Hundred Million Bottles

[taste_is_sweet]

Google, as I was probably the last to know, is introducing a new fangle called 'Google Glass', which isn't glass of any kind so much as a headband that includes a little box over your right eye and can record whatever you're doing at any given moment. It also can send (but not receive) messages, use Google Maps (of course) and stream live video chats with your amazed buddies while you're doing all that other stuff. Here's a picture:

Happiness is as close as your eyeballs.

The generous techies at Google say they invented Google Glass because they want to free the world from the tyranny of looking down at their phones. With this device humans will once again be able to walk around with their heads held high, interacting with other humans and seeing the world around them. When they're not talking to their buddies online via video chat, sending voice messages, texting via voice, checking their email or playing the latest version of The Simms. (Texting, email, and games aren't available yet, but you know it'll happen.)

Aside from the inevitable privacy issues (do I really want my kind of creepy coworker recording our awkward conversation in the elevator?) and the car accidents, I have to say I'm not going to be the first one to buy this thing when it's available with free shipping at Amazon.com.

Why not? Well maybe it's just me, but when I see the pictures for these things, all I can think about are the hover chairs from Wall-e.

Luckily only the robot has to watch where he's going.

I remember back in the day (that day being the 80s) when the big thing was a Sony Walkman, which was a portable radio and cassette player you wore on your belt and listened to via the dorkiest earphones in existence at the time.

You kids these days just think you're cool. And get off my lawn.

They were eventually replaced by the Diskman for CDs, and eventually the iEverything. But even when the height of portable technology pulled your pants down on one side, there were already people who wore them everywhere, all the time. I even had a friend who told me he did it expressly so he wouldn't have to talk to anyone. And nowadays it's even easier.

Now, I'm far from the first person to ever lament how new technology leads to less face-to-face interaction. William Langland had a few things to say about it around 1362:

Wretched is the Hall...each day in the week /There the lord and lady liketh not to sit. / Now have the rich a rule to eat by themselves /In a privy parlour...for poor men's sake, /Or in a chamber with a chimney, and leave /the chief hall that was made for meals,/ for men to eat in.

He probably would have found the idea of Google Glass horrifying, and not just because it'd be worn by some guy in silver spandex stepping out of a time machine.

Langland was upset because the invention of fireplaces meant that the one percenters of the middle ages could go to their private rooms and ignore their employees. But these days, if you can afford the tech, it's possible to ignore everyone.

In this brave new century, you can choose not to interact with anyone in real life in favor of the one inside your phone, tablet, eBook reader or laptop. You can communicate with someone half way around the globe as easily as someone two feet in front of you--as long as they're not wearing earbuds. And soon Google will give us a newer and even better way to ignore the world, while convincing ourselves that we're still a part of it because we're not looking down. But the truth is we'll just be talking to ourselves, and looking at a spot a few inches in front of our faces.

Comments

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

Okay, I LOVE how in the first picture, the woman looks like she's screaming in pain with some sort of torture device on her head. Hilarious.

You're absolutely right about the rest. I do not wear headphones as a rule, and I love when people ask me for directions (it's a point of pride for New Yorkers to be actually mistaken for a New Yorker, ha! And it shows the limits of devices). But I do remember being 25, and having every creep in the world trying to chat me up or give me a peek of his dick, so I understand the need for SOME private space. The idea that some oddball can record me say, drinking at lunch on a workday or peep my cleavage at three yards for his personal video scrapbook OR -- to have a competitive colleague record my boss-bashing... *shudder*

I'm going to stop borrowing trouble and go throw the kids off my stoop.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Damn kids! :)

First off, thank you for reading this; we are obviously of a like mind. Second, yeah. I have to admit I was being very Toronto-centric when I (strongly) implied that there was something wrong with not wanting to interact with people. But I hadn't been thinking about the bigger cities where an excuse not to engage can be vital.

It reminds me of the first year I'd moved from Ontario to Texas. I'm now in a medium-sized town full of very friendly Southerners, and when I went back to Toronto for a visit I'd lost my protective veneer of inapproachability. For nearly my entire visit all the poor crazy street people (and I do mean just the crazy ones) tried to have conversations with me and follow me around. Luckily I'd figured out how to put the force shield back on for subsequent visits. But earphones would have helped. :)

[mckaysmonkey.livejournal.com]

Oh lordy, what will they think of next. I would think this would be horribly distracting.

Although might have some interesting application e.g. what if you could drive your car with it?

I can't see myself buying one. Mobile internet is so expensive for a data contract compared to WiFi that I suspect it will just be a gimmick.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that by the time Google Glass becomes ubiquitous, there will be Wi-fi everywhere so mobile internet won't be an issue.

It'd be cool if you could drive your car with it--leave your hands free for texting. ::g::

[mckaysmonkey.livejournal.com]

Lol. Although there would be a practical application for disabled drivers. It's not the technology that's evil but how people choose to use it.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

That's true. I hadn't thought of that. I hope that something like that will become available. Though the idea of someone shouting at their dashboard is pretty funny. :)

[reedfem.livejournal.com]

Walkman! I was a late adopter (too poor) but once I got one, man, I loved it to death.

I keep running into people wearing bluetooth devices and I always think they are talking to me, until I figure it out and get embarrassed. Although, they're the ones walking around in public having loud personal conversations with invisible people, I'm probably not the one who should be embarrassed.

I gotta wonder though, if you video chat with that Google headband thing, does the other person have to look at a close up of your eyeball?

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

...if you video chat with that Google headband thing, does the other person have to look at a close up of your eyeball?

LOL Good question! I'm pretty sure they'd be able to see what you were seeing.

I think it's hilarious that bluetooth users seem to think they look cool.

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

...and the next stage will be removing our brains completely and keeping them in jars by the front door *g*

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

LOL Yes. But we'll be on the internet so much we won't even notice.