The only thing the successful widespread adoption of glass would achieve is the wholesale and largely irrevocable invasion of social space with corporatized audio and video surveillance for the totalitarian state apparatus, thinly masked as techno-fashion. Sure, it might have some other uses, but other than removing the need to hold a screen this is the only thing it really achieves in terms of recording or data access that's fundamentally different from present era devices.
I'd agree with your statement--however, limiting the scope to only be "recording or data access" rather misses the point.
The desktop computer from a "processing or data access" standpoint was not very different from the mainframes or minicomputers at the time--indeed probably much stunted!--but the changes it caused were massive outside of that limited scope.
The common argument of "Google Glass is no different a surveillance device than a modern smart phone" is so troublesome precisely because it is accurate without having explanatory power--there are confounding features to Glass that go beyond that simple comparison.
The common argument of "Google Glass is no different a surveillance device than a modern smart phone" really is not accurate, it is a deliberate ignorance and a misrepresentation.
There's nothing confounding about glass that makes it LESS of a surveillance device than a smart phone, certainly there's plenty that makes it more so. What do you find accurate about the argument?
How much time do you spend being recorded naked on a smart phone in your bedroom? None I bet. I can envisage google glass, or 'google contacts' resulting in everything being recorded if you extrapolate, with no expectation of privacy.
Already in technology companies, employees may be asked to leave their phones outside, will those companies be more keen or less keen to have 'google glass' left behind? More, I would bet.
The argument is accurate in so far as the Glass has the same camera and network and processing capabilities--what is ignored is everything else. I rather suspect you and I are on the same side here.
We're on the same side, but I think you're giving the argument too much credit, it's like calling a sphere a circle. You're probably going to have to take a harder stance to convince people.
You and I both know that a camera is different to ubiquitous cameras, and that when and where those cameras are directed and recording are important.
Most important of all given those first two distinctions, is who controls and owns the footage.
The implications of the footage ending up on a computer not belonging to the recorder and recorded are profound.
How will the law react? Mandatory recording for the typically sensitive professions? Will that then extend out in all directions?
Will Joe Public be charged with destroying evidence: e.g. shop owners being sued for compensation, who destroy their CCTV footage to cover up?
The desktop computing revolution was largely a cost-driven fan-out of existing computing paradigms on a cheaper/smaller scale. Glass is not cheaper than mobile phones ... hence my suggestion that it's only really the display that's different from a functional perspective. The danger of omnipresent wearable video recorders vs. privacy are quite a lot more weighty than the as yet unproven use cases for such a display. Society should encourage a public discussion on the value of privacy and proceed in this direction only with extreme caution. Profit-driven alliances with totalitarian governments are a modern historical fact: https://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8660186
