Google Glass: A new way to ignore humanity
Tales from the Water Cooler
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.One particular news story this week triggered the Oddness Alarm which is fastened to my kitchen wall (it’s kind of like a smoke detector, but doesn’t give off a high-pitched shriek if activated. It just emits a bewildered “You what?”, like Alan Sugar on hearing the word “obfuscate”).
It seems that Google maxi-millionaire Sergey Brin, inset – who is worth hundreds upon hundreds of Yankee dollars and owns six of Saturn’s rings, gave a speech to the Technology, Education and Design conference in Los Angeles and moaned about the way smartphones “emasculate us”; how they make us spend dinner dates ignoring our companions and looking down at our glowing crotch.
He has therefore invented a pair of glasses which will allow the user to surf the net while looking straight ahead. Whichever site they want to view will appear as a head-up display on their glasses’ lenses. And I think, no matter how Joe 90 this sounds (Google it), it’s bound to be fraught with risk.
It’s bad enough when you are talking to someone and their eyes glaze over (not that this has ever happened to me, obvs, but friends have described what it’s like: that moment when you become aware that the listener is, well, not.)
But imagine how much worse you would feel if you found yourself in the queue at Greggs with a friend and you began babbling on about how Frasier was clearly never as good once Niles married Daphne. Instead of their eyes glazing over with boredom, you would suddenly realise they were watching the bloody One Show on their glasses! Thanks for that, Sergey.
Twitter.com: @DonaldAMacInnes
Twitter: @DonaldAMacInnes
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments