Reality and Glass

Article from Issue 154/2013

I’m thinking I won’t plan to drop $1,500 for Google Glass, the sleek augmented reality glasses that will officially go on sale around the end of 2013. By the time you read this, it will be about six months since Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s appearance on TED Talks to tell about a new device called Google Glass. What better time to reflect?

Dear Linux Magazine Reader,

I'm thinking I won't plan to drop $1,500 for Google Glass, the sleek augmented reality glasses that will officially go on sale around the end of 2013. By the time you read this, it will be about six months since Google co-founder Sergey Brin's appearance on TED Talks to tell about a new device called Google Glass. What better time to reflect?

The TED presentation began with a promotional video-within-a-video that Brin used to introduce Glass. As remarkable and futuristic as Google Glass is, the promo clip was pretty basic video advertising schmaltz – a litany of precious moments occurring within the watchful eye of a Google Glass unit, as if the presence of the product somehow created or inspired the events. Fluttering in the wind beneath a hang glider … watching your daughter run down the stairs in a prom dress … bringing your grandmother a birthday cake. These kinds of images have been exploited in the past by camera makers, beer vendors, insurance salesmen, and pitch men for hundreds of other products. If you're smart, a little warning light should turn on in your head whenever anyone who is selling something tries to get you to inhabit someone else's memories.

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