Above is an image taken & shared by Google Glass payoff lover, Robert Scoble.

He comments on the photo by saying…

Why lead with these two girls? Because they were SO excited to be able to try out Glass in the subway.

I’m sure that’s very true. I’m sure many, many people were curious about Glass, wanted to try them out and were willing participants in Scobles journey through New York, taking photos as he went.

However, with some DNA sampling, crude detective work and FBI hacking I discovered that this photo does not feature just two women. It features four (and a bit) women… and a man. Moreover, the woman on the far left doesn’t look too pleased with the situation.

And this is one of the big issues Glass presents to the world. If all I have to do is say “ok glass, take a picture” in a public space, we’ll have some privacy issues. Moreover, if hacks to let you take pictures by winking gain mainstream credit, then it’ll be worse.

Sure, right now we can (and regularly do) have the same issues – and even better pictures – by using our phones. But there’s a very deliberate movement to take these pictures. To achieve the same photo Scoble did with Glass on a phone, you have to lift the phone in front of your face, hold still for a moment and press a button. To everyone around you, it’s glaringly obvious that you’re taking a photo… even to those folks who might not own a smartphone.

Glass makes being a creep on public transport very subtle and perhaps all too easy.

I don’t blame Glass. Glass is a tool to make your life better. It looks incredibly intriguing. The problem is that a lot of owners will be creeps about it. Already clubs in the US are banning the use of Glass indoors to avoid lots of nasty Facebook photos the day after the night before (i.e. no one wants to go to a nightclub where the next morning you’re tagged in embarrassing photos).

I don’t have a solution for this, other than due diligence. But if Glass sits into the $199-399 price range, then the masses will get access to a tool that helps them be creeps. Rule 34, etc…

Yup.

(via reddit)

Microsoft still has some old-fashioned hardcore talented developers who can code circles around brogrammers down in the valley. These people have a keen appreciation of the complexities of operating system development and an eye for good, clean design. The NT kernel is still much better than Linux in some ways — you guys be trippin’ with your overcommit-by-default MM nonsense — but our good people keep retiring or moving to other large technology companies, and there are few new people achieving the level of technical virtuosity needed to replace the people who leave. We fill headcount with nine-to-five-with-kids types, desperate-to-please H1Bs, and Google rejects. We occasionally get good people anyway, as if by mistake, but not enough. Is it any wonder we’re falling behind? The rot has already set in.

Incredibly honest post by a developer who contributes to the NT kernel. You can read the full story via zorinaq.

See, it’s people like Scoble who ruin it for regular people, the masses who will determine whether Glass succeeds or winds up in the land of the Apple Newton. His review was so over the top, so up Google’s ass, so “I’m taking a freaking shower while wearing them” (complete with photos,) that no normal, non-over-the-edge Geek will want to come within a hundred miles of them.

So much for mass adoption. It’s the Segway effect. I was the first person in NYC to own a Segway back in 2003. It. Was. Awesome. But I was also on the damn thing every minute of every single day. I’m not proud of that. I did back then to the Segway, what Scoble is doing to Glass, today, and he should have learned from my mistakes.

According to John Gruber…

The problem with Segway wasn’t that Peter Shankman drew attention to himself by riding it all over New York. The problem with Segway is that almost no one wanted a $4000 scooter

I haven’t seen this much conjecture and comment on a product in the tech world since the iPhone was announced. People are trying to figure out if it’ll work, if anyone will use it and if it’s actually a worthwhile product months ahead of release.

This conjecture is misguided in itself because price dictates success of Glass. I think most commentators reckon it is useful – maybe not as useful as Scoble thinks – but still useful and something that isn’t so ugly that it could be used day-to-day.

If Google release this at the same price as an unlocked iPhone it won’t be as successful as they want. If they release it for less than a Nexus 4, then it’ll be a huge hit.

However, the post spawned a big debate on hacker news, and one of the best comments I’ve ever read on the Internet, ever…

Success is not validation of an idea and we should be ashamed to think so.
Cigarettes are one of the most successful consumer products on earth. Inhaling a lungful of carcinogenic smoke several hundred times a day is undoubtedly a stupid idea. Tobacco has made a small number of people incomprehensibly rich, to the great detriment of humanity.
Personally, I think nearly all of these ‘social’ startups are bad news. Not as bad news as a lung cancer epidemic, but bad news nonetheless. I think they feed a culture of passivity and attention deficit. I think they fragment human interaction into the smallest possible dopamine-inducing units. I think they’re essentially Skinner boxes in disguise – apps that dress up an intermittent schedule of reward as meaningful activity.
The startup culture talks the talk about “changing the world”, but in truth most of us couldn’t care less so long as we get our next funding round. For every Watsi, we have a hundred bullshit companies with bullshit products, providing yet another means of idle distraction for indolent westerners. We can hardly distinguish between what is worthwhile and what is popular or profitable. It has hardly occurred to Curtis or anyone in these comments that an idea could be both successful and stupid.
Is Pinterest really an innovative sharing tool, or is it merely a collaborative exercise in commodity fetishism? Is Vine really a radical new way to communicate, or is it merely the nadir of audiovisual culture, fragmenting the world into six-second shards of nothingness? Do we even care?

My initial thought upon reading Curtis’ post was that he should have trusted his gut reaction & not changed his opinion because those services are successful. Pinterest & Vine are two services I’ve never used, because neither appeal to me. Success does not mean they are good for me personally, nor does it mean they’re useless to everyone else. However, social media is fast reaching the point where success means separating signal from noise, not providing a service basis.

This isn’t a significant comment. But I thought it was interesting that Gruber’s reposte was to comment “Weird and inappropriate. Perfect product for Google.”

Maybe John is getting grumpy or bitter about the attacks Apple have had on them in recent months. But as someone I admire, this comment came across a little crass and harsh. It came across as almost something I expect from a blatant Apple apologist (something I don’t consider Mr. Gruber to be).

It would be weird & inappropriate to talk on an iPhone in an exam hall too. If Jobs had made a comment like that in 2006/7, I doubt such a snarky comment would ring out from the hallowed halls of Daring Fireball.

Of course it could have been a joke, aimed squarely at the Google henchman, but that’s certainly not something I took from it.

I wonder if the Apple fraternity are getting a little overly sensitive right now.