I think that this could possibly be one of those products that a large number of people don't get and are thusly left behind. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

And I mean "don't get" as in "don't understand", "don't like", "don't want" and/or "don't see the benefits". - Scoble, Alex Scoble

The nature of the roll out is only going to exacerbate the problem. The product itself is severely flawed in a myriad of ways, but, seriously, whoever was put in charge of this pre-launch phase should be updating their resume. - Soup in a TARDIS

What's wrong with the way they rolled it out? - Scoble, Alex Scoble

I'd take issue with "and are thusly left behind." My guess is that millions of us who don't "get" a particular hot new thing aren't left behind--we choose not to participate. Which is an entirely valid choice unless life, death or health are involved. - walt crawford

I take issue with the arrogance that those who don't bend over and willingly accept every new piece of tech as the holy grail and the product that will change the fundamental way we communicate as a luddite or someone who will be left behind. Maybe it's just possible that the vast majority of those who don't "get it" are actually making a choice that this is silly, a step to far or simply something that only those who display such arrogance will care about. - Johnny

Surely if you're in the small group using it, you'd be left behind with the other people in the small group using it. - Pete's Got To Go

Like how all the people who didn't get on the Apple Newton bandwagon got left behind? - Victor Ganata

They have given priority to a pool of almost entirely white middle aged men, Alex, almost all of which have ties to IT powerhouses but very little notoriety outside the industry. In one fell swoop they managed to tick the boxes for "pretentious people with lives highly dissimilar to any 'regular' person" and "unattractive shit your dad wears." They also did ZERO prep work to prepare the public for a launch of a product that has the potential to so severely invade the personal privacy not only of those who use it, but anyone they come in contact with. This might have flown in a country with an extensive CCTV network, but not in the States where people are hypersensitive about being monitored, not without some kind of acknowledgement that this isn't ONLY changing the users experience. Moreover most of the benefit focused on by Google itself seems to be a combination of navel-gazing convenience (now you can CONSTANTLY check your email and not bother with the plebs around you) and the ability to constantly take photos of your surroundings which falls right between 'creepy' and the sort of 'why?!' response I have to people who endlessly upload photos of their meals to Twitter and Instagram. They MIGHT have been able to get away with it on a cool factor, but it's such an incredibly ugly product that they bollixed that up too. The whole launch had a horrible "we made this, we don't know why, but we did!" feel. It's at best an ego stroking device, but one that, like the Segway (good mention, Tinfoil) is so poorly supported by any actual need or significant improvement of convenience that it's going to end up being a status symbol to a tiny few and a massive dork indicator to the rest of the world. - Soup in a TARDIS

If it is actually a good thing and works well eventually the majority will get behind it. When cell phone companies switch their focus to something like this then you know it has taken off. Otherwise it will just be another fad - FriendFeedForever

I assume Glass uses massive amounts of bandwidth. I can't imagine data carriers being particularly enthusiastic that. - Victor Ganata

They had a segment on APM Marketplace this morning about how the selective rollout was Google's way of trying to prepare people to adapt to changing social mores. I do think that people born in a world where they can't imagine life without the Internet have way different privacy expectations that those of us who remember a time before Facebook and YouTube. - Victor Ganata

First generation products never capture markets in one fell swoop, anyway. Even the iPhone took a few iterations to grab all the marketshare, so maybe by the time Google Glass 3.0 rolls around, everyone will have jumped onto the face computer bandwagon. - Victor Ganata

Isn't that interesting? iPhone has "all the marketshare"--Samsung and Google/Android must find that remarkable. And somewhat counterfactual. - walt crawford

One thing that was immediately obvious to me during the NPR story: despite all of the gushing from Glass enthusiasts, there was only one they thing they could do wearing Glasses that they couldn't do with an ordinary smart phone. At this point, the marginal upgrade in capability and convenience doesn't seem to justify the cost, not to mention the privacy implications. - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

Walt, I meant "all the marketshare" as in "all the marketshare that they've captured" (which is certainly a significant percentage) not literally 100% of the marketshare, which is, yeah, preposterous. But it's also clear that Samsung in particular has jumped whole-heartedly onto the touch screen smartphone bandwagon. Ignoring patent lawsuit judgments, can anyone really seriously argue that the current form factor of almost 100% of smartphones today wasn't somehow influenced by the first-generation iPhone? - Victor Ganata

I do. - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

I don't get Alex's comments, but I think I'm ahead of the game. - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

You can take issue with "get left behind" all you want, shrug. Has nothing to do with being a luddite either. However, if two people are doing the same job and one person has a piece of equipment that gives them a significant edge, the other person will be left behind. Google Glass probably won't be as disruptive as that, but it's a V1 product. Same as the Newton. And the Newton wasn't a failure. The work done there ultimately led to things like the iPhone/iPad. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Until it becomes obvious what that "significant edge" actually is compared to a smartphone, I think I'll wait. - Victor Ganata

It's there in the NPR blog that I linked. The potential uses in medicine alone are huge. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Some possible examples. There's a medical app that allows a surgeon to map a patient's body. They can then see using their HUD (which is basically what Glass is) exactly where they need to cut, critical patient data and the surgery can be recorded for later review. A remote surgeon could also use the camera view to help an inexperience surgeon through a new procedure. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Potential != actual. Google may not necessarily be the first to actually implement those features. Personally, I'd wait until a company with medical device and healthcare IT experience gets involved, either with their own devices or in collaboration with Google. - Victor Ganata

You're arguing two different things, Alex. Google Glass isn't going to "leave people behind" because of uses and technologies that might result from it in the future. THOSE technologies might be revolutionary and wonderful, these arse-ugly glasses that are currently little more than a glorified cell phone and peep cam won't. - Soup in a TARDIS

(Also, remote surgery already exists, just fyi) - Soup in a TARDIS

I'm not arguing anything, to be honest. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

And don't worry. As soon as Apple comes out with a similar product most of the naysayers will forget they ever had issues. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Oh yeah, because THAT'S not an argumentative or combative comment. - Soup in a TARDIS

Let's just hope that this isn't the Newton of this type of technology. It took like what, 15 years for us to go from Newton to a successful useful product that a critical mass could afford? - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Yes, this CONVERSATION is really just my yearly pon farr. Get ready to fight to the death while wearing Google Glass so the whole thing can be recorded. **cue's Star Trek fight music** - Scoble, Alex Scoble

If we're talking about iOS vs Android or some other iOS deployed for use in the medical field, well, that's just a function of the critical mass of apps, where iOS has a head start. So, yeah, if Apple really does come out with something like Glass, it may very well be preferred in ORs and on the wards. - Victor Ganata

Does either company have a medical testing group? If not it probably won't be either company. That's a long complicated process. - Todd Hoff

They don't really need to, Todd. These products are frameworks. Other companies that specialize in medicine can build apps for them and sell accordingly. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

The whole entire stack needs to be vetter from hardware on down and up. Unless they are indemnified it would be nuts to take somebody elses platform and put the years and millions in trials it would take to get approval. - Todd Hoff

There's nothing to suggest that this will just be a niche technology. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

iPhone is not a niche product and there are plenty of people who don't or won't have one. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

And many others do not. There are still a significant number of people who don't have smart phones. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

That's less than half the US. ~180 million people who don't currently have a smart phone is also a pretty sizeable amount. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

You can't grok what you don't have. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Finally saw one in the wild today. Bigger & bulkier than I was expecting. - rønin

I wouldn't buy apple-branded glass either. I think the whole concept is creepy. The tracking part, the taking photos part, plus I wear bifocals already. I also worry about this notion of people who don't get on board with google glass (or like products) will be "left behind" and that is somehow ok. We already have a huge section of the population left behind due to poverty and technology illiteracy. Do we really want to widen that gap? The price tag is so high on this product (and it really is just a stupid toy designed to show off you have one) it just seems...obscene. I dunno, I find it distressing and I'm tapping out of this convo. Have fun, all. - Soup in a TARDIS

Developers have definitely been building medical iOS apps and devices that connect to your iPhone/iPad, and they've been getting approved by the FDA. The companies behind them already have medical device experience, though. Apple doesn't seem to be into it directly, but iOS has a huge head start. - Victor Ganata

The standards when dealing with human patients is exceedingly high. Pixuru is FDA approved, for example, and it allows customers to order framed prints of their own photos. A vision tester is another. Remote access of data. A radiology app. An EKG machine. Blood pressure. All trivial in the scheme of things. A device that can kill someone during a procedure has a lot of hoops to jump through. Look for this tech in easier to approve parts of the world before hits the US. - Todd Hoff

Yeah, I don't really see GE, Medtronic, Siemens, or Philips necessarily going with either Apple or Google platforms for building medical devices, except for auxillary functions. - Victor Ganata

Alex, I can grok smart phones perfectly fine. I don't fucking want it because of all the other shit attached that I would prefer not to have, plus I would hardly even use the thing if I did. - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

Cristo, nice troll. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

The notion of getting left behind is worrisome. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine a distopian world where the rich have access to all sorts of technologies, implants, etc. and the poor continue to live in squalor. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Cristo, your view of this sort of thread is severely warped. This is a conversation. A discussion. It's not an argument. If you want an argument that room is down the hall. There's no right or wrong here, only possibilities. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

In all this let's remember that IBM showcased an almost identical product with tiny postage stamp screen close to eye clipped to an eyeglass frame over 10 years ago. Remember ubiquitous and wearable computers?!? Yeah! No body climbed on that train either - WarLord

Well, except for all of those Nike Fuelband users, fitbit users, etc. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Here's an Ad for Google's Project Glass, from 2000 and Made by IBM http://www.geekosystem.com/ibm-wea... via @geekosystem - WarLord

Except that IBM never actually made a product. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

I've worn corrective lenses almost my entire life. I've watched my eyegl,ass wearing friends rush to contacts and even surgery to shed those bulky anoying frames and lenses - This attitude is a big barrier for Glass to get over. The plus will have to be astonishing to overcome this minus - WarLord

Probably...then again, the technology to do this on a contact lens will get here eventually. Or just build it all into an Ironman like suit. I'm pretty sure that if someone could look like Ironman for $200, a lot of people would be paying for that. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

IBM were debuting a product, - mthey made a hands on demo to a portable computer project I was working on in St Paul over 10 years ago. So yeah Alex IBM did in fact have a beyond beta hardware package which is I guess what we arer discussing woth Google - WarLord

My brother didn't have a picture of himself taken with it in the shower, therefore it did not exist. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

If your point is that this tech has been in the works for a very long time, yep, no doubt. Just like how digital hearing aids physically filled a large room when first built in the 80s. Technology is much more often evolutionary than revolutionary. - Scoble, Alex Scoble