I was about 1000% more efficient than my coworkers at new things, ways and information because I googled fast and found the information.
A large fraction of people are utterly freaked out by the idea that they'll be obligated to adopt new technology just to keep up.
Better to give many chances for people to discover on their own that they really want to use a new technology for positive reasons, rather than out of fear.
To keep up with what? That's for b-level players that are caught on the rat-race.
Outside of this, you don't even need a mobile phone...
I saw this talk live at NEXTBerlin, and while in the audience all I could think was 'wow, I don't care at all if you win - your life sounds like it must suck if you're competing for ridiculous minutiae - and what has this got to do with privacy anyway?'. Questions of privacy - an important pillar of digital policy in Germany and other EU states - were brushed aside at the prospect of faster airline tickets and 'competition for experience', whatever that means.
Really? Can Scoble not imagine a world where experience isn't a zero sum game? Is this the perception of the world we're being locked into by technology?
Google Glass has a lot of potential in some spaces - in teaching, in medicine, in law enforcement - but I am terrified that its evangelists and early adopters are brushing aside the concerns of a digital layer in front of real experiences so readily, as if more technology is automatically a good thing.
The thing that worries me most about Glass is that it's solving the wrong problem. We're not running around in a world where it's too much of a bother to look at our phone, but instead that we're less and less capable of focus.
If you look at the nature of our technology, we've already (mostly) solved the problem of information search and retrieval at any time. We all have a very near the same quality experience when it comes to information.
But where we break apart is in the ability to focus and make new connections from the data. I wonder whether Glass users are drowning themselves in more noise, and not really getting the space to create new, meaningful, creative connections.
I wonder whether we need new ways to disconnect more intensely than we need a more subtle overlay of noisy information on our reality.
I disagree with you both on this point and your characterization of Glass as a "subtle overlay of noisy information".
Nowadays, although that information access is quick, it could be quicker and more seamless. There's a world of difference between:
1. Fishing out your smartphone from your pants/bag/wherever
2. Unlocking it (with requisite passcode, thanks corporate IT)
3. Bringing up the search app
4. And either saying what you want after invoking the voice search (and hoping it comes up right, or else you get to do it over again) or typing what you want (and hoping you made no mistakes).
And:
1. Saying, at any time, "Ok Glass, search for (thing)", and having the results played back so you can hear them.
The first one feels contrived and annoying, the second feels passive and natural in comparison.
Glass is unique in that the first two steps of that transaction are eliminated outright, and the third is reduced to saying some magic words. The fourth is greatly mitigated by the fact that Glass is likely in a better position to capture your voice than the speakerphone mic on your smartphone.
Passive access to information (and I'm saying access, not overlay, for a good reason) is going to be the next big thing for precisely this reason, ease of use!
But let's take another example. I'm sure you've seen the posts decrying someone "missing out" on some event because they were too busy recording it. Now? That's not a problem anymore. "Ok Glass, record a video". You're done. You don't have to think about it, you just launch the recording and then go back to whatever you were doing.
Focus? You barely even see Glass unless you're actively looking up at it. Indeed, you need to "focus" on it to use it. The transaction is just reduced from messing with your phone to an upwards glance.
This is also why I disagree with your assessment of glass as being both an overlay (which it isn't), and noisy (which it isn't, and which would go against the guidelines anyways).
I'm finding more and more that people who feel they need to "disconnect" are simply failing at technology. You are no more connected than you let yourself be! If you are so wired in, by your own choices, that you feel the need to get away from it all for a length of time, how about just not wiring yourself in that tightly?
That facebook home ad with the distracted employee creeps me out for this exact reason
Privacy concerns are legitimate. Google Glass may not even be the problem. But the impact of the availability of ever more personal data in the hands of government and corporations for our society needs to be discussed. People have a legitimate right to know about their data trails.
PS: The #next conference "stole" their slogan¹ from the 26C3 Chaos Communication Congress²
1: http://nextberlin.eu/2013/04/behind-the-scenes-at-next13/
How popular is the phrase for native english speakers?
It is not really a competition about who lives a better life, or what is the true experience. It is about how general people's life will be changed by the product. Scoble's point is very clear: the product gives users power through technological superiority and let them have a new mean of social display. When everyone starts to get Google Glass, its function no longer matters; it becomes a social device.
If you mean from a single corporation, that's just a temporary condition; competitors are already starting to appear: http://www.slashgear.com/telepathy-one-takes-on-google-glass...
Even a UI-less, effortless experience transforms the experience. For instance, passively recording what you see through Google Glass will cause you to view the world with a mind towards recording and archiving your experience.
While Scoble believes he is winning a competition, he is simply opting into a different set of experiences - one where he might get access to things like airline tickets or restaurant reservations a little faster than the rest of us, but also one where he's also constantly evaluating how to use the technology he's carrying to interact with the world. Some people will prefer this set of experiences, while others will prefer the originals.
Both types of people should be able to get what they want, but I worry that Google Glass will alter the experiences of everybody, not just its users. We all act and think differently when we're aware we're being recorded - it makes us more self-conscious, putting us in an 'observe ourselves' mindset that competes with the 'observe the world around you' mindset. In a world with a plurality of Google Glass-wearers, we'll have to assume we're constantly being recorded when around other people, and that's not something I particularly care to experience.
Meanwhile, don't we have more important things to do than listen to someone go "yeah, I can use my apps faster than you"?
Children dying of hunger in Africa. If you aren't working on that, you are a bad, bad person and should be ashamed.
Everything else is a waste.
I am not competing with you, and I do not care if I take a late flight, or do not have a reservation to this restaurant because in my mind reality is not goal driven, but path driven.
Getting the answer or the data isn't really the biggest issue. The problem is understanding what that data actually means. I am pretty convinced (given the students I observe), that google helps with data and trivia, but doesn't help with the understanding of what that trivia means. Put another way, you can access data faster than someone without the glasses, but can you turn that data into information?
I am all for the demise of rote learning of names and dates, but I think we need more tools for explaining the how / why and not the what. You can lookup the API calls with the glasses, but not know how to do the design of those API calls.
So, it is true, we are in a competition, but not the competition that Scoble is referring to.
The competition is more about open standards, patent laws and the future of freedom.
Scaling anxiety disorders big time.
Here we go...
(Except maybe that airline ticket if I don't get one of the remaining two...)
Can I think of things that tech lets me do quicker? Sure. But that's why I sit in front of a computer for a lot of the day and carry a tablet. Advantage to Glass is? Not even gonna be on the order of 30 seconds here....
Most of the advantages I can think of to do with Glass just have to do with having a rich/continuous supply of data - and that'll only really take off when you can store and cross reference it effectively.
