YAY OR BOO GOOGLE GLASS?

"SPY GLASSES help you do what you want to do," said Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, when he announced "Project Glass" five years ago.

"The glasses work like a hands free smart phone, displaying messages, images, and maps of the world in front of you. The glasses have built-in cameras that allow you to capture moments without disrupting them."

Saying that, Brin tossed his baby son into the air and declared, “If I tried to capture that with a camera I’d drop my son.”

What a gesture, what a way to show us that Google Glass -- those eye glasses -- were something we were going to want to buy.

In 2012  I blogged about Google Glass -- the actual device really couldn't be bought yet -- it was one of those futuristic things, like driverless cars.

Can you buy Google Glass now?  Well, you could order it.  Ebay listed some "like new" Google Smart Glasses -- prices -- $1550 to $6500. In April, Google announced you can buy Google Glass, but only wear it for a day, and of course get a full refund. The wear-for-a day plan is still part of Google's pilot project.

I can't help wondering who owns the photos and recordings, and what about the folks you record without getting permission. Meanwhile, Google is ironing out another serious problem -- the battery doesn't last long enough. Their digital photography experts are working on using "nanotechnology," (using teeny batteries); experts are also  experimenting with “gesture-based” technology, that would let you take photos with the blink of your eye.

Hey, maybe Google Glass will replace smartphones, and give us more mobility -- utter Mobility -- global, universal, ultimate freedom from lots of other things that go with being a human?

Anyhow, keep your eyes wide open, and go with the flow of it -- sooner or later the price will come down and you can try it Though personally, I can't imagine why in the world I'd ever wear Google Glass, I suggest we just "row, row, row ours  boats gently, down the stream."

Row, row ... upstream? downstream? are we heading for the rapids? A waterfall? This music expresses my trepidations. 

(VIDEO) CAMELOT (revisited)

This video was made on Aug 29, 2010.

It's fun to discuss how in the world John Cullum, who was not a singer, managed to get his first job in a Broadway musical.

Back in those days, John Cullum was working mostly as an understudy, doing bit parts for Joseph Papp's "Shakespeare in the Park," and going to auditions for musicals that he invariably flubbed!

The night John went on for one of actors who was playing a rather important part, he was discovered by Allan Lerner's right hand man, and our lives changed.

IS "TIME" OUT OF DATE?

When Nancy Gibbs, long time senior editor, took over as managing editor of Time Magazine, I cheered. I like her writing. I like her point of view; her sense of what's important more or less fitted with mine.

But lately, many -- no -- most of Time's recent cover stories -- "Fake Pot," "Rape On Campus," "Last Days 'Mad Men," "Saving Preemies," "Transgender Star of a new TV show, Laverne Cox," -- do not really interest me.

I'm sure these popular topics appeal to men and women, subscribers and readers, who are mostly concerned about their own lives -- their space and place in America. Hey, what's more important, truly important and intriguing, than the territory of you?

Anyhow, I flip through the magazine's pages and rarely pause to put a check-mark on something I want to read and pursue further. Turning the pages, the topics seem ho-hum, and not in tune with what's on my mind.

I gotta say -- I don't feel safe. Night noses wake me -- a siren. a boom -- is it the bomb? Is it IT? Is our building, our block, the city, going-going gone?

Okay, in your own territory, life is less stressful, probably easier and more enjoyable, when your mind is full of the latest popular doings. But hey, are Nancy Gibbs and her bosses diverting us -- making a lot of other stuff-and-nonsense important to keep us from thinking, wondering, worrying, trying to figure out how to fix, repair, or change -- do something -- about the bad things that are going on?

Could it possibly be a way, a tactic that keeps us not focused on the doomful things that might gather momentum -- like a snow ball that could get larger and larger as it rolls around and down the mountain?

For me the snowball's melting, mushy. I don't trust Time. Aside from the cover stories, there are plenty of articles filled with details, opinions, numbers, polls, percentages -- research on top of the research -- that obscures details that prove something-or-other is a major dangerous problem.

Yes, the other urgent, festering, dangerous, unsolved issues in the territory of you and me, are tucked in between ads, photos, articles, and cover stories.

I admire Nancy Gibbs, but she's an employee controlled by her conservative, probably rich, probably Republican bosses. Am I thinking paranoically?  Hmm. Probably.

Anyway, I think Time is behind the times. I'm not renewing my subscription.

ZUCKERBERG

Mark Zuckerberg -- the smartest guy in the neighborhood, the smartest guy in the school -- seems to be changing the face of Facebook again. 

In April, 2012, he bought INSTAGRAM, for $1 billion. It provided a mobile-centric platform at a time when Facebook's activity was primarily desktop based.

I wasn't into mobile back then. I am not into mobile now.

June 2012, he bought FACE.COM, for $60 million -- it provided recognition technology that Faceobook uses to automatically tag faces in photos.

I'm having serious trouble with photos in my blog -- Facebook ignores my cartoons -- just picks what it wants.  
 
This past February, he bought  WHATSAPP,  for $19 billion. It gives Facebook a presence in messaging that it's been working on for years, and also a foothold in other countries.

I can't send messages or get messages anymore on my Facebook page.

Last month he bought  OCULUS VR, for $2 billion. He currently is setting up top flight engineers to work on the virtual reality headset that Oculus created.

In a press conference, Mark Z said, "Mobile is the platform of today and now we are also getting ready for the platform for tomorrow. Oculus has a chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."

Yowie -- Z is putting down a lot of money on virtual reality, which till very recently was considered a failure.

Are we -- you and I -- going to be facebooking in headsets?

Hey, gee -- I don't want to wear anything over my eyes, my ears and be in an artificially stimulated unreal environment with my head covered, sweating -- my hair, my crowning glory drooping, straggling, uglifying me and what I used to be -- before I got into social net-jerking.
 
No, no, no -- it feels so wrong -- Z is already controlling so much of our lives with his concepts -- he's buying into my future and I don't know how to stop him except by shouting, "beware of this clever-brilliant kid -- he's transforming us into money making doers, users of whatever he thinks is right, good, fascinating fun.  

F - U - N? 

OH MY GOD -- IS THIS THE FUTURE  OF FUN?