[panacea]

A lazer?

Google Glass is already dusted. It occupies the very centre of an 'uncanny valley' when it comes to wearable computing. It's simply too creepy to have people walking around with a HUD and and camera next to one eye. And coming from Google no less.

Should have positioned it more as something you wear for outdoor sports, or for specific activities (I know they tried a bit)... but as an everyday computing/sensor device it fails the cultural/social challenge.

[ctdonath]

We had the same complaints about cell phones, especially with handsfree headsets. It was simply too creepy to have people walking around with a small box mushed against their ear ... or worse, just walking along chattering into the air with nobody around.

Well, we still have the same complaints, we just find it so useful we've accepted the "cell phone zombification" of society.

HUDs will be the same, and like Bluetooth-enabled earpieces will gradually disappear into barely-visible devices.

[diegocg]

People only walks with small boxes mushed against their ear when they get a call. The rest of the time it's on their pocket. Not so much with something like Google glasses.

Glasses suck. I wear them since I was a child and I don't like them. I'm planning to get laser eye surgery done just to get rid of glasses. I would be very surprised if suddenly lots of people with good sight are fine with wearing glasses all the time.

[Pxtl]

Better example would be Walkmen. Nobody blinks at the sight of somebody with earbuds on.

[roc]

Earbuds, no. But wearing glass is much more visible -- more of an asserted statement. It's currently more like wearing over-ear headphones in public. Which is done by only a vanishing minority.

As glass becomes smaller, I'd imagine the pushback will abate. But until it seamlessly disappears into frames, people are going to react poorly to what is being perceived as a clearly-worn borderline-spy-camera. [1]

[1] Spy camera in the sense that there isn't much of a physical cue that someone's taking a picture or not. The light is hardly as visible as holding a camera or phone up to your face.

[matznerd]

But is it not awkward to try and have a conversation with someone wearing headphones, even if they are off?

[bad_user]

Given your tone, I do wonder whether this is something you observed or something that you wish to happen.

Personally I find the applications for a HUD to be endless, given enough time and polish.

[panacea]

If a personal HUD was so great, why do they need to bundle an outfacing camera to the device at the same time?

A personal HUD with sufficient utility might gain acceptance by people not wearing the device. Coupled to an eye mounted 'recording other people without their consent' device and Google's servers though?

(And yes, my tone is indicative of a luddite stance in this particular instance)

[lordCarbonFiber]

A personal HUD with no way to be context sensitive (ie no camera) is dead in the water. I'm biased because Im working in this space. but, I believe context aware augmented reality is the killer app for wearables. Honestly, the people wearing Glass aren't recording you, Google isn't recording you; if you're worried about privacy concerns it's the last thing on the list of things to be terrified about (just an anecdote, my little sister spends an inordinate amount of time subtly snap chatting images of the people around her with her iphone so, odds are your dystopian future of you describe already exists). So long as we are given root access and the option to use our own servers and software, the hardware advances are not the problem. Acting like a Luddite will not protect your privacy.

[dragonwriter]

The utility proposition of a HUD has always included data display relevant to what is in the field of vision; that's why HUDs are traditionally tied to sensor systems, whether its Glass and its camera or a jet fighter HUD and the targeting radar.