A brilliant satirical video makes Alex Yarde ponder Google Glass and the backlash to this technology.
Only last year Google Glass was the next iPod: the next must have device. The video above, a new commercial from Colorado-based FirstBank, is a troubling sign for Google. Google’s policy of releasing Google Glass to handpicked ‘Explorers’ may have backfired, and the side effect is lampoon ads. Only a week after Google released a number of the headsets to the public the world appears to have turned against Google Glass and made it an object of divisiveness and ridicule. How did Google screw up the roll out of a potentially game changing device?
“Glasshole” is the pejorative used by Bay area anti tech protestors, who feel a class divide from a tech elite who have no accountability or connection to the marginalized people living in the greater San Fransico community. They may have a point: Big Bay Area tech firms pay almost no tax, wealthy employees price everyone else out of city living. Google, Apple, and Microsoft sit on billions in cash reserves that they refuse to spend in the community and which they pay no taxes on.
Now, it’s smart marketing creating a buzz about a new product that’s impossible to get. However, Google has been dragging out the launch of Google Glass for over two years with no release date as of yet, giving credence to a “vaporware”analogy, the term gamers give promised tech that never leaves production. This early limited release smells of a desperate “Look guys we really made it!” ploy, which only compounds Google’s problems. When rolling out a new product, you have a very short window to capture the public. Tech makers define their products or detractors define them. Geeks are probably the worst enemy a Tech company can have because we are a discerning, intelligent and vocal community. In a pre-Snowden world, Google first hatched the idea of a wearable computing device. Nowadays the average person is not thrilled, big brother or data greedy corporations aside, about the creepy prospect of someone casually recording them made even easier. There are bars and cafes that ban Google Glass. The paranoia will abate, but it’s just more headwind for Google.
Point blank: Why does anyone need Google Glass other than creep shots or quick messages? It receives texts, takes calls & displays directions but you still need a phone. Voice commanding your device in a public space only pisses off everyone around you. Remember that guy shouting at himself in public with the flashing Bluetooth headset like LOBOT in Cloud City ten years ago? Don’t be that guy. I could envision some vertical industry uses for Google Glass—the military or police perhaps—and sometimes new technology is adopted by innovative educators and used in clever ways, like in the USC study “Let’s Take Her To A Magic Circus” – Emergence of Programming as a Cultural Practice in a School Context by Paula Hooper. It looks at a longitudinal study of a group of African American children in an African centered elementary school in the Boston area who learned over several years to produce in Logo environments. The work documents unintended consequences and examines the intertwined nature of social, cultural and cognitive factors involved in understanding and supporting children’s learning with programmable media.
We laugh at the “Family Glasshole” pictured in the video shouting, swiping at air without depth perception and ignoring each other at the dinner table. We all complain about technology intruding in our lives. Fact remains, we also all succumb to the “selfie” paradox—the compulsion to record and share experiences in real time, while not fully engaging in the treasured experience. It’s symptom of our smartphone obsessed world. Need proof? According to a new survey conducted by online deal site Vouchercodespro.co.uk, nearly two-thirds of all women and half of all men can’t even leave their phones alone during intercourse. The survey, which evaluated the responses of more than 1,700 Britons, found that 62 percent of women and 48 percent of men interrupted sex to check their cell phones, according to a media release obtained by The Huffington Post UK. More than 30 percent said they answered a phone call, while slightly more than 20 percent admitted to either reading and replying to a text message or an email.
“Yes, our lives are hectic and full of work and personal commitments, but surely we can all still take the time to dedicate ourselves to a little romance now and again without the constant need to check our mobile phones?” website spokesman George Charles said, according to the release.
Skepticism surrounding these findings aside, this isn’t the first time that research has hinted at widespread phone use during intercourse.
Earlier this month, a survey conducted by Harris Interactive found that almost 20 percent of young adult smartphone owners in the U.S. used the devices during sex. A 2012 survey out of the United Kingdom found that more than a third of men would answer the phone while having intercourse, and in 2010, about 11 percent of young social media users admitted to checking updates during sex. People will use Google Glass as part of intimate play. Every recording technology since the camera had an early sexual use. Google Glass opens up an entire Pandora’s Box of possible adult and adult industry applications best left for another piece.
One of my greatest concerns is that mine may be the last generation to remember life off line; that my children and theirs will have no memory of an analog, offline existence. Broadcasting 24/7 while ignoring the people surrounding them who should matter most.
—photos/video First Bank