Gilden and Erwitt on Google Glass

<a href= "http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/magnum-photographers-give-google-glass-a-test-spin-a-1013135.html">Here's the link.</a> Check it out.

<p>Meh.  Gilden sounds perilously close to yet another Mr. Backinmyday photo materials/process curmudgeon, although his raucous sense of humor will probably save him from that fate.</p>

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<p>This is a red herring anyway.  The future of wearable imaging tech isn't primarily for old school still photographers.  A fine art or street photographer may not be the optimal target subject for a survey about Teeline shorthand, direct quotes vs paraphrasing, or analog typewriters vs digital... okay, never mind, stretching that point a bit.  Wearable recording tech has a lot of potential for journalists.  It will offer a bit more discretion and safety when documenting tricky situations.  Ultimately it's no different from the wearable cameras being touted for law enforcement to provide a record of on the job incidents.  However the ultimate journalist's wearable tech would need live streaming and automatic cloud backup so the videos/photos are still safe even if the device is confiscated, stolen or lost in a melee.</p>

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<p>I'd be more interested in the opinions about wearable recording tech from journalists who know what it feels like to wear a bullseye on their foreheads.  The Taksim Square/Gezi Park demonstrators who were deliberately shot in the face by rubber bullets and tear gas cannisters by Turkish police might have welcomed wearable recording tech to keep a lower profile than is possible when holding a smart phone at arm's length.</p>

<p>Oh look. Another device with a crappy camera on it. Yawn.</p>

<p>We as consumers will naturally tend to look at products in an application context, and Google, in the case of the Glass, sees it as an experimental product toward their vision of the future. </p>

<p>Eric Schmidt of Google said at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that Google's vision of the future in computing is that it will become a part of our presence rather than a product we interact with. There's a lot of depth to that simple comment, and if you subscribe to it, then you will view the product and its potential in a whole new context. </p>

<p>Many in the commercial, industrial and medical sector get it, and have embraced Google Glass and have developed applications for it. It's one of those things that are so far into the future, like Google's self-driving cars, that it's a long ways off mass adoption, rather it's a first step toward the realization of a vision that someday might evolve into a strong technical platform and take the lead in a world of reordered dominance.</p>

<p>Google is one of those companies who will radically break from tradition in ways that make little sense to the casual observer, like why they would invest in Space-X, develop Google Glass, self-driving cars, map the world's surface with ambitions of mapping the world's oceans. Nonetheless, I think the world is a better place with Google than what it might have been without it.</p>

<p>On Glass, here's an interesting teardown:<br>

<a href="http://www.catwig.com/google-glass-teardown/">http://www.catwig.com/google-glass-teardown/</a></p>

<p>I am not a big follower of -- and certainly no predictor of -- future technology (not that Google Glass is "future", having been around for a few years). I found the article interesting primarily because of the two photographers interviewed, the photographs they took with GG, and the galleries of their older photographs. Google Glass, or similar offerings from other companies, may well have applications but it is not at all my cup of tea for taking photographs of any kind. </p>

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<p>I read that the G Glass project has been put on the back burner or cancelled by the company.<br>

http://www.gamenguide.com/articles/19137/20150119/google-glass-cancelled-company-ends-production-on-futuristic-glasses.htm</p>

<p>Personally, I can't really imagine anything as intrusive and pointless. I'm not surprised it is mothballed.</p>

<p>Well, of the two I certainly like Erwitt's work more than Gilden's, personal preference I guess. As for the wearable camera shots? I would think both would have to have more time to get the best out of the device (notice I didn't call it a camera). This reminds me of an article I read years ago (in Modern Photography?) when Jason Schneider attached a spring wound Ricoh Auto Half under a polo shirt and tried to take photographs unnoticed on the street.</p>

<p>I think that the potential is very great with this kind of nascent technology, even though issues of obtrusiveness remain: we have seen the surveillance state, and it is us.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<p>Google is one of those companies who will radically break from tradition in ways that make little sense to the casual observer, like why they would invest in Space-X, develop Google Glass, self-driving cars, map the world's surface with ambitions of mapping the world's oceans.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>The simple answer is that the primary application of all of these is military.</p>