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Google Glass seems so quaint now
By adamg on Thu, 05/19/2016 - 9:11pm
Last month, a Green Line rider gained some measure of notoriety - and the disapproval of police - when he was spotted wearing virtual-reality goggles on a C trolley.
This afternoon, Mike the roving UHub photographer spotted him just walking down Beacon Street in Brookline, which for us non-VR types raises the question of whether you can actually see through the goggles or if hes perhaps using them to navigate via a live feed from a camera mounted on the goggles.
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Comments
Yikes
Incredibly dangerous not to mention ridiculously stupid looking. Take a step back George Jetson it's only 2016.
They do make the trains run on
time though....
Yes, it would be a lot safer
Yes, it would be a lot safer if he just walked around like everyone else, with his head held low staring at the phone in his hands.
Its porn.
He gets a cheap thrill when he bumps into things.
well...
...at least he's got the physique to go with the head-gear.
Neal Stephenson strikes again
Snow Crash is real! First google earth, now gargoyles -- where are my damn smartwheels?
Primer
Where's my internet commenter's Primer?
VR within VR within another VR while riding in the passenger car
And a virtual reality within a virtual reality and within another virtual reality while riding in a passenger car on the rails and so proceed ad infinitum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO_Q_f1WgQI
And I suppose it'll be the driver's fault
when this dude walks into traffic and gets himself flattened.
Indeed
If the motorist is speeding, ignoring crosswalks, texting, or not paying attention to the conditions in a highly pedestrian area, then yes. It would be.
Gotta love UHub
Where the consequences of your own stupidity are always someone else's fault, provided that someone else is driving a car or truck.
I was waiting for the 1 bus at MIT a few weeks ago when I saw a dude on a skateboard sidle up behind a tour bus, grab on to gain speed as the bus accelerated, slink on over into the bike lane, and nearly get squished when the bus slowed down and made a right onto Amherst Street.
And if he hadn't escaped by inches and did get run over, a shiny red penny says someone on this site would honestly, in his heart of hearts, would truly and earnestly believe that it was the bus driver's fault. Because it would just have to be.
Why is this news?
What is the guy hurting?
It's not news and you're right, he's not hurting anybody
It is, however, interesting and quirky, and if you're new here, welcome, I love interesting and quirky stuff, and post about that all the time, and not just because it detracts from all the depressing news I also tend to post (and sometimes the two even meet, like in the story about the Saugus elected official with his attack fillets). Also, I post sunrise/sunset photos a lot as well (and then, of course, lyrically muse about the passing of the years).
You can't violate the privacy of a sunset
Now UH is the creepy stalker, posting photos of a guy (who possibly has anxiety already) walking down the street, and commenters making jokes about him.
He's walking down a major thoroughfare
If he wants privacy, he should perhaps stay indoors.
To be fair
he's probably viewing things with augmented reality. I, for one, appear to him not as my slouchy, middle-aged self, but rather as a beautiful princess she-fox, needing to be rescued from dragons.
Two things come to my mind:
Two things come to my mind:
1 - Yes, the GearVR is capable of passing through the phone's camera to your field of vision so you can navigate or see what you're doing while wearing it.
2 - On the internet, it's easy to point and laugh. But we really don't know what he's doing. For all we know he's working for a local startup (or is a developer himself) testing out some augmented reality app or something with accessibility in mind. You never know.
My first thought is NOT that he's just walking down the street privately watching Netflix, but I'm also not ruling that out as a possibility.
I just assumed Geordi La
I just assumed Geordi La Forge let himself go.
Maybe functional reality
It was not that long ago there was a group of people at MIT that were lovingly called "The Borg" who walked around campus with a small PC strapped to their waste, and equipped with both a camera and optical lens similar to the one Google now uses.
The system allowed them to view a person's face, use facial recognition (then in its infancy) to look up the person, and have the PC return that person's name through the lens. The project allowed access to the student ID database. The system was eventually augmented to do other things and provide other data associated with location, etc.
If the person is doing something similar, he could be actually seeing where he is going quite well if it has a mounted camera, but the screen could also be offering additional data such as location, GPS, next bus when due, etc.
Alternately, and this may be a stretch... could he simply have some kind of eyesight problem and this device has been augmented to offer better vision. Geordi LaForge indeed comes to mind on this one. The human brain will adapt in a matter of days or weeks to changes in visual perception and depth. This has already been proven.
Steve Mann
Steve Mann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann
Yes, you can see..
Yes, you can see through the device. There is a setting to use the camera on the outside of the phone to view-through. At least on the Samsung Gear VR you can. This might look like an HTC?
I imagine him talking like
I imagine him talking like that game of thrones guy.
Driverless car
meet attentionless pedestrian