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Google Glass: where the reality bashes into the virtual?

By Lindsey Challis

New details of Google Glass were revealed this week, and it got me thinking, is this really going to be the next big thing, will it even work, or is it just going to become a hazard for the clumsy-inclined? 

The idea of having the ability to take photos, make a call, and consult Google with little more than a thought sounds great in principle.  I’ve only had a smartphone for about a year and the feeling of loss having left it in the back of a taxi would have seemed absurd in a my pre-smartphone life.  I could, therefore, see how such a convenient technology could become the norm.  My question is whether Google Glass will actually work – I’m not talking about whether the technology will function, I’m asking if it could actually become part of everyday life.

For me, in its present form, I’m not so sure.

Think about this situation without Google Glass.  You’re in the centre of London, walking through bustling crowds, trying to find a certain pub or restaurant.  You might ask someone nearby for directions, or perhaps more likely find a post code and rapidly type it in to your smartphone as you loiter near a coffee shop.  You convert map to memory and walk a few streets to be reconnected with that cold glass of blush rose – hooray!

Now picture the situation with Google Glass.  You realise you don’t know where you are, you speak to the Glass and request directions to your desired waterhole, to which it guides you.  In your line of sight you now have your in-house sat nav, as well as a constantly updating stream of photos and friendly chatter, not to mention what’s going on in the ‘real’ world.  If you don’t get distracted by these other virtual updates, you may make it to your desired pub, if you’re lucky.

Never before has the virtual and real world interacted so closely, or perhaps, never has the risk of the virtual and real world bashing into each other – and you looking a bit crazy – been so high.  To put it simply, you’ve just spoken out-loud to yourself in a public place, taken directions from a virtual image, and if you’re anything like me, walked into one hundred people, a few bins, and the odd telephone box.  Surely attempting to concentrate on so many things at once only spells trouble – and what happens if you’re really popular?  Does your whole visual landscape fill up?  And how on earth will you see said pub now?  I’m clumsy, it’s true, but I don’t see this evolution of multi-tasking resulting in anything but chaos, at least for me.

At the moment, the only thing I can be thankful for with Google Glass is that it probably won’t be using Siri or Apple Maps.  I’m not sure I could handle my glass of wine turning into a sign, or the pub ending up as a brick wall!

Technology for my Valentine

By Mike Marquiss

This week saw the return of Charlie Brooker’s splendid Black Mirror series and following in the footsteps of season one, the impact of technology and social media on society seems to be a central theme once again. Due to some fortuitous TV scheduling and cold/flu season decimating any sort of better plans, I was able to watch the first episode on Valentine’s Day. Although brilliant by all accounts, moving throughout and very funny in places, it served as yet another stark reminder of technology’s grip on romance and love. Whether you think it’s brilliant, sad or even frightening, it’s hard to escape the fact that nowhere is love more visible these days than online. Whether it’s online dating, relationship apps or just the status updates of an excessively affectionate couple on social media, you can’t escape the digital spectre of love.   

In case you didn’t catch the first instalment, Black Mirror episode one proposes that technology’s impact on love could one day extend beyond even death. In this nightmarish future, you can program your deceased partner’s digital existence into a voice simulator or physical avatar – it’s essentially just Jurassic Park but instead of DNA samples preserved in amber, it’s your Twitter feed, personal emails and Instagram account.

The plot is always bordering on the ridiculous but if you’re willing to make the stretch, it could be considered as an interesting illustration of big data analytics’ potential real life applications, both the romantic and less so. As we store more and more personal data online, it begs the question of ‘how much of what make you you, can be found online?’ I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re at the cloning stage just yet (God forbid!), but just using Joe Bloggs’ LinkedIn, Facebook and email accounts, you could blag your way through a pretty tough cross-examination from even their closest contacts and fool them into thinking you’re him. Who’s to say how much further this could go in the future, but regardless to say it’s certainly an exciting prospect, if not an absolutely terrifying one.

 

More nostalgia – when the web was worse

By Mike King

Our last trip into 90s nostalgia got me misty eyed thinking back to more innocent times when the internet was still relatively new and all websites were a novelty to be marvelled at.  What fun and excitement we had transitioning from the ‘old’ physical world to the new virtual one, embracing innovation and everything online with boundless enthusiasm. 

Even then, it wasn’t long before we all got bored with online brochures that took ages to load and in the early 2000s along came the much touted Web 2.0 revolution, and with it, the new phenomenon called blogging.  Blogging was the new, new thing and almost overnight it became an integral part of every company’s communications strategy.  Of course, reader numbers for most blogs were tiny, but that didn’t matter, blogging was definitely the thing to be seen doing.

The internet wasn’t as slick back then, access speeds were slow and there wasn’t quite so much care and consideration paid to online strategies.   Here are some examples that originate from a time when even such basics as getting a domain name right didn’t seem that important and, in some instances, where the value of a carefully placed hyphen was clearly not appreciated (amusingly these domains are all still in use):

www.therapist.com  (first registered in 1995)

www.speedofart.com  (first registered in 1998)

www.wtf.org  (first registered in 1998)

www.whorepresents.com  (first registered in 2003)

Who could ever forget the infamous and, it has to be said slightly suspicious, (and still my personal favourite) www.penisland.net  (2002).