I am in competition with you for all sorts of experiences – you will lose

Too often real innovation is lost behind froth and grandstanding like this - too many excitable nerds and shiny toys, not enough introspection on the effects of technology on society. Not enough emphasis on problems that need solving, too much on how to raise more ad revenue or VC money.<p>I saw this talk live at NEXTBerlin, and while in the audience all I could think was 'wow, I don't care at all if you win - your life sounds like it must suck if you're competing for ridiculous minutiae - and what has this got to do with privacy anyway?'. Questions of privacy - an important pillar of digital policy in Germany and other EU states - were brushed aside at the prospect of faster airline tickets and 'competition for experience', whatever that means.<p>Really? Can Scoble not imagine a world where experience isn't a zero sum game? Is this the perception of the world we're being locked into by technology?<p>Google Glass has a lot of potential in some spaces - in teaching, in medicine, in law enforcement - but I am terrified that its evangelists and early adopters are brushing aside the concerns of a digital layer in front of real experiences so readily, as if more technology is automatically a good thing.

Sure. You win Scoble. You just go ahead and book that flight or grab that table. I'll be here in my log cabin in the mountains, looking at the stars, and losing.

I think Scoble might be missing a very important point. Our ability to access information isn't the problem. We all already have (nearly) instant access to all the information we'll need.<p>The thing that worries me most about Glass is that it's solving the wrong problem. We're not running around in a world where it's too much of a bother to look at our phone, but instead that we're less and less capable of focus.<p>If you look at the nature of our technology, we've already (mostly) solved the problem of information search and retrieval at any time. We all have a very near the same quality experience when it comes to information.<p>But where we break apart is in the ability to focus and make new connections from the data. I wonder whether Glass users are drowning themselves in more noise, and not really getting the space to create new, meaningful, creative connections.<p>I wonder whether we need new ways to disconnect more intensely than we need a more subtle overlay of noisy information on our reality.

Fluffy marketing bullshit. Sorry.<p>Privacy concerns are legitimate. Google Glass may not even be the problem. But the impact of the availability of ever more personal data in the hands of government and corporations for our society needs to be discussed. People have a legitimate right to know about their data trails.<p>PS: The #next conference "stole" their slogan¹ from the 26C3 Chaos Communication Congress²<p>1: <a href="http://nextberlin.eu/2013/04/behind-the-scenes-at-next13/" rel="nofollow">http://nextberlin.eu/2013/04/behind-the-scenes-at-next13/</a><p>2: <a href="http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/" rel="nofollow">http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/</a>

I would add an 'if' to the headline to make it less inflamatory: 'If I am in competition with you for all sorts of experiences, you will lose'.<p>I am not competing with you, and I do not care if I take a late flight, or do not have a reservation to this restaurant because in my mind reality is not goal driven, but path driven.

Shallow<p>Getting the answer or the data isn't really the biggest issue. The problem is understanding what that data actually means. I am pretty convinced (given the students I observe), that google helps with data and trivia, but doesn't help with the understanding of what that trivia means. Put another way, you can access data faster than someone without the glasses, but can you turn that data into information?<p>I am all for the demise of rote learning of names and dates, but I think we need more tools for explaining the how / why and not the what. You can lookup the API calls with the glasses, but not know how to do the design of those API calls.

It's funny how people here automatically start the reactionary rejection of a new technology taking over our current way of processing information.<p>It is not really a competition about who lives a better life, or what is the true experience. It is about how general people's life will be changed by the product. Scoble's point is very clear: the product gives users power through technological superiority and let them have a new mean of social display. When everyone starts to get Google Glass, its function no longer matters; it becomes a social device.

An experience mediated by technology is not the same thing as the original experience - we can debate whether it makes the experience richer or poorer, but it certainly makes the experience different.<p>Even a UI-less, effortless experience transforms the experience. For instance, passively recording what you see through Google Glass will cause you to view the world with a mind towards recording and archiving your experience.<p>While Scoble believes he is winning a competition, he is simply opting into a different set of experiences - one where he might get access to things like airline tickets or restaurant reservations a little faster than the rest of us, but also one where he's also constantly evaluating how to use the technology he's carrying to interact with the world. Some people will prefer this set of experiences, while others will prefer the originals.<p>Both types of people <i>should</i> be able to get what they want, but I worry that Google Glass will alter the experiences of everybody, not just its users. We all act and think differently when we're aware we're being recorded - it makes us more self-conscious, putting us in an 'observe ourselves' mindset that competes with the 'observe the world around you' mindset. In a world with a plurality of Google Glass-wearers, we'll have to assume we're constantly being recorded when around other people, and that's not something I particularly care to experience.

The examples mentioned in the article (plane flights, tables at restaurants) involve competition between people in the same place 'competing' because a given resource is scarce. I'm not making the link to privacy laws at <i>nation state</i> level. There are buses and trains as well as planes. There will be slightly later planes. There are <i>plenty</i> of places to eat where I live.

Wait until network effects take place and it creates a lock-in for a specific vendor. (Besides, congestion will strike and he will also loose a lot of his races.)<p>So, it is true, we are in a competition, but not the competition that Scoble is referring to.<p>The competition is more about open standards, patent laws and the future of freedom.

And then you suffer a tragic family loss or an incurable decease or something, and you gain some humility and perspective....

Man, I'd love to be in a place where my only worries are if I get the last table in the restaurant or the last flight home.<p>Meanwhile, don't we have more important things to do than listen to someone go "yeah, I can use my apps faster than you"?

This reminds me Falken's law from War Games. True for many games: the best way to win is to not play.

Incredibly simplistic and shallow reasoning.<p>Scaling anxiety disorders big time.<p>Here we go...

I'm guessing that anything Scoble is competing with me for, I probably wouldn't be very interested in, so he's welcome.<p>(Except maybe that airline ticket if I don't get one of the remaining two...)

it is the same thing with being able to google really well.<p>I was about 1000% more efficient than my coworkers at new things, ways and information because I googled fast and found the information.

The future looks like people spending half their lives recording video and half of it watching the records. Recursion looks possible if you think of it!

All true. But we technophiles are better served by downplaying this aspect of technology's advance.<p>A large fraction of people are utterly freaked out by the idea that they'll be obligated to adopt new technology just to keep up.<p>Better to give many chances for people to discover on their own that they really <i>want</i> to use a new technology for positive reasons, rather than out of fear.

This man is a grotesque monster.

If I'm in front of my computer with Ghci, or whatever, open and you're trying to do the same thing on your Glasses, you'll lose. Oh wow, you can book a table, or a flight. I care why?<p>Can I think of things that tech lets me do quicker? Sure. But that's why I sit in front of a computer for a lot of the day and carry a tablet. Advantage to Glass is? Not even gonna be on the order of 30 seconds here....<p>Most of the advantages I can think of to do with Glass just have to do with having a rich/continuous supply of data - and that'll only really take off when you can store and cross reference it effectively.