Google Glass: bad or good (draft)

Ajaya Maharjan

10rd of March 2014

Australian Catholic University

Google glass, the future has arrived. In January 2013 Google introduced wearable computers

with an optical head mounted display. Google X the developers of the revolutionary glasses

introduced the glasses in Google+. Google glasses are a wearable set of glasses with a camera

attached above the right eye of the glasses. They operate with android operating system and it

runs with our voice command through the microphone. The introductory cost of the Google

glasses is around 1500 US dollars and has multiple functions which include video recording,

navigation, voice translation in different languages etc. Even though it is a breakthrough in

technology, many believe that it comes with some potential drawbacks.

In 21st century we have been introduced to many technological inventions including the

Google glass. The Google glass projects is a combination of computer-processing power, a

camera, microphone, wireless communications and a tiny screen into a pair of beautiful, light

weight glass. It has many functions including all the functions that we can get from a smart

phone. It is a head mounted-transparent display with a camera that sits a couple of inches

away from our eyes in such a way that it doesn’t block our view (Yakob, 2012, p. 15).

The introductory video of Google glasses were shown to a mass of people in 2012 and which

displayed a man waking up and going out in the world, and everything that appear in smart

phones and ipad appear in front of his eyes (Douthat, 2012, p. 11). This is the future of our

and upcoming generation but the fact is that people saw the isolation of the character in the

video of Google glasses where he lived alone in a drab and meeting his friend and still

missing out live conversation, sharing a sunset to a girl and missing through the Google glass

instead of sharing it together live.

Although there are many possibilities with such an invention, there can still be some serious

side effects and repercussions. One of the major problems that the glasses have been

connected to since it was introduced is people’s privacy, being connected to others most of

the time has a social effect as people would expect us to be available to phone call constantly.

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Especially when the introductory videos of Google glasses displayed that we can track our

friends and locate them (YouTube, 2014). This specific function of Google glass can be

exploited by privacy hackers to hack into somebody’s life and then reveal their private life to

the world. The theft of privacy is the most concerned topic for the privacy advocates as it

may be able to identify strangers in public using facial recognition, or surreptitiously record

and broadcast private conversations. The Electronic Privacy Information Centre asked to

suspend the use of facial recognition software of Google glasses until some sort of safeguards

and privacy standards are activated by the government to protect citizens (Bilton, 2012, p. 2).

According to Marc Rogers, a principal security researcher at lookout, discovered that glass

can be hijacked if a user could be tricked into taking pictures of a malicious QR code.

Concerns are raising regard to the privacy and security in an event of device being lost or

stolen.

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References

Bilton, N. 2012. Behind the Google Goggles, Virtual Reality. the new york times, 22

february, p. 2

Douthat, R. 2012. the man with the google glasses. the new york times, 15 april, p. 11.

Scott, M. 2012. Google Glasses: Computing on the nose: And they're loaded with a

camera, mike, wireless and a screen. USA Today, a division of Gannett Satellite

Information Network, Inc., 28 june, p. 3.

Wagner, M. S. 2013. GOOGLE GLASS: A PREEMPTIVE LOOK AT PRIVACY

CONCERNS. J. on Telecomm. \& High Tech. L., 11 pp. 477--477.

Yakob, R. 2012. Close-Up: Are Google's glasses the future for the web?. p. 15.

Available at: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE

%7CA299918416&v=2.1&u=acuni&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=4621fc364839963

aa5e22b5cbf71ebe8 [Accessed: 10th april 2014].

YouTube. 2014. Google Glasses Project. [online] Available at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSnB06um5r4 [Accessed: 10 Apr 2014].

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