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Tag Archive for Glass

A little piece of Glass

December 13, 2013 Glasstastic Comments Off on A little piece of Glass

Today I had to take the kids to the pool for their swimming lessons.  At this particular pool, there are no signs prohibiting cel-phone or camera use (there are at other pools we have visited, but this ones a little more realistic).

We had a parent (or possibly student) show up at the pool wearing Glass.  He took a look around, removed them and stowed them carefully in his backpack.

This wasn’t a necessary thing, its the kind of pool where meets and polo matches and other events are held with some regularity, so there is no overt restriction on cameras or recording devices.  Its entirely possible he was concerned with the cloud of chlorine that invariably surrounds a body of man-maintained water, or getting thrown in the pool by the Polo team, or some other reason than how the people around him feel about Glass.

Glass is not a standalone device.  It’s a peripheral, like your Bluetooth earbud, so removing it, while annoying, will not stop you from using your phone, or from receiving phone calls.  I suspect it can get as annoying as wearing an earbud *all* the time.

It was the gesture that caught my attention.  This individual came across as someone who is *using* Glass, not as someone who views Glass as the inalienable right to be wired up all the time, not as a way to show off how tech-savvy he was, but someone who is using it as the tool it was designed for and putting it back in the toolbox when he didn’t need it.

So, unknown Glass user, this week I’m going to label you as #glasstastic. Compared to the gal with the moving violation and the guy who got ranty at a restaurant, you might not be as sexxy a news story, but you are a better example of Glass users for the rest of us.

Don’t be a #Glasshole

December 2, 2013 Glasstastic Comments Off on Don’t be a #Glasshole

Glass is just the first and maybe the most publicly obvious of the heads up display devices that are in development right now. Heads up display is have been in varying forms of development for close to 20 years (possibly more, but you know, Skunkworks stuff). Previously the development seems to be in the realm of military hardware, but most recently mobile development firms have jumped in on the act.

In the news we have recently seen a number of articles; the first woman to ever get a moving violation for wearing Glass while driving.  In the northern part of the US, there is a technologically savvy patron who is trying to get a manager fired because she insisted that he remove his Google glass headset while dining in the restaurant.

We’re not looking at a Tony Stark situation here. People are not looking through glass and seeing the world overlaid with advertisements and maps and wireframe models and a floating computer screens. There are options like that in the works for similar devices right now but what Glass really is is a series of post it notes that pop up with something “important” happens.  It is the visual equivalent of the pings and rings your phone gives off when an email or text comes in.

Thing is, they are already *remarkably* polarizing.  I’ve already had friends and business partners declare they will *never* hold a conversation with someone while they are wearing a Glass headset.  I’ve known one woman to go so far as to state that she would simply walk out of the room without a word.  Without ever seeing the technology in the wild.

Being here in the middle of high-tech central, I see people wearing Glass on a fairly regular basis.  I have some idea of what it feels like to be the person on both ends of the conversation, both the tech-savvy #Glasshole (or as I prefer to say #Glasstastic) and the non-tech person trying to hold a conversation with someone who may or may not be paying attention to the conversation at all.

So in the interests of exploring what is going to be a new social moire, I’m starting a weekly (if all goes well) post about social situations involving Glass.  We get to define this moving forward, the tech-savvy and the socially relevant.  I’d like to see us hammer out how to integrate a device as disruptive as Glass, rather than having both sides of the table ragequit the conversation and return to their respective circles.

Unlike most of my posts, I’ll be leaving the comments open (and moderating them, TYVM) so interaction will be encouraged.  I’m interested in hearing opinions on topic, and suggestions about situations to deconstruct as welcome.