Google glass and Arthur C Clark's Childhood's end

Picture belongs to google not me

Almost a year ago to the day Google announced Project glass its new and futuristic product.

Sergei Brin brought a few extreme sports guys to dive with Google glass from an airplane in what we still consider the greatest demo of all time.

Brin promised developers would get the developer edition within a year or so, quite a few journalists and developers got their glass only in the last month or so.

The social media have been bombarded ever since with videos' pictures and first hand impressions from developers and tech bloggers.

Arthur C Clark the legendary Science fiction writer was know for a few scientific laws he coined. two of them are:

• The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 It seems to me Google is trying very hard to live by those laws. that is why they are working on driverless cars and all sorts of technology that might be years from actual implementation in the real world.

Will project glass be another Segway? that no one really used? will glass be the first tech product since the first iPhone to change the way mobile technology works for the entire world?

Experts and journalists are divided equally between the two camps.

In 5 days Google execs will take to stage again for the keynote in Google I/O, they will show us their vision for the coming year or more. I can't wait.

Developing a product like "glass" is not entirely a technological project. 

When Arthur C Clark wrote his master piece "Childhood's end" he spoke about our first encounter with aliens (one of his favorite subjects), he described a reality where the aliens stayed above the world in their ships for generations until the world was ready to accept them without prejudices. They slowly "educated" the masses to accept them visually and socially.

When Google decided to develop "project glass" they faced enormous challenges.

• How to avoid scaring people that Google will document their entire lives if they wish or not. 
• How to avoid scaring the people around glass wearers that glass people are always videotaping them and recording them.
• How to make sure that people will know when glass is used.
• How to avoid making glass look too alien, we don't want Jeri ryan to sue them for 7of 9 copyright infringement).
• How to avoid making glass into another "Segway" a gadget for the rich and not the masses.

I see project glass as one of the most important steps in the evolution of Google and I will explain why.

Google and Facebook are internet services companies. their major strategy is to provide excellent free services that everybody will want to use like "Facebook", "Instagram", "Gmail" and Android. they get their money by collecting data points on their users and translating those points into worthwhile data for advertisers.

If we are honest we must admit that rarely we do watch the ads on the internet.most of us have trained our eyes to detect "ad behavior" and no matter how aggressive  the delivery is we adapt out screening process and avoid it. we know how long it takes to press the "Skip this ad" button or we do other things while the pre roll is running on a different tab on our browser.

Google and Facebook know that too. They are working hard on products with such an upside that we will willingly share our data.

I know my readers are saying to themselves "I know how to work the privacy settings on FB", "I don't post anything on the Internet I am not ready for the world to know" "I use ad blockers" etc'.

To this reality Google and Facebook are developing products that not using them will effectively mean not knowing what is going on.

Google created "Google Now" with so many advantages, "Now" tells you in time to leave for the airport, when its time to go home and it is indeed useful. its not that useful that it turned into the social phenomena that Google needed to break out of the geek circle of influence into the masses.

Google Glass is the next step in the evolution, its a little tougher to get away from, a little more revealing. you only need to see the posts of +Gina trapani on G+ holding her smiling adorable baby while taking amazing pictures of her with glass. those are  indeed magical moments that are hard to capture without glass.

Google in order to face the challenges I listed above had to hand pick the first Glass explorers very carefully. they all got a lot of TLC and they all had to pay 1500$ for the privilege.

You might find it weird that Google charged money for it, the cost that is probably less than what Larry and Sergei have in the cushions of their couches. the 1500$ was meant  to first of all build a serious commitment of the blogger to the testing, second of all all those bloggers/developers had to justify the expense to their editors and/or spouses. This made glass something worth  doing a few articles on.

Lets get back to Clarke's childhood's end, Google and Facebook much like the aliens in the book are actually growing the next generation and not us. they want to slowly push toward a world where sharing is natural and privacy will feel like an archaic notion more suited for those tin foil hat wearing paranoids.

If you go into a Facebook page of an average 15-20 year old, you will see all his posts are set to "Public" and he shares his school and residence data freely. unlike tech savvy journalists he is not too concerned with identity theft, when you are young you have very little to lose in terms of property so you are not burdened by the need to protect it.

Glass is the first product since the iPhone that in my opinion can push Google towards where it want to go. That is why ads are forbidden for now on G+ and on Google glass. That is why there are limited voice commands that are more likely to work for everybody. Google designed it all so we don't get frustrated or scared of it. There is a light visible when you see someone using glass. That is Google telling us "don't worry, you will know if they are recording you".

The balance is very fragile, all Google "needs" is that a Kardashian girl will accidentally film herself in a compromising position and auto upload it to Google plus for all hell to break loose.

Robert scoble the scobelizer  shows us his glass

Google and Facebook  much like the Aliens in "Childhood's end" need to slowly prepare the world to the next stage of sharing. Will glass be so "Cool" we can't resist it? Will we give all shred of our privacy for a shining wearable tech or a shiny touch screen?

Google and Facebook are trying to procure the kind of future that lets them lead it. its not just their future they are trying to protect. The future of all free internet services is on the line.

More and more services are going behind a pay wall and they need a good financial reason to stay free and allow access to us and Google.

On Arthur C clark tombstone he wanted to say "Here lies Arthur Clarke. He never grew up, but didn't stop growing" That is how the tech world is evolving and that is who we are or aspire to be.

This article is a a translation I did from my hebrew article with slight changes to better fit the English language.
The original article can be found here: link

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