back to article The final score: Gramophones 1 – Glassholes 0

What do the following have in common: a hand holding a half-litre carton of milk, the back of a balding head, a grinning selfie taken in a mirror and a wonky street scene with nothing of any interest going on? That’s right, it’s your life – courtesy of Google Glass. A number of colleagues have spent the last few weeks playing …

  1. muddysteve

    Hiding from Glassholes

    If/when these things become popular, I predict an increase in the wearing of hoodies and burqas.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hiding from Glassholes

      Wearing a burka to hide from a berk-er?

  2. Hank Waggenburger III

    Twelve o'clock flashers...

    ...used to be a term for people too old to be able to work out how to program their VCR (so the LED clock on the front would be all <blink>00:00</blink>).

    Once the same demographic get Glass it will take on a whole new layer of meaning.

    I'm off to reserve GoogleGlassAutoShareFail on tumblr and flickr

    --

    Hank Waggenburger III

    Connect to me on PicBum ButtPlugg!

    1. Steven Roper

      Re: Twelve o'clock flashers...

      "...people too old to be able to work out how to program their VCR..."

      Or, if they lived in Adelaide, people who got sick of resetting the clock all the time after the near-daily power cuts and dropouts that form a part of the backdrop of life in this benighted city.

  3. James 51
    Mushroom

    "I’ve been fiddling with iTunes for years and still can’t get the fucking thing to do what I want."

    Amen to that.

    1. Omgwtfbbqtime
      Mushroom

      Re: title is too long

      I managed to get it to do what I want.

      Uninstalled the fucker.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: title is too long

        Sadly, iTunes eventually got me to do what it wants.

        1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Unhappy

          Re: title is too long

          "Sadly, iTunes eventually got me to do what it wants."

          It's a supplier driven world.

          And not just for companies.

      2. Naughtyhorse

        Re: title is too long

        I was wondering about that one, I installed itunes once, last century some time. looked at it got 1/2 hour said 'fuck that for a game of soldiers' uninstalled it. filed it away as the sort of thing people who watch the x factor would use, and never looked back.

        instead I use this amazing app.... windoze exploder :-) had to kick it in the goolies a few times when it tried to get all 'itunes' on my ass. But now it knows whos the boss.

        1. JoshOvki

          Re: uninstalled it.

          Bugger me! You were actually able to uninstall iTunes?! I thought it was something not even a full reinstall would remove.

  4. auburnman

    The big difference between the all pervasive surveillance of a CCTV society vs. a Glasshole society is agency: All these Glasshole cameras are being actively directed and are linked to a user who immediately gets to decide if the footage is worth doing something with, probably without the subjects knowledge or consent. Footage can also be constantly buffered dashcam style so users can retroactively decide to save something for posterity.

    My concern is that in both the CCTV and Glasshole worlds I can do an embarrassing trip-stumble-faceplant combo in the street, but only in one of those worlds I can worry about being on Youtube within the hour.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      >> being on Youtube within the hour

      Paranoia informs me that the Glass wearer is, as you suggest, merely an agent. It's Google that determines what to do with the content being collected on its behalf by these agents.

    2. Haku

      Re: "embarrassing trip-stumble-faceplant combo "

      Picture this: A man running along a path with two dogs, each on a leash held in each hand, he trips, the dogs don't stop running, he couldn't let go of the leashes.

      He performed the most amazing full-on perfectly flat bellyflop to the ground I'll ever see in my life.

      He's lucky I didn't have any video recording device active because that clip would've likely gone viral. Had there been CCTV in that area there's almost no doubt a cheeky operator would've gone "I'm getting a copy of that & sending it to my mate".

  5. John 110
    Coat

    Completely off-topic

    +500 for the Bladerunner references

    me going to a party as Deckard-------->

    Damn! failed the Voight-Kampff test again

    1. AbelSoul
      Mushroom

      Re: Voight-Kampff

      "Let me tell you about my mother..." BLAM!

  6. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Coat

    Hmmm

    Quote

    "Paranoid I may be, but I doubt the months of digital video held in NSA vaults of me picking my nose are going to get me rendered on a top-secret Ryanair flight from Stansted to a five-year waterboarding holiday at Guantanamo."

    Are you really, really, really sure about that? wisest not to temp fate methinks.

    Time to pop me coat on and head out into my Spy Camera Free area and down the Pub for a quick one. No cameras there either. Plus, if I know the landlord, any idiot daft enough to poke their head round the door wearing a 'google Glass' type device will be quickly dispatched into the adjacent Duck Pond complete with glass device. do the locals have anything to hide? Shhhh better not to ask, Nudge-Nudge, wink-wink.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm

      "Plus, if I know the landlord, any idiot daft enough to poke their head round the door wearing a 'google Glass' type device will be quickly dispatched into the adjacent Duck Pond complete with glass device"

      Although not glass I was once on the receiving end of a similar fate for daring to take a picture of my mates in a bar. The landlord (a dodgy fellow running a VERY dodgy pub) took offence to being in the background and tried to take my phone and snap it in two. I grabbed it back, was punched in the back of the head by a regular, picked up and thrown in a nearby (in the pub garden) river in November. I then called the police, the landlord was arrested, charged with assault and perverting the course of justice (he refused to give up the names of the regulars who helped him assault me)...because it wasn't his first run in with the law he got sent down for 5years and still has 3years to serve.

      The pub shut down not long after and was demolished to make way for a nursing home. So if your landlord really thinks he has the right to do things like that, good luck to him, but it wont end well for him, his family or the regulars that like drinking there.

      1. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Hmmm

        Anyone else think this reads like one of those Armstrong & Miller sketches? "It might seem funny but it happened to a friend of mine."

        1. Dr_N

          Re: Hmmm

          Really hope the OP is in witness protection or that the landlord has found it is his heart to forgive him....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hmmm

          I am pretty friendly with an ex-landlord/landlady couple who are well versed in the local pub/club scene, and had a good natter with the managing landlord who took over from them temporarily after they left - all parties confirmed that dodgy pubs 'allegedly' using drugs, fencing of stolen goods, etc to prop up their business isn't exactly rare (the managing landlord had dealt with dozens in his time, my mates had a rash of people trying to 'get in' with them and use the pub to flog drugs in private - who were told to feck off), and neither are people 'falling down the stairs' after having a 'difference of opinion' with the landlords.

          That said, a better way to get back at knobend landlords is to threaten their license - many ways of doing this, but of course, only if they are utter twats.

          Anon as I have a rare name, am easily traced, and have also had a couple of people lose their license because....they were utter twats. Lockins till 5am on weeknights with music blasting on a residential street, etc. I'm pretty laid back, but I work 9-5 for a living, have my limits, and 'go fuck yourself' as a response to a request to get them to tone it down wasn't the best way to get on my good side.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmm

            I wonder how many people claim 'I am pretty friendly with an ex-landlord/landlady couple' and how many of said landlords would agree.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Hmmm

              Given that I still go round their house for coffee/dinner/generally setting the world to rights every other week, I'd say they would. There are several dozen other people who do fit the description you provide though, who they frankly just can't abide. I'm one of three people from those days that they speak to through their own volition.

              I'm not one to ingratiate myself where I'm not wanted. Except here of course, chum ;-)

          2. AndrueC Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Hmmm

            and use the pub to flog drugs in private

            God it's time I went home. I mis-read that as 'use the pub to foul dogs in private'.

      2. Captain Hogwash

        Re: still has 3years to serve

        Long enough for you to get to taekwondo red belt then ;-)

    2. tony2heads
      Joke

      Re: Hmmm

      "top-secret Ryanair flight from Stansted to a five-year waterboarding holiday at Guantanamo"

      Which is the cruel and unusual punishment - the Ryanair flight of stay it Gitmo?

  7. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Big Brother

    The answer!

    Just completing the patent application for the tin-foil burqa now.

  8. Drat

    Photos photos

    Why do most articles concentrate on the camera part of google glass? Surely the defining feature is the always available screen in front of your eyes? I would have thought the main use of google glass is seeing information all the time, message notifcations, directions, google now cards (stocks, football scores, travel times/alerts). Photo taking must be a small part of what you can do. In fact I wonder why there is not a version without the front facing camera, a lot of the privacy concerns would then go away.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Photos photos

      ... because you might confuse wearers by hacking their glasses and feeding each one the viewpoint of some other wearer?

      1. andreas koch
        Trollface

        @ AC ~1220h - Re: Photos photos

        .. because you might confuse wearers by hacking their glasses and feeding each one the viewpoint of some other wearer?

        or shouting: "OK glass, horse porn, loop, mike off!"

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Happy

          Re: @ AC ~1220h - Photos photos

          or shouting: "OK glass, horse porn, loop, mike off!"

          If you do that near me, it'll have to be a swift kick to the nadgers I'm afraid. No one interrupts me when I'm watching hot sheep-on-sheep lovin'!

          1. andreas koch
            Go

            @ !Spartacus - Re: @ AC ~1220h - Photos photos

            Don't worry, I'm rarely in Wales.

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Photos photos

        That's a good idea for a Kickstarter, a kind of short-range Glass hacking device which can swap viewpoints and/or superimpose images of the Laughing Man over everybody's faces.

        1. Alistair Dabbs

          Re: Photos photos

          >> superimpose images of the Laughing Man

          I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

    2. dotdavid

      Re: Photos photos

      I wonder why there is not a version without the front facing camera, a lot of the privacy concerns would then go away.

      This. Why not make the camera detachable and optional then if you really want some PoV video you can always attach it as and when it's actually appropriate to use.

    3. andreas koch
      Holmes

      @ Drat - Re: Photos photos

      > . . .

      In fact I wonder why there is not a version without the front facing camera

      . . . <

      The same reason why there's no TV without a remote, no Laptop without a keyboard and no tablet without a touchscreen.

      It's its main input device. To actually be useful, and not just a very small, very bad GoPro, you have to be able to point and ask at a party: "OK, Glass, that watch there, how much does it cost and where can I buy it?" or, with the kids in the zoo: "What are these animals called?" or "Where am I and how do I get home?"

      Microphone only would be pretty lame, I think.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Photos photos

      "Surely the defining feature is the always available screen in front of your eyes? I would have thought the main use of google glass is seeing information all the time, message notifcations, directions, google now cards (stocks, football scores, travel times/alerts). "

      Please tell me you are joking, do people really believe this is worth spending £k on? roll on the first bit of malware for the Google Glarse

  9. Novex

    Is it just me...

    ...or is this whole Google Glass thing starting to get about as close as we can to what William Gibson wrote about in 'Neuromancer'?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Is it just me...

      It's not just you. Moreover, the people into this kit usually don't get the irony at all, and think the world in Neuromancer is a totally cool, desirable future, let's bring it on, etc.

  10. Steven Davison

    RE : Photos photos

    Because then it isn't nearly as useful as a data collector. Which is why Google want us to have it. The more 'data' Google has, the more it can sell...

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. ukgnome

    Picbum

    is such a disappointment, if Dabbsy is going to advertise things then I expect much much better.

    No wonder he's all miserable, someone should kick him in the glasshole, and then snapchat it or summink!

  13. Isendel Steel

    Do we need

    printed outerwear or a "button" badge indicating we do not give our consent to image taking, so that it can be captured and we can use it to take down the images ?

    1. andreas koch
      Thumb Up

      @ Isendel Steel - Re: Do we need

      Yes! And litigate, of course!

      I'm off to the patent office, you better run if you want to beat me to it . . .

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Do we need

      Maybe t-shirts or badges with specially crafted QR-codes sending them

      to websites full of nasty virusses might do the trick !

      1. desht

        Re: Do we need

        A Goatse QR ought to be sufficient, I would have thought.

    3. John 110

      Re: Do we need

      Maybe a tee-shirt with a myriad of embedded infrared LEDs...

    4. Fungus Bob

      Re: Do we need

      No, we just need a cattle prod. I imagine one of those would really fry them Google Glass thingies.

  14. lluvpostingcomments

    Google Potatohead+

    Why not have Google Ears ( Gears+ ), Google Nose ( Gnose+ ) as well as other appendages. You'll end up looking like a geeky Mr. Potatohead with a nervous twitch.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Google Potatohead+

      Must get some of those Google Guttocks.

      For my next trick, I will count to ten while drinking a glass of water.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: Google Potatohead+

        That's just a load of old Glollocks!

  15. James O'Shea

    Hmm

    "rendered on a top-secret Ryanair flight from Stansted to a five-year waterboarding holiday at Guantanamo."

    They might do the logical thing and just keep you on Ryanair. Or save some money and merely not let you out of Stansted.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Hmm

      It's not that they won't let you out of Stansted, just that there aren't any signs. Or if there are, they're incredibly well hidden.

      Funnily enough I was watching a program on architecture the other day, that claimed it was the best airport designed up to that time. Although I guess that is rather like being offered the choice of smallpox or ebola.

  16. breakfast Silver badge

    May contain flashing lights and strong colours

    I really hope there is some way to exploit Glass using a carefully contrived set of flashing lights pointed at the camera. It would open the door to all kinds of hilarious and disconcerting pranks.

  17. Decade
    Boffin

    Admit it - You think it would be useful

    A lot of the pictures are going to be banal, but sometimes it would be convenient to have a camera immediately available to capture illegal actions. I commute by bike, and so many times I wish I could capture pictures of people cutting me off, or blocking the bike lane and the pedestrian walkway.

    Though, to make it work well, it must be recording all the time. Like Steve Mann's camera. Google Glass is so far behind Steve Mann it's ridiculous. There's way more of Mann's philosophy on his blog.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Admit it - You think it would be useful

      A lot of the pictures are going to be banal, but sometimes it would be convenient to have a camera immediately available to capture illegal actions. I commute by bike, and so many times I wish I could capture pictures of people cutting me off, or blocking the bike lane and the pedestrian walkway.

      A lot of cyclists in London already have helmet mounted cameras. Which will provide useful defence evidence for when I finally lose my temper after yet another two-wheeled tosser rides through a red light while I'm crossing the road.

    2. Zack Mollusc

      Re: Admit it - You think it would be useful

      Cyclists wearing Google Glass? Jeepers, aren't they satisfied with never looking behind them, they want to never bother to look what is in front of them?

      They should lump bicycles in with mopeds, get some mirrors, indicators, number plates and protective clothing on them and have the bastards learn the traffic laws.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Admit it - You think it would be useful

      Irrespective of anything else, many thanks for those links. You're right - Meta's product appears to make Google's look like a child's toy, and to be far more useful and usable. I'd actually consider giving Meta Glass a try, once the price came down to something mere mortals can afford. Not so Google's Glass. What's not to like about glasses (bearing in mind I wear glasses anyway as I don't get on with contact lenses) that allow one to bring up a virtual computer or phone and use it pretty much like a real one, barring the lack of haptic feedback?

  18. Timo

    Nobody has figured out how to jam the camera?

    Where is the anti-glasshole technology? I thought it was possible to jam video cameras with infrared transmitters, and movie studios were doing it to thwart people who were taking a videocam into the theatre to pirate movies, videocams being sensitive to light just outside of the visible band.

    Wouldn't it be possible to make a hat studded with IR LED's or something and have it generate a confusing IR field that would disrupt the Glass's camera? It would kind of be like wearing your own Glass disruption field. Or the entire bar could be fitted with some kind of IR jamming device (think super bright lamps with filters installed that only pass IR.)

    1. veti Silver badge

      Re: Nobody has figured out how to jam the camera?

      Wearing clothes made of this stuff should pretty much do it.

      You're welcome.

  19. Chris G

    Quick! close that door and don't let the horse back in.

    Anyone worrying about their image being captured by Glassholes should have been taking precautions for quite some time already, the number of phones out there being used with cameras is in the billions. Somewhere i am sure is a recorded number of how many pics and videos are taken daily world wide, there can be few of us who have not been recorded unknowingly, especially if you live in a big city or a place like Ibiza full of tourists where I live.

    Fortunately for me the plastic surgery,sunglasses, wig and false leg seem to be helpful in hiding my true identity.

    My objections to Glass are the head twitching, talking to the air and general dorkiness, when everybody else is a dork I may consider joining them.

    I remember when cell phones were a new thing; anyone standing or walking in the street talking to a black house brick was considered a twat! It's not so bad being that twat when you are one of millions.

  20. -v(o.o)v-

    Bravo Dabbsy

    Well done, sir. Invoking the immortal BR quote was the cherry on the top.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    perfect alighnemnt

    with facebook, twitter, etc.

  22. Stevie

    Bah!

    What a shame there's no way to force the camera to shut down if one points at you.

    But then, I said that when I saw the first cell phone equipped with one.

    Stevie's Law: As the tech gets more intelligent, the people who buy it get dumberer.

    Same ole say mole.

  23. Fihart

    So right about the record player.

    Your record player example clearly applies to mobile phone -- screen too small for internet, keyboard too small for typing, music player doesn't support folders, mapping which should work with GPS wants expensive data feed as well. Takes a sixty page manual to explain it all (if you're lucky).

    When I find a toaster that also makes coffee without compromising either function or second guessing (wrongly) whether I take sugar or not, I might take smartphones more seriously.

    1. Zack Mollusc

      Re: So right about the record player.

      I bought an N95 and much later an HTC One X precisely because the map data was built in and didn't need a data connection.

      The N95 needed a software patch and this removed the map data.

      The HTC One X had a patch pushed to it which removed the map data (or removed the app, can't remember).

      1. John H Woods Silver badge

        Re: So right about the record player.

        >>map data was built in and didn't need a data connection.

        Check out OSMAnd, it's surprisingly good.

        1. Zack Mollusc

          Re: So right about the record player.

          Oooooh, I shall. Thank you.

  24. StimuliC

    don't want Mike Elgan to read this

    The king of glassholes would be on a rant against the register. He thinks that anyone that doesn't own Google glass is a Luddite.

  25. Morat

    How many youtube hits?

    I want to see the video of people learning to use a 60s record player!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ever read "The Utopia Experiment", part of Robert ludlum's Covert One series? If not then read it, it's the future of google glass

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not only did he predict the future, he did it several years after he died. Spooky!

  27. hotslot

    not all bad

    Glass does have some interesting ideas, that are pretty revolutionary :

    All your conversations are recorded, logged, converted to text, and indexed into a database.

    This database then becomes your 'offline memory'.

    This database can then be real-time cross referenced with the current conversation / query.

    In normal-speak this means that the phrase 'I never said that' will become redundant.

    THIS IS THE FUTURE.

    not the glasses, but the IDEA of recording everything that happens to you.

    as a memory-aid.

  28. lucki bstard

    The idea could almost be like the movie The Final Cut, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_31)

    Everything you see and do is recorded for you and after you die those images are edited to tell your life story.

    Interesting film on the whole

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