Who the hell are you?

The first selected users have now been ‘allowed’ to buy their Google Glass(es) – a snip at $1,500. But last week Google announced that they would prevent the use of any face recognition apps for them (it?) – for a while at least.

(btw – the official name for a Glass app, is Glassware; so don’t be caught being unhip to the jive.)

Now I haven’t been taking much interest in Glass – I think it’s because I hate the idea and don’t want to know how much I really hate it by finding out more – because then I’d have to get a pair (one?).

But, I admit, that I hadn’t thought about face recognition and I can now see that it would be an extremely useful thing for me in particular because, on a bad day, I can forget the names of my own children. This isn’t something new, I’ve never been able to remember names; introducing people I’ve known for years to others is a massive exercise in bluff – “I’ll let you two introduce yourselves’ is my favourite tactic.

I’ve sat in regular meetings with people I couldn’t for the life of me name but I’ve known them for too long to ask. I’m one of the few people who love name badges and think that everyone should wear them all the time; preferably on their foreheads so it doesn’t look like I’m constantly looking at their chests.

So face recognition for me would be the killer app. (Killer glassware doesn’t really work does it?) In the new Glass equipped world, I’d look at the guy with no-name that I’ve known since birth, blink twice and up pops his name, job, date of last contact and reminders about how many beers he owes me. Phew.

Except, you have to speak to your specs not blink. “Glass, who the hell is this?”

Maybe you could have a hotword^TM like “hello” which would automatically flag up the name of the person I’m looking at without giving away my cluelessness.

Glass with face recognition is the sales guy’s wet dream; imagine a full record of sales, credit scores, wife and children’s names and golf handicaps flashing in front of their eyes with just a glance at you.

“Gosh, little Jimmy will be 8.9145  years old now won’t he? How’s he getting on at that new school; St Aubins wasn’t it??”

On the other hand, the Police Officer that just walked passed you knows that you have previous for shoplifting, that you’re not normally seen outside Liverpool and that your mate is in breach of his bail.

This kind of thing is, of course, the reason for the delay – after the mistakes Google have already made with data, privacy concerns are writ large in their minds.

I’d worry about it if I thought I’d remember it tomorrow.

ps how many ‘awesomes’ and ‘cools’ did you count in that video?