The newest brainchild of internet-giant Google Incorporated is the alliteratively named Google Glass. It, generally speaking, is a wearable computer with a head-mounted display.
Basically, it’s a pair glasses that function as a small computer with similar features to the smart phone. More interestingly yet, they can be controlled by simple voice commands. And the whole shebang connects to the internet wirelessly through the user’s phone.
The Google Glass project has received an assortment of mixed reviews ranging from giddy excitement to outright abhorrence. The excitement is understandable. The gadget is being developed to do a bunch of different things including: translating languages on command, giving walking directions when the user is lost, handlessly searching the web, picture taking, and video recording. Virtually anything you record with the Glass, you’ll be able to upload to the internet with a spoken command.
I tend not to jump to either extreme, in terms of opinion, when I think about what’s to come with something like the Google Glass. However, I do think such a leap in technology is a little disconcerting - particularly the part about picture taking and video recording.
Maybe I’m biased by what I’ve been reading. The UK Telegraph recently published an online piece criticizing the Glass as “Orwellian”. Although this is a bit of exaggeration on the Telegraph’s part, for the sake of getting attention, you can’t deny there are some serious possibilities for surveillance technology coming with Google Glass.
The Telegraph’s article puts forward a what-if-scenario, in which the technology Google Glass promises customers gets developed for government surveillance purposes. Depending on how you feel about the government, this could be a good or a bad thing.
The glasses, if they’re anything close to what they’re expected to be, will fundamentally change how we exchange information between one another, with the internet, and with Google itself. Google, through the Glass, is going to really change how we create and move information. This is big, really big.
Some of my concerns arise from that kind of data movement. Google is notorious for collecting and using to the fullest extent, any user data it gets. When you’re sifting through your G Mail inbox, firing off a quick search through their world famous search engine, or doing anything in their web browser, they know what you’re doing and when you’re doing it, and in some cases where you’re doing it. That’s just how their business works, though; it’s why they’re such a success. They learn about their ursers through that data they voraciously collect and build themselves around that information.
Anything you save, capture, or type in a box about yourself, Google essentially owns and can use. With something as immersive in a person’s life as a computer attached to their glasses that can very easily record and post anything they see to the internet, this opens up the possibility of some serious privacy infringements.
Also, it’s just downright creepy to reflect on the possibility that if you use the Google Glass often enough, Google will eventually get a good idea of where you are at all times. After all, it took Google all of 30 seconds to determine that I flew all the way from Halifax to Edmonton when I was looking for directions and checked Google Maps for the nearest place to eat.
