With the series of reported incidents of Google Glass users being thrown out of a bar, being ticketed by police officers and who knows what could happen next, any observer would have been wondering probably nowadays if the safety and security of Glass users as well as those of non-users have been put into consideration by Google and other tech companies for that matter, when it planned out and made the now-popular wearable device.
In a latest post by reporter Kyle Russell for Business Insider, it appeared that the rage against Glass users continues to escalate every day, as he himself got assaulted while he wore - but not used, take note - the device in a sidewalk of the Mission District of San Francisco on Friday after covering a protest march with a colleague. The result: a person grabbed his Glass and smashed it onto the ground.
Now, here's the twist. The protest, he said, was against a Google employee attorney Jack Halperin who bought and moved into a building within the said area, but the employee's move to own the building came with a hefty price: eviction of several tenants-residents in the building.
"Unfortunately, anything associated with Google has come to represent gentrification in the city... This is especially true in areas where gentrification and income inequality have become points of conflict in the community," Russell shared in his post.
In a continuous analysis of his experience, Russell said he understood why the people who smashed his device did the act. He pointed out that the device he wore at the time somehow represented a company that moved to San Francisco and made a negative impact to the community. Impact on residents as heavy as being evicted out of the neighborhoods they have lived at for decades and rental properties being bought by those young millionaires in the tech industry. He said his love for gadgets made him look and sound just like those people thought of oppressing these city residents, eventually making him a target for their rage.
"The individual who smashed my Google Glass on Friday - because of political beliefs or a personal impact that has been made by the tech industry - felt that it was appropriate to destroy my personal property in protest against what I seemed to stand for, based on my appearance," he wrote.
Gathered reports say San Francisco has been a spot for such tensions these days, the company and its impacts in the community being the center of all this commotion. However, the anti-tech community persists to oppose what and how the company has been changing the society in general. Further research also reveals many other similar attempts and campaigns to threaten and ban such wearable device in the society.
One, there's an online campaign called Stop The Cyborgs, which encourages businesses to ban the Glass to prevent invasion of privacy and surveillance. There's also the Anti-Glass glasses that uses a "set of proprietary algorithms" and works like a radar-jamming tool, which prevents identification of people by any stranger using the Google Glass.
"We swiftly saw the potential for Google Glass to be used to personally identify strangers against their wishes," said Eric Schiffer, creator of the Anti-GLASS service and chairman of Reputation Management Consultants.
With the Google Glass device becoming a target by those who feel oppressed and being an easy representation of the company, is it still safe and secure to use and buy the wearable device such as the Glass? Where is the advancement of the tech industry really taking the people in the future?
The hot debates on these issues come timely in the midst of an extended one-day sale of the Google Glass on April 15, as the company rolls out its Explorer Program for potential U.S. consumers of the device. The controversial device will be sold at $1,500.
With all these alarming incidents involving the device, only the future can determine if people would still want to part of this tech community and be called Glassholes.
