Droning on and "glassholes"
Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 06:00AM 
With the announcement from Amazon that it's working on package delivery via drone, the paranoids and skeptics have come out of the woodwork (For example see: The Amazon Drone: Thunderbird 2 2.0 on Digital Reader, Mommy, the Drone's Here! by Maureen Dowd or USA Today's Is there a 'dark side to Amazon drones, Google robots?) The usual neuroses displayed are : the drones will spy on us, be hazardous to other aircraft, and take people's jobs*.
You know what? I don't care. I can't wait. I not only want drones delivering my pizza, a part from the hardware store, and the cat from the vet, I want my own drone just in case I forget my phone at home. Just think, not more need to go to the trap shooting range - fire away from your back yard. Eventually these drones should be big enough that they could haul me to work, the liquor store, or rescue me from a hike that was tougher than I'd feared.
The self-driving car from Google can't get here too soon either. It won't be long before my children start thinking about taking my car keys away if I have a fender-bender. If I could read on the way to work while the car drives itself, I might actually get through the fourth book of the Game of Thrones series.
And Santa, I want a robot under my tree as well - one that will empty the dishwasher, scratch my back, and put the toilet seat down in case I forget. In fact I could use a refill on my coffee right now...
Glass has particularly prickled privacy advocates, even earning its own Urban Dictionary epithet — “Glasshole” — for those who flaunt their early access, wear Glass into private spaces such as restrooms or instruct the device — “OK, Glass, take a video” — in public. Star Tribune, Dec 3, 2013
Reader Comments (4)
I just bought in to Google Glass, and while I hope not to be a Glasshole, I know I probably will. Deliberately in some places because I do want to push at our boundries a bit and find where the lines are. I left them home at dinner last night, because I knew they would have been a disruption. But I do plan to wear them out and about frequently, publicly and to try to make maximum use of them.
But that aside, that AR stuff you're talking about would really be huge for me. I'm not sure how much you were joking about it, but I blogged/podcasted about it 8 years ago at http://www.teach42.com/2005/06/23/podcast-feeling-not-so-smart/ The ability to scan someone's face and get just their name and a note of context about them would be so valuable I couldn't put a price on it. And I'm hoping that the privacy issues get addressed enough to allow that to happen someday. It would make an unbelievable difference in my life.
Hi Steve,
Interesting comment and I enjoyed your old post! I need to at least find a pair of GoogleGlass to try.
The idea of AR applied to humans I first read about in a science fiction book called Freedom by Daniel Suarez. In it, on meeting another person you got to see his or her "integrity" score in bars above their head - like a strength meter in a video game. After each interaction you had with a person, you'd give them a 0-5 rating - a 0 if they were completely untrustworthy, a 5 if they were great.
Good luck with your new glasses. I am sure you will be a very considerate user.
All the best,
Doug
Doug - you'll be amused to hear in light of my past emails that I heard some commentary from a fellow WIsco tech director that made me feel like they do have a place. His tech coach wears them in classes and shows kids and teachers how they can translate books in different languages...and other slick things it can do. The way the conversation went this afternoon I was able to see the good, not just the "hey look at me, I have $1500 to blow on something" side. It also acts as a wake up call to folks that the times, they are a changin'. It was good to hear those perspectives!
Hi Nathan,
If these glasses follow the same trend as other portable technologies, people will rapidly figure out amazing and productive ways to use them that the inventors probably never imagined. I keep thinking about how we bought iPads for our elementary music teachers so they could play songs downloaded from the iTunes store. But what they really liked about the devices was the recording ability to do authentic, real time assessment. Who'd have thought a "telephone" would be more regularly used as a pedometer, a GPS, a camera, and ebook reader, a pulse monitor, a movie viewer, etc. than as a way to make calls. Human ingenuity seems to be at play in technology in two ways - the inventors of the devices, of course, but also by the users in how those devices can be used. Interesting times!
Doug