Last week , a coffee shop in Seattle banned the habit of Google Glass , a reflexion of the growing concern about the ways this cutting - edge engineering might be abused . But the critics are ignoring the technology ’s potentiality to make our life safe and more popular . Worse , by stigmatizing its use , the Glass - hater are spawn an all raw sort of discrimination .
example byFatal SweetsviaShutterstock
Google Glass , the much heralded wearable information processing system eyepiece , has yet to be formally establish , yet thehystericsagainstits usehave already begin . The equipment can , among other things , be used to snap photo and reach the entanglement . People are understandably implicated that they might be take or photographed without their knowledge or consent .

The critics have two primary worry : First , they ’re concerned that Glass will encourage people to progressively despoil social norms , peculiarly when it do to seclusion and the enhanced potential difference for remote presence ( like verbalise to someone else on the phone , which is hardly a new problem ) . And secondly , that it ’ll allow people to take even more creepy pictures of multitude .
These concerns are , mostly , reasonable . But what the Glass - hater do n’t realize is that society will witness a path to adjust to these technologies ( whether through new constabulary or societal customs ) — and we ’ll be better off for it .
There ’s also no deny that Google - hating is also an important part of the equivalence ; many citizenry ca n’t split up the technology from the party .

Yes , Google is a pioneer in this area , but its developers are most for sure not the ones who came up with the idea , nor will Glass be the only secret plan in townspeople once the engineering becomes in full pull in .
The idea of wearable computing has been around for geezerhood . Back in the 1970s , Toronto professor Steve Mann started to work on hisEyeTapdevice , a gawky attempt at the world ’s first head - mounted camera . Today , his equipment looks almost exactly Google Glass , which is hardly a coincidence .
But Mann was not attempt to grow technologies that would reserve him to descry on people or take creepy photograph . His initial theme was far more conceptual — one with his sights set hard on the future . Mann believed , and still believes , that tv camera - engraft article of clothing could be both liberating and empowering . Even democratizing . In a worldly concern peppered with security cameras and a sensory - orbit completely dominate by corporate memes , Mann foresaw the wearable electronic computer as a way for soul to re - take control of their environment and protect themselves .

His idea was calledsousveillance — a way for multitude to watch the watcher and be at the ready to chronicle any strong-arm assaults or scourge .
“ Rather than allow terrorism as a feedback means to restore the balance , an alternative framework would be to build a stable organisation to begin with , e.g. a organization that is ego - balancing , ” he wrote . “ Such a fellowship may be built with sousveillance ( opposite surveillance ) as a way to equilibrise the increasing ( and increasingly one - sided ) surveillance . ”
Mann listed some potential benefits :

honorable drivers , prof , teachers , government official , and police welcome sousveillance because it control their integrity
Bad driver , professors , teachers , authorities officials , and police oppose sousveillance
Sousveillance is necessary to forbid crime , corruption , terrorism , etc .

Building sousveillance base into a government , a police force military group , war machine , or the like , will see integrity , and ensure that surveillance is balance
Societies with surveillance only ( e.g. no sousveillance ) are mentally ill and tend toward totalitarianism ( for example derangement of politics , or coup d’etat , soldierlike law , etc . )
Last year , in a complete stroke of irony ( or validation ) , Mann was attacked at a McDonald ’s in France for outwear such a machine — what may have been the first document cybernetic hate criminal offense . But Mann was able to apply his EyeTap to record the tone-beginning and the aggressor as it happened .

Of course , what many Glass critic also fail to acknowledge is that the total affair was recorded by McDonald ’s ’ very own surveillance cameras . When we ’re out in public , we are already being film without our permit — and often by secret firms who are not looking out for our good interests , but their own . Moreover , body politic - plant photographic camera are also starting to seem everywhere . Take the city of London , for good example , where there ’s almost no public place hidden from nose eyes .
There ’s no question that we ’re headed towards a VingeianRainbow ’s End , a transparent world thatDavid Brin address the Surveillance Society . Or what futuristJamais Cascio calls the Participatory Panopticon . The end of privacy is upon us .
And the whole Google - hating matter is an equally misguided and unfortunate distraction .

Eyeglass devices will finally be developed by other company ( or even through open source initiative ) and exhibit immensely different features ( Glass already has a competition ) . Before long , we ’ll be able to absorb in augmented realness while filtering out annoying object in our surroundings , including hoarding and other obtrusive eyesore forced upon our visual spectrum . In their place , we ’ll tot up useful things like map or the weather news report or a painting of our cat-o'-nine-tails .
So instead of being reactionary , coffeehouse like the 5 Point should puzzle out to find body of work - arounds to the problems rather of only banning them outright . hand the next prominence of wearables , bans are simply not viable retentive term solvent .
It ’s also significant to not stigmatize the utilisation of wear and cybernetic technology in oecumenical . Human capacity , and the slipway in which we interact with each other , are constantly evolving in step with our engineering science . The magic is to normalize them in such a way that no one gets hurt , and no one gets to miss out .

All while using them in an empowering sort of way of life .
persona : 5 Point Cafe , Google , Steve Mann .
FuturismGoogleGoogle GlassSurveillancewearables

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