There is clearly a lot of negative emotional reactivity regarding these glasses going on here, but it’s worth thinking about the implications, both positive and negative.
1. They clearly can be built with current technology. Therefore, assuming they are useful, they will be built.
2. It clearly looks like they provide a much superior hands-free experience for smart phone operation. I see both benefits and issues that could go along with this, but need to note that anything that keeps drivers from fumbling with their phones has potential positive safety implications.
3. They are a potential boon to people with disabilities. The glasses can provide a unified experience that can enable anyone who has difficulty manipulating a computer mouse, phone or other handheld device to get information quickly and efficiently.
4. The same applies to people who are in the early stages of dementia. Given an accompanying personal database of photos of friends and loved ones, the visual prompts from the glasses can help a person with failing memory and mental faculties.
5. The glasses would be similarly useful to people in professions that require them to interact with very large numbers of other people, such as clergymen, managers, politicians and even retail store workers. The ability to rapidly call up names and information about someone that you’ve met only once four years ago is not necessarily a bad thing.
6. I think it inevitable that law enforcement agencies are going to be potentially huge customers of this. For example, given current security trends, I think that the TSA will be buying a boatload of these.
That is from Phil C.