
I'm confused...
If Google see these devices selling on eBay, how will they now what device to deactivate?
Buyers of Google Glass have been warned they cannot sell their pricey new techno-spectacles on eBay or anywhere else. In terms of sale posted on its website, the advertising giant said a Google Glass was for life, unless you wanted to give it away for nothing. Anyone who failed to follow the rules will have their devices …
If Google see these devices selling on eBay, how will they now what device to deactivate?
They will see the change in habits, websites viewed - basically, the whole chain of events associated with one ID will look nothing like someone else's, and I cannot imaging Google selling you kit without it having an embedded ID of its own. For a company that scams its way into acquiring every shred of intelligence it gets from its users, that will really not be the hard bit.
However, would YOU want to touch a device that dictates post sale what you can do with it? Isn't that illegal? If not it should be, I can only see that valid for restricted items such as guns.
Given that it's apparently legal to sell devices that require a special device to control or configure them & refuse to support second-hand owners unless they buy said device & a new licence...
It looks like it's intended to prevent scalpers from buying a dozen & selling them off at huge markups to the fetishists.
"Google files court order for Ebay to give them the seller's name and address"
Give the thing to your mate to sell through his account. Google will have no idea where the glass came from, as the address won't match any records. They also won't know which device to disable remotely.
"Google files court order for Ebay to give them the seller's name and address. Then they cross reference that with a user that setup the required Wallet account and deactivates the associated unit."
Two points
1. You cannot get a court order unless a crime is shown to have been committed. Maybe in the US, never in EU.
2. This is all likely illegal in EU under restraint of trade etc.
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From the DNA samples that it collects from your skin cross checked with the photos it takes of you in the bathroom cross checked with the android phone that you have that has been gathering data about every single freaking thing you have ever done since you bought your first android phone.
It's a contract between you and Google. If you don't like the terms, don't enter the contract. Sale with strings attached is not some new thing Google invented, it's pretty common.
Someone will come along and tell us a fancy legal term for this no doubt.
Does this stand up to legal scrutiny though if you buy them outside the US?
It doesn't stand up to legal scrutiny INSIDE the US. There's a substantial body of law and precedent dating back to before the US was even founded (US common law is descended from English common law with very little modification and much of it is unchanged since the 1700s) establishing that a company or person has no right to contractually prevent a second party from reselling goods or items they have purchased.
The contract is void and unenforceable in law. If they try and enforce it they're acting illegally.
I rather suspect that the point is that the contract relates to the Google services that Google Glass needs to connect to in order to function correctly.
Whilst they can't legally stop you reselling the item, they can prevent the purchaser from accessing the required Google services because the contract for supply of those services isn't transferred with the ownership of the device.
If you buy a car and sell it on, usually the services it came with like warranty are not passed on.
The difference here is the product will not work without the service. Though why Google can't just ask for a payment from the new owner to activate the services I don't know.
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Not true. At least not in all countries. Here in NZ, manufacturer's warranty is transferable upon resale as long as you have the original sale receipt to establish the date of purchase . But then, we have one of the strongest consumer protection regimes that I am aware of, with goods and services held against far higher standards than is the norm.
For example, goods must last for a reasonable time. That is over and above any warranty - manufacturer or 3rd party (most retailers won't even bother pestering you about taking out 3rd party insurance because of this, which is another benefit!).
A colleague of mine had a 3 year old Dell 30" LCD monitor (2 yr warranty) replaced when it's power supply blew up. Power supplies reasonably should last more than 3 years (there are some general guidelines for "reasonableness" in relation to certain products, but ultimately it is taken on a case by case basis and considers things like how an appliance or device has been cared for etc). Dell, to their credit, not only replaced the unit without quibble and free of charge (they are entitled to charge to cover reasonable costs if they wish), but also arranged next-day courier delivery and collection of the expired monitor, also at their own expense !
I myself had a Logitech Harmony remote (1 yr warranty) replaced after 2 years when the recharging contacts on the docking station failed (due to a flaw in the design/implementation of spring mechanism intended to sustain the contact with the remote). Again, entirely free of charge.
In my case, unfortunately, the design flaw remains in the replacement unit and after 2 years this one has now started exhibiting the same fault. This time around for the sake of $100 I can't be bothered and don't want another unit which is going to do the same thing in another 2 years, so it's time to get a new remote entirely.
>If you buy a car and sell it on, usually the services it came with like warranty are not passed on.
I assume car makers will try that next.
You buy a BMW but have a non-transferable licence to the software in the engine management system which is disabled if you don't have it serviced at a dealer.
Agree. This is very similar the plan for the net generation of computer game consoles. Much has been mentioned of the attempt to stop users buying and selling games and other software. The solution is to make the console "always on" i.e always connected to the internet. Then ensure that only limited content from the original product is accessible to the secondary and tertiary market, effectively achieving the same thing as actively trying to stop the sale of the product.
This is a trend that is getting worse and worse. Google are just following the trend consumers have allowed by voting with their wallets at every step along the way.
Dave Fox is thinking. Good man. To rest of you I say, do as Dave does.
Glass is not a HUD. Glass is a portal. You can sell the hardware. They are saying that if you do, your account will be disabled. I find it odd that they don't have some kind of ID swapping in ability. Perhaps it's to make theft more difficult. I'd hate the portal bit anyway. So if anyone ever roots the things, be careful when I walk buy and take 1'500USD worth right off your face.
In any case, what a piece of crap for 1'500USD? Can't that fetch a some gen1 night vision goggles these days? Much more useful if you ask me.
In reasonable countries, the consumer has protection against wilfully unfair terms and conditions in contracts, as it has sensibly been noted that when a consumer enters into an agreement with a business, the business has undue control over the terms specified.
Therefore, this agreement, whereby you give up your rights to dispose of the entity that you are purchasing, would without doubt be invalid in the EU.
If google truly wanted to do this in the EU, they would have to apply a rental model - which is what this in fact is, you pay $1500 in order to rent it for $0/pcm, but as far as Google are concerned, they still own the device.
......you pay $1500 in order to rent it for $0/pcm, but as far as Google are concerned, they still own the device.
Holy Zarquon's singing fish, they really are suckers for punishment aren't they?
You'd have thought they'd have had enough of being repeatedly sued for slavishly copying Apple's methods of doing things.
"If google truly wanted to do this in the EU, they would have to apply a rental model - which is what this in fact is, you pay $1500 in order to rent it for $0/pcm, but as far as Google are concerned, they still own the device."
The EU recently ruled on this with reference to software licensing. Any license that is "sold", rather than let, is considered to be a sold tangible good, with all that that implies in the context of first sale doctrine. If you buy a software service license for a single, one-off payment, it is to every intent and purpose yours, and you have the right to sell it on. The company that supports that product must continue to support the new user as they would any other basic customer (i.e. they must not cripple the device, they must provide statutory support etc.).
The long and short of it is, within the EU, you'd have the right to re-sell your Glass for whatever price you can get for it, and google would have to support the device as they would any other.
"The EU recently ruled on this with reference to software licensing. Any license that is "sold", rather than let, is considered to be a sold tangible good, ..."
Absolutely, which is why there is now a brisk trade in WindowsServer2003 licences amongst others, First sale doctorine is being litigated in the US as well IIR. Something about AutoDesk products being resellable. I am not sure how far along it is.
In the EU, the pseudo-legal bullshit "licencing" that MS (and others) have been threatening with forever, has finally been punctured - and about time too!!! Soon the US, and then the EULA licensing bullshit will go away foreever, as it should.
The EULA _inside_ the sealed box said - (and i'm paraphrasing here for the sake of my sanity), 'by breaking the seal on this box you agree to (amongst other things) not re-sell it.' - so you had agreed to the eula before having the chance to read it, which is, I guess, the basis for the legal challenge. (cos we all read eulas carefully, and have a lawyer give it the once over before checking that box on the bottom of the dialog, don't we?)
It's a bit moot in practical terms as they have shifted to a subscription model with annual updates and guaranteed non forward compatibility, so you need to have a moderately recent version (less than 3 years old) to work in the market without looking like a muppet, and the original licence to run the new software.
I can kind of see their point. unlike most vendors they produced a package that pretty much worked straight out of the box (okay, it was actually rev 17!) - and then had to keep piling extra crap and bloat on with each rev, and vast numbers of drawing offices said 'fuck that, we'll stick with the one that works, and we already know how to use' - not good from Autodesk's point of view.
The upside is, for the casual user or student is that their licensing software is a joke. :-D
"The upside is, for the casual user or student is that their licensing software is a joke. :-D"
This is the same strategy as weak anti-copy schemes. Make it easy to pirate. All the kids will learn it. The companies will have to buy it. What a bunch of wankers. Please wank somewhere else.
Even Steve Jobs never thought of doing that!
And yes, I don´t like it and do vote with my wallet. This sort of thing pisses me off and is why I have pensioned off my Macbook Pro and iPod and now have a Samsung laptop running Ubuntu and a Galaxy S3 phone. And I don´t touch anything form Mcrosoft or Sony either. Now I will have to think about dumping Google as well.
Just because a company has a contract and you sign it in your own blood, and give your fingerprints, voice identification, and promise your first born child --- does NOT mean it can be legally upheld !
A consumer has rights and this actually VIOLATES THE COPYRIGHT MISUSE DOCTRINE!!
In fact such misuse of destroying property sold to its customer might actually be grounds for a class action suit against Google.
Those are the terms and conditions for the developer explorer edition, which is massively over subscribed. Pretty sensible to stop the scumbags profiting from it on ebay. Quite clearly it needs to be going to genuine Google Glass developers, not scammers.
Pretty sensible for Google to this this AT THIS STAGE...
December 2013:
"BWWAHHHHAAA I can't buy a Nexus4 for the RRP, but there are loads of them on ebay for silly money"
April 2014:
"BWWAHHHHAAA Google are preventing me selling Google Glass on ebay for silly money"
See the problem here? Am I the only person here that's not a total idiot?
The big print give-ith and the small print take-ith away.
Read the legal document of your toaster oven. Probably says something almost entirely identical to restricted use. Almost all business use the same legal documents to cover all their bases.
You "own" an Apple product? Try again. Those legal documents will make you weep when you read that everything you do on or to an Apple device becomes the property of Apple. Photos of a birthday? Apple owns them but give you "free use" rights to their property.
Music and movie industry also want to use Lease only system so that you have to keep paying them for the right to watch the movie or listen to music.
This is nothing new and it sure isn't anything we haven't already complained about before.
This is the new form of business for companies - LEASE or LICENSE instead of Pay-to-own.
You the consumer GAVE the company the RIGHT to screw yourself over by accepting the legal document you never bothered reading.
I may be wrong as I'm not a lawyer, but don't these license agreements a. have to abide by and not take away constitutional rights and b. have to be understood (and therefore reasonably understandable) by those who accept them in order to actually hold up in the court of law? Has any big company actually try to enforce the concept you present that "Apple owns them but give [sic] you 'free use' rights to their property" Jason 5?
"You "own" an Apple product? Try again. Those legal documents will make you weep when you read that everything you do on or to an Apple device becomes the property of Apple. Photos of a birthday? Apple owns them but give you "free use" rights to their property."
Absolute and total fantasist nonsense. Please quote a single Apple agreement that backs up what you have said.
For the record, this is in fact what Apple's agreement says for iCloud and no other agreement I've seen, contradicts it (and you won't find this in a Google agreement):
"Except for material we may license to you, Apple does not claim ownership of the materials and/or Content you submit or make available on the Service. However, by submitting or posting such Content on areas of the Service that are accessible by the public or other users with whom you consent to share such Content, you grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available, without any compensation or obligation to you. "
The second part of that clause after the however is purely necessary protection for them from people who make things public but then want to later claim it was Apple's fault. But, having ensured they have this protection, Apple even ensure their use will be limited to the intended purpose. So if you share photo's on Photostream, they couldn't then use them for e.g. Advertising. Yes I am one of the few who actually read the agreements I click. And I can tell you it's one of the very good reasons I am for Apple and avoid Google. Try finding a similar assurance in a Google agreement. As of 2010 you wouldn't for sure, and I have little reason to think they will have changed if late. After all, when you use Google, YOU are the product.
Here is what Google says these days. It used to be far more evil.
"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services. "
That's probably because those who signed up for the Glass Explorer edition aren't exactly considered regular consumers. They're just used as lab rats for Google. This probably won't apply when Glass is officially released. and you can do whatever you want with it.
You write that as if Google has no lawyers. The company has every right to enforce whatever the contract you agree with them says they can do. There are very few rights that cannot be freely contracted away. Don't like the terms, buy a different product from someone else.
Looking at the terms quoted in the article, Google don't claim it's illegal for to resell the device.
What Google do appear to say is that the buyer is entering into a contract with Google. As part of the buyer's obligations under the contract they agree they are not entitled to sell the device. They may still be legally able to sell the device, but would also be opening themselves up to a claim by Google for breach of contract.
They are also on notice that if they do sell it, Google may deactivate it.
You write as if Google's lawyers aren't entirely aware that their customers won't - in the main - be able or willing to afford to hire a lawyer to ascertain the validity of the non-negotiable contract they put in front of them.
Those Google lawyers will also almost certainly have included a severability clause in the contract. Why ? Because they will also know that some of the other clauses in that contract are not actually enforceable (such as trying to constrain the rights of an individual w.r.t their own private property) and without a severability clause such clauses would render the entire contract void, at Google's fault. Severability ensures that where a clause is deemed invalid or unenforceable, the remaining contract survives.
Here in Germany the Contract would be considered an "agreement contrary to public policy". Basically that means that Googles "Condition/Contract of sale" would be completely invalid, especially if as mentioned here that there are a lot of flaws in the Contract. In fact Google would have to continue to provide the services that the original buyer received, otherwise they would not be allowed to sell it. I believe also that the Contract breaks a number of E.U. laws regarding the restrictions.
Yes Google & all the other United States Companies (ie Amazon, Microsoft, Apple etc) that keep trying to push on to us in Europe, their ideas of fair business keep running into a brick wall. Rightly so I would suggest.
You did.
You gave them the right when you voted (or failed to vote) and didn't care what your representative's views were on this.
You did it every time you accepted a EULA without reading it because you wanted the software.
You did it every time you downloaded an app or an ebook.
You did it every time you traded your rights for the convenience of the next shiny shiny.
You give away your rights all the time.
Eventually (like about right now) they cease to become rights at all.
At least it guarantees us that no one will BUY this knowing what will happen.
I would hate someone having a Call of Duty movie theater view of my life.
What has the world come to? next we will be banning curtains and mandating in-house CCTV for private residents, of course this will be outsourced to Google.
1984 is real albeit 30 years late.
as long as it's not in the fine print, it is fine.
there is a site in Switzerland qoqa.ch which has offers every week. One week they had a Porche Carrera for a very reasonable price. You could buy only one and you had to keep it for 12 months.
It was printed in normal sized letters on the offer and no one could have missed the message. I see nothing wrong with that.
1. Don't buy these things until Google changes it's mind. When big business gets the idea that you own
nothing, private property will be history
2. Remember, in the United States, conservative Republicans represent big business, not the people. When
you elect a conservative, you are voting against yourself.
DSA doesn't apply if you've opened the box. It's meant to cover the situations where you order something, it arrives and you think "Wait, what? I thought I was getting a XYZ". It's not meant to cover the situation where the thing is what you are expecting, but doesn't quite work as well as you want.
The intention is that it gives you the same chance to back out as if you were in a store, all the goods have been rung up and it is time to pay.
Actually its more like this
When you buy a car from the manufacturer they take your bank account details, and when you go to get special petrol to use your car you have to pay with said credit card which is linked to your bank account. If you don't use the same bank account then petrol will not be provided.
This does not stop someone from hacking the car engine from using standard petrol which may not be as efficient but still works. Also this does not stop someone from giving the car to another person with the bank account selling the car and also giving the new owner the bank card, however making so many bank accounts will eventually put you into having bad credit, which would probably be the main dissuading practice (but not for the poorest of the poor) of black market resellers.
It's one way of dissuading middle men buying in bulk and selling at greater cost, however it cannot stop the practice, as it just increases the time taken/effort/risk to resell it, a china man living off £1 a week with £1500 savings would probably risk giving someone his Google wallet, with time and effort to sell it at £3000 for instance.
The thing is, the current edition of Google Glass (the Explorer Edition) is meant for developers and not regular consumers so that devs can start developing apps. This makes sure that those people buying Glass are real developers and not just people trying to make money off of it. If Google doesn't do this, a lot of phonies would pretend to be developers and then sell it to random people. This wouldn't apply when Glass does get released for regular consumers though.
Isn't this just for these early adopters, before the device is on general sale? Which makes some sense since with them only available invite-only, there will be plenty of people willing to pay well over the odds for them.
If this is part of the retail TOS then I agree there is an issue, but I don't see any reason to assume it is - there would seem to be legal issues apart from anything else.
Pretty sure that this wont stand up in court if it was on the commercial device. Just because they put stuff in their terms of sale/service, it doesn't automatically make it legal and binding.
If that was the case then I could sell a product, include a huge terms of service document and put "by buying this device, you agree to sell me your home and car for £1 whenever I want" in tiny writing in the middle of the ToS.
This seems to me just a way to prevent scalping. True, it comes across as horridly totalitarian, but how else do you prevent people buying up the (limited) stock for their personal profit?
The purpose of the first release is to get the device in to the hands of devs so that they can create cool stuff for it, which would be hurt by allowing anyone to buy and resell them.
Arguably, "free market" blah blah blah, but they have a point.
Caveat: the above is void if this clause remains for the final product.
FIRST SALE DOCTRINE... should roll over anything Google has to say about the hardware. These are not rented, they're sold.
But that only applies to the physical hardware. The courts have shown precedent (I suspect due to lobbying/bribes) that the software is not be sold, but licensed. Google can just terminate their side if the connection to the hardware, sales doctrine intact.
Or should I just wait until the implantable version comes out? ;-) Science Fiction becomes science fact before our very eyes. So what if they monitor where I am and what I do on the web, this happens anyway, I carry a mobile phone around with me and use Google to search for stuff. I just think the idea of a computer that you wear that you talk to is just amazingly cool.
First - let's put this in context. The first glass owners have been chosen by raffle and have asserted themselves as hardcore tech addicts, and they've had to put down a lot of cheddar to get them. Google wants to sell the first batch to these enthusiasts to trail the tech and generate word of mouth.
What Google don't want is for the usual profiteers to buy up the first batch and flog them on ebay for a massive profit. This will annoy those tech addicts who lost out in the raffle and will feel upset when they feel they have been passed over in favour of people trying to make a quick buck. This policy will deter such buyers.
Once the first few batches have been sold and supply is ramped up, this restriction will probably be destroyed and you can flog your glasses to whomever you desire.
Let me guess, You work for Google?
Why? It's a perfectly valid comment. It's what I assumed, that the $1,500 prototypes are supposed to be for developers, and they want feedback and apps written. Remember people were actually selling invites to Google+ on eBay, when it was invite only. Bizarre, but apparently true. Sorry, I should say offering. I hope no-one was mad enough to pay.
This is common with tech now. Scalpers make cash on getting iPhones into China, before Apple release them there. The same happened with the original Raspberry Pi's. Google would like to try to stop it, which is fair enough.
Obviously I'll have to eat my words if this is Google long-term policy. But as it's almost certainly illegal, I rather doubt that. This being a developer program, I'd imagine consumer law doesn't apply.
Oh, and downvoted for being childish and accusing someone of being a shill. Which is my pet hate.
"Once the first few batches have been sold and supply is ramped up, this restriction will probably be destroyed and you can flog your glasses to whomever you desire."
You put a lot of faith into a company that has an explicit purpose of being an AD company to make profits. Not calling you dumb or bad... but I would hold off on holding any company in good light automatically.
My two cents (not worth a dime), Google is not into philanthropy, and should be considered that way.
Google's guidelines have been talked about a lot lately. Like where their webmasters guidelines are more stringent than the legal requirements. This is fine where applied to inclusion on their systems.
BUT
Their small print does not carry more weight than a country's laws, no matter what they command you to do It's your property, and If it requires access to Google wallet, and Google wallet is not a subscription based service, then you are free to do whatever you want with the item.
While they will deactivate the item, you will then just lodge a complaint with the small claims court (in the UK anyway) who will then give Google the choice of defending themselves. When they fail to file paperwork on time (obviously they don't want to risk actually going to court) the court will rule in your favor, at which point they will instruct Google to refund the cash it cost you.
"Their small print does not carry more weight than a country's laws,"
Quite true. I can't remember though, which Act explicitly requires that, "A vendor of a physical artefact must transfer subscription to any attendant services on sale of said artefact by consumer." Can you remind me please?
but it probably doesn't have to for very long.
Glass is a "walled garden" developers can build apps in, just like the iPhone and iPad are. The Android marketplace is simply a far too undisciplined Wild West bunch of developers.
I fully expect that the WiFi, BlueTooth tethers that will be built into Glass will interoperate with the sizable (multi-million unit) iPhone and iPad markets once Google works out the bugs..
Google did NOT get to its position in search and in telephony by leaving money on the table.
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Google have this locked up in the wordings. If you buy teh device and use it then you cannot sell it on. Ifyou buy it as a gift you cannot use it before you would give it to that person. The device can only ever have one owner from new. Unless authorised by Google. So selling USB cable with with free google glasses doesnt work either as it will already be registere. Yes this is wrong and I do not agree with it hence not buying one ever unless they change this. Plus you can only own one device ???
Once you can do that you can do what you want to it; doesn't matter what google try to do with it.
If you have rooted it (and it talks to non google servers) and google tries to disable it -then surely they are trying to damage your property and could be prosecuted.
For those of you who have purchased a Google Glass don't fret. The product transfer restrictions that Google is attempting to enforce violates the well-established "First Sale Doctrine" and are uninforceable under established U.S. patent, trademark and copyright law. Google has just invited a class suit which will likely cost them more damages than any profits they might make selling the product. My recommendation to Google is to fire your corporate ambulance chasers and hire some real attorneys who are familiar with U.S. intellectual property laws.
If Apple was selling thousands of phones a week (like some other manufacturers) they wouldn't be such apple-holes. I won't buy a product in the first place as I didn't buy iPhone (I waited to get a good unclocked android when android became a solid product - v4 = ICS). So wait untill Baidy glass or something else comes along without the restrictions. I'm European but I like the american moto of vote with your wallet. Well, vote with your wallet, don't buy this product and you'll see how google will change their mind. One of the reason of high price of apple products is the second hand market. If you can't sell your iPhone 4 for a good price you won't be buying the 5.
Since you're not one of the 1500 Americans who've bought the Explorer, V1.0 of this product none of this need concern you. You can't buy one yet, and there's nothing to indicate these would be standard TOS for a commercially available product.
As someone said above, I also suspect that this is a being done to both limit the prospective secondary market one what was a raffled product and that for a full commercial release reselling would be permitted.
I have, but here's the thing: I don't care. It's *my* screen, and *I* will decide what I get to see on it.
In fact, if I've blocked an advert for your company, that actually means I'm more likely to buy from you, since I tend to avoid companies who advertise to me on general principle.
@JDX "Have you heard of the idea that adverts make money for sites?"
Says the man who obviously has never fast forwarded, changed channel, turned the volume down, gone to make a cup of tea/coffee or otherwise made a conscious decision to not have to sit through adverts when watching a tv programme - because that would make you a hypocrite wouldn't it - due to the fact that "haven't you heard of the idea that adverts make money for tv stations?"
So I'll give you the benefit of doubt and assume you are not a hypocrite, and therefore you may feel entitled to moralise and tell other people what they should be doing (this is still debatable) - but can I add that I'd hate to watch TV round your house.
This draconian requirement by Google may just be for the test version of the glasses as I don't see this continuing once the official consumer version is released. I look at it as a way for Google to shore up the distribution of the developer version to prevent consumers from obtaining them. This isn't all that bad of an idea because developer versions tend to be unstable and Google doesn't want to provide much support to the device when in the hands of someone who has no patience or knowledge of how to troubleshoot. I would do the same thing but again for the consumer version that would change.
In all honesty though I wouldn't want this as I already have a cell phone but I would love a pair of glasses that can connect and project my home screen to my eye. The idea would be similar to plugging your phone into an HDTV only wirelessly and in real-time. I would like to keep my phone in my pocket and make all commands from my glasses. The reason for syncing is because I may not always want to use my glasses whenever I want to make a phone call or play a game or other things.
It's a logical consequence of what happens if you don't have free software. Android may be open source, but it's just to hard to get your own image onto a device to really make it free.
As long as we don't recognize our natural right for free (as in speech) software and hardware, companies will continue to bully us around just like Google does in this example.
It's even more extreme when you look at the device itself. Those are machines that can see and hear everything you do. They can collect data on everything you do, and they have to in order to provide useful service to you.
The German constitutional court recently has derived a new right for the "integrity of data processing systems" in wake of the use of trojans to spy on people. They rightfully concluded that if they would allow them now, it would be possible to buy future devices like hearing aids or implants.
We need actually free software now for those devices, not just some open source code lying around on some server. People must be able to change the code and service any way they want or choose between a number of different versions provided by different people. If we don't do that now we will end up in a dystopian future.
Americans haven't even decided healthcare is a natural right, most of the world doesn't consider a roof over your head a natural right, and you think "free software" is a "natural right"?
Maybe those with no healthcare and nowhere to live could do with some of what you're on.
> Americans haven't even decided healthcare is a natural right,
Depends what you mean by a natural right.
One definition, which I probably prefer, is that you should be able to get on with what you want as long as it doesn't affect others negatively (however you might define that). Anything else, which involves the necessary input of others (like healthcare, social security) is probably excluded on that basis because it necessarily involves affecting the freedom of others.
Despite that, any country that puts defence (insurance against a possible aggressor) miles ahead of healthcare (something that everyone will need at some point in their life) really needs a reality check.
That the most powerful western nation (at the moment) doesn't have the best healthcare available to all Americans as a social service is just bizarre.
And for those that say it's about choice and freedom, well you can't choose your police service, your fire service or your army so the concept is not exactly a new one is it?
It's worse than that dude. Let's start with not making code illegal because it can be used to circumvent security controls. That is the courts fault. (WRT some countries like Germany) The people's fault is being idiots and allowing fuckwits to control them because they are too lazy to think for themselves. (WRT to the military/industrial complex, TV, politicians who pass stupid software patent laws, inhumane rabid tech fans, the self-destructing, non-human entities, etc. See what I did there... o))
FYI, in the mid-1990's many of the fledgling software companies tried to circumvent U.S. law and the "First Sale Doctrine" by characterizing a consumer software product sale as a lease,a restricted license, or a restricted "rental". This attempt failed since these transactions had all the characteristics of an actual sale. These so-called "licenses" were called "shrink-wrap licenses" which referred to software licenses where the terms of the license were concealed from the purchaser until the the shrink-wrap packaging was removed and the box was opened. The majority of U.S. state laws found these types of licenses to be invalid and unenforceable. The software companies tried to circumvent state law by lobbying for federal legislation to permit such licenses but this effort failed due consumer opposition and U.S. legal precedent of the Uniform Commercial Code and the "First Sale Doctrine" which forbids restrictions on post-sale product transfers whether software or hardware
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....and paying for it. What users are doing is financing Googles data gathering service. Google is gathering all the data on the demographic that is dim enough of pay $1500 for Google Glasses and selling it on to other vendors who would kill to get data on anyone who can so easily parted from wads of dosh. Not only that Google will harvest GPS data linked to video and images together with what catches the user attention at those locations. All this data can be use directly by Google to improve and extend their services, such as streetview and inside of locations travel video and images, and also feed up to date information on user response to street advertising and point of sale displays.
This data is more valuable if it is tied in to all the other personal demographic and personal information they will harvest when they link up all the information gathered by face recognition of you friends, family and everyone you meet. So when you autoblog video of the cute kid in the park that then trends and is used to advertise ...well everything after all that what the web is about.... just be sure that the cute kid is not a ward of court because the terms and conditions of use will make you responsible - Google will make sure of that.
But then maybe Google wil just get video of people pointing an laughing and goog-glasses being hastly put out off sight,
Much as I enjoy their on-line offerings... aren't these guys just a wee bit up their own bottoms.? ! For pity's sake, this is just a cheapened down bit of old military tech for us mere mortals. When you purchase something, it's YOURS ! You haven't rented it, you've BOUGHT it ! I am not going to buy or rent the thing because I got a LIFE. There isn't the spare time to geek my silly self all day watching b@ll@cks in front of the far more interesting reality going on around me. I'm sure a clever chap in China will retro-engineer the thing, dodge around the patents and copyright and swamp the market to the kids ( who,bless their little cotton socks, know no better ). Anyway, enough time wasted on this nonsense ... Good night and sleep the sleep of the righteous .
It's not hidden, you know what you are doing when you buy it, the bit I find odd is the whole only buying one, no resale through THEM as there would surely be a market for that at some point. Some people will want to buy more than one, some people will break them etc so I'm guessing there has to be a returns thing somewhere.
A lot of what we 'own' we don't own these days, but unless you want to do anything out of the norm with it noone really cares. You get the use which is why you spend your money in the first place.
Noone is forcing you to buy any product.
"Perhaps its strangest feature is its bone-conduction transducer, which generates sound by sending vibrations through bones in the ear."
Isn't this the normal means of hearing in vertebrates? The bones in the middle ear transmit vibrations to the cochlea, then via hairs to the nerve endings, and the brain.
It may well be to help prevent the spate of muggings and other assaults that went with the early iPhones and other "cool" gadgets that were the big status symbol of the moment..
If you turn its resale value to zero, you stop people mugging people for the glasses so they can sell them for 50 quid down the local pub (or sell them on an auction site etc.)..