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Prophecy: From Google Glass to Microchip to Implant in your Brain (part 2) Is Google planning a microchip for people's brains?
From the Daily Mail UK:
Apple and Samsung are working on smart watches, Google is developing talking shoes, but nothing compares to these head-mounted ‘glasses’ that can shoot video footage, search the internet or send an email, all at the command of their wearer’s voice.
Each pair of glasses is fitted with a miniaturised camera and web browser which displays digital information on a tiny screen — a clear plastic block the width of a pencil — just in front and slightly above a wearer’s eye.
The arm of the headset, which sits near the wearer’s temple, acts as a touch pad. By sliding your finger up and down it, you can scroll through the text visible in your eyepiece. To select something on the screen, the user simply taps the headset.
The device is also fitted with a tiny speaker, microphone and motion sensors which interpret commands based on the wearer’s head movements.
Google Glass does everything a smartphone does without the bother of having to pull it out of your pocket and fiddle with the controls. Text messages and emails can be dictated by voice command and then read back on the screen to check that the computer has heard — and spelt — everything correctly.
Want to catch up on the news? Wearers can see headlines and pictures and have full stories read back to them simply by tapping the frame of their glasses.
Wear them while driving and the glasses’ in-built GPS system will identify your location and give you turn-by-turn directions via Google Maps. Ask the glasses a question and the answer will pop up on screen.
But of all the promised features of these spectacular specs, it is the glasses’ ability to take pictures and shoot video footage and upload it instantly to the internet that is proving most disturbing.Some fear candid camera snooping will become all too easy when no one realises that the person simply looking in their direction is actually filming them.
And it gets worse.
According to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the company plans to have Google Glass fitted with an automatic picture-taking mode, snapping photos at pre-set intervals. This could be as often as every five seconds.
While people may rightly worry about being photographed without their knowledge or permission, such fears pale into insignificance when you consider the true extent of the insidious reach of Google Glass.
Time and again, Google has proved that it has no time for that quaint old concept called ‘privacy’.Scott Cleland, an internet analyst, told me ‘creepy’ Google Glass technology represented the ‘ultimate escalation of Google’s privacy invasion’.
He says: ‘Say you’re huddled in Starbucks with your spouse and someone next to you is recording your conversation on Google Glass.
Remember, the glasses have no storage capacity so all the information goes directly back to Google’s huge data centres.’
Nick Pickles, of the UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, says Google Glass ‘makes CCTV cameras look trivial . . . the person next to you isn’t just a commuter any more, they’re a Google agent’.He predicts that ten years from now, if a company or organisation wants to know if you have ever said anything they consider offensive or threatening, a single search query on Google’s database ‘will instantly bring up documentation of every word you’ve ever spoken within earshot of a Google Glass device’.
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