I still have so many questions about Google Glass. Luckily this video, which was released yesterday on the official Google Glass YouTube channel, is here to clear the air. It features testimonials from a handful of early Glass adopters, all of whom sing the beleaguered wearable facial computer's high praises. Naturally, the six-minute techno-utopian hype reel is called "Thank You, Google Glass Explorers".I've always wondered, first, how explorers like those shown here each had a cool $1,500 to spring on Glass sets the first go around. $1,500 is not exactly a small amount of money. Right, guys? Then I noticed that Stanford was behind the interviews, and that most of the interview subjects likely live in and around Silicon Valley.That answers that, I guess.But what about all the things these early Glass adopters are quietly doing while people are talking to them? More to the point, I wonder what all those non-Glass wearers are doing while they converse with the bespectacled futurists. Ogling over the Glassed ones as if they're celebrities? Maybe. "When Glass was still really new, we took turns wearing it all over New York City," Amy Langton, one of the featured explorers, says. "It was like being a movie star."OK, so what about actual celebrities? What do they think of the smart specs? Says Margo Rowder, a social media manager: "I lend them out a lot. Celebrities will put them on at events and stuff, and they'll be like, 'Wooow! That's so cool!'"
"Cool" is one thing. (It's also a running theme: Kate McFadden, a teacher, explains that Glass is "another tool for engagement for people that's cool.") What about ease of use and practicality? Sure, pilots are wearing Glass. Good-guy porn stars, too. But what about mere mortals? Is Glass actually, you know, useful? According to Richard Bolt, a trail-running evangelist, "I found myself, naturally, taking more photographs and video with Glass, just because it's on my face. It's there. It's kind of the easiest thing."The other easiest thing, of course, is blasting Glassholes for embracing the tech. These people fucking love Google Glass. And that's great! For the rest of us, here's hoping that anti-snooping patent is greenlit.
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