shown an apparent tolerance to this state of things, exactly because it keeps people from looking at the real causes of their misery. That is, until they can't afford their ham-on-rye sandwiches anymore, as I had detailed in the OWS thread citing a decade old Italian article.

The core concept of that prophetic article was that a TV, while being an undoubtedly sophisticated and complex item, was given away at such a low price which was clearly at a loss and thus "political", so that everybody would be within reach of its message. Conversely, a simple ham-on-rye sandwich cost a non-negligible fraction of the TV's price, something which made no sense considering the sophistication and know-how required to build a TV, vs. the simplicity of making a sandwich.

I'll limit myself to reproducing the last paragraph from that article (translated):

But since images [on a TV screen] do induce hunger but cannot be eaten, lowering their price [of the TVs] can be risky: In fact, "The Man" 's staff warned him that an actual revolt of TV viewers is expected within the decade, because they will have grown more and more obsessed with the ham-on-rye sandwiches, but will be less and less able to actually afford them.

As a legally-blind guy who can't see the signs on the street, I do need critical data beamed into my face like a fighter pilot. Map data would be the most useful. IMs much less so. In fact, those would be distracting and shouldn't be used in many situations.

This said, eye tracking probably won't work for me. My eyes are so shaky that those laser scanners they use to check retinas don't work on me. I might be fucked trying to use UIs like that.

Ads would be frustrating, and possibly quite dangerous to people moving through a city or driving.

Aliotroph? said:

Ads would be frustrating, and possibly quite dangerous to people moving through a city or driving.

This.


Also, it's still science fiction because no one uses Google+.

Aliotroph? said:

As a legally-blind guy who can't see the signs on the street, I do need critical data beamed into my face like a fighter pilot.

Aids for variously disabled people are another matter altogether, so an affordable monitor/glass combination that didn't interfere with normal viewing would be a boon for people in you condition.

But that was, sadly, NOT one of the primary motivations in designing a consumer-affordable version of the military HUDs, even though as a result it will drive prices down for medical-grade ones (which, I suppose, will still exist as a distinct product with functions specific to yours and similar conditions, not the least of which a reasonably accurate and PROFESSIONALLY MAINTAINED database of street signs ;-)

GreyGhost said:

I can imagine a massive new market for targeted adverts opening up if the phone's smart enough to identify activities and patterns of behaviour.

I'd actually welcome this change, rather than constantly being blasted with ads that are completely irrelevant to my interests.

Maes said:

Aids for variously disabled people are another matter altogether, so an affordable monitor/glass combination that didn't interfere with normal viewing would be a boon for people in you condition.

But that was, sadly, NOT one of the primary motivations in designing a consumer-affordable version of the military HUDs, even though as a result it will drive prices down for medical-grade ones (which, I suppose, will still exist as a distinct product with functions specific to yours and similar conditions, not the least of which a reasonably accurate and PROFESSIONALLY MAINTAINED database of street signs ;-)

I actively avoid so-called medical-grade aids. They cost ten times as much and are less effective than solutions I can buy in a regular store or build myself. If Google glasses end up costing $500 then any version made for the legally blind will probably cost $5000 and be a clunky mess. It's funny how that works out.

This sounds interesting in theory, but given the concerns and FUD, I'd pass it. I also never wear glasses, making this even less practical. I'd rather have my hand-held devices with cameras do whatever these goggles could do.

Dragonsbrethren said:

I'd actually welcome this change, rather than constantly being blasted with ads that are completely irrelevant to my interests.

Hmm...but to go to my favourite mall, I have to pass before a Bel Ami massage parlor. Will this mean that I will be "targeted" with gay ass-blasting ads? :-p

Gez said:

And give it just enough time to integrate that medical technology that can look at brain activity and extrapolate what you're thinking about.

From there it's just a short step to directly stimulating parts of the brain, then Maes won't be able to walk past a Bel Ami parlor without feeling an itch that has to be scratched. ;-)

I've been waiting for a practical set of HUD glasses since about 1996. I may be in the minority as far as this forum goes, but I'm pretty ready for this.

Shaikoten said:

I may be in the minority as far as this forum goes, but I'm pretty ready for this.

My body is ready.

Gez said:
You look at your growing number of followers on Twitter and find validation. You look at your growing number of friends on Facebook and find validation. You look at your growing number of subscribers on Youtube and find validation. You look at your growing number of watchers on Deviantart and find validation.

You look at your growing number of referrals on your Doomworld forums profile and find validation!

Shaikoten said:

I've been waiting for a practical set of HUD glasses since about 1996. I may be in the minority as far as this forum goes, but I'm pretty ready for this.

So am I, I think this is pretty cool.

I've got a question, though, why the concern over security and privacy? Don't get me wrong, I don't want either violated, but I fail to see how it's any different in this case than just a regular smartphone.

When do we get to have chips directly into our brains, anyway? Now THAT'd be cool. Those glasses make you look like a fuckin' Universal Soldier or something.

Even though I enjoy having all this awesome technology like computers and TVs, seeing new stuff like this always makes my stomach ache a little. Sure, its awesome that we can have cool looking stuff like this that makes quite some things easier for us, but in general I am not very excited about the idea of changing the way we perceive our environment or think about it.

Watching Matrix as a little kid made me a little afraid of fast advancing technology. :/

MSPaintR0cks said:

in general I am not very excited about the idea of changing the way we perceive our environment or think about it.

Watching Matrix as a little kid made me a little afraid of fast advancing technology. :/

Bah. I embrace transhumanism and futurism, living without technology would be the most boring existence ever.