Yesterday Google co-founder Sergey Brin surprised the TED 2013 audience with an unannounced guest appearance. Brin’s short talk focused on Google’s newest innovation, Google Glass.
Google Glass will eventually combine the functionality of a smartphone with a pair of streamlined glasses. The Google Glass visual display appears in the center of the user’s field of vision. Among its many features include using voice commands to take video, pictures, send messages, and search for and display information.
Some of Brin’s talk bordered on the sensational and was quickly picked up by media outlets. Brin said that Google Glass is the answer to the “antisocial and emasculating habit of compulsive smartphone checking.” He said that using the new device “opened my eyes to how much of my life I spent secluded away in e-mail or social posts.”
Not everyone agrees that Google Glass will solve our issues with personal technology and social isolation. Some contend that it will just be a new device that will serve up a different kind of distraction. The use of Google Glass also creates privacy concerns, since Google Glass is said to automatically take pictures every five seconds – pictures that are sent to Google and stored in their immense collection of user data.
