Sorry, Google Glass is a little “Douchey”
Have you ever been on a train/ bus/ in a restaurant and sat next to someone who is unusually loud on a bluetooth headset? I want to say, “Maybe you need to get a Jawbone if you are vested in keeping the bluetooth headset craze alive, because yours is not working!” Happened to you yesterday? I call these things “douchey.”
Douchey is also the way I defined Google Glass to my friends when I first saw them, and later in a conversation with Chris Heine of AdWeek, which he quoted here.
Don’t get me wrong, integrating a social network in your email – brilliant. Yes, Google+ still needs to integrate with the social networks that we know and love, but they’ll get there. Flying cars, one day – brilliant (though I certainly won’t be driving one. I still keep my hands on the wheel during cruise control). Glasses with images, commands, and ads that impede my peripheral vision – not so brilliant, and definitely not ready to be a mainstream device.
Watching the latest video again, I can actually see some great uses for the glasses. Skydiving, for one. If you ever catch me skydiving, I want EVERYONE to know! My momma, my dad, and especially my followers. Proof and a safety precaution in case it’s my last hurrah. On a roller coaster would also be fun. The tweet, “I’m about to hop on a roller coaster,” followed by another, “I almost peed my pants on that roller coaster,” will now be replaced by my glasses video of “Aahhhhhs,” expletives, and tears flinging over to the front of my glasses, giving you firsthand drama at its finest. Walking down the street and asking the glasses to find you a bank or a restaurant, however, which prompt you to stop and spin around to see them in order of proximity, may send you to the looney bin quickly. Can you imagine that happening in Times Square??? No, seriously Google, can we put a sanction on these in Times Square? I have enough tourists walking into me without the excuse of checking their email.
How brilliant to have created a device that allows a grandmother to see all of the action of her grandkid’s birthday from her retirement home, and in its most natural form, from your eyes. **Queue the violins** Or even a truly practical use for the rim of glasses, a handsfree mic. Duh! I simply have some concerns in some of the current uses of the glasses and its marketing as a smartphone replacement.
Some key questions for me are:
- What about piracy? Talk about your bootleggers dream!
- How do I prevent someone from taping me while walking down the street? That’s creepy.
- What if I already wear glasses? Will they come with prescription options? Is this the beginning of a Google optical?
Have you seen or tried Google Glass yet? Let me know.
