Google might be taking over the world and as much as I love Google, their new business plan doesn’t sit very well with me. There are 2 things as of late that I don’t like. The first is a set of glasses that connects to your phone and allows you to see everything that happens with your phone. Say for example, you receive a text message. It will pop up in your glasses for you to see and you can speak out load to respond to the text and the phone will do the rest. It’s almost like Siri in the form of glasses. You can ask for directions and a map will pop up in the glasses with turn by turn directions. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, are our cell phones really that important that we can’t walk down the street without them? Do we need to see what’s happening on our phones all the time? I’ve seen the demo video for the product and it does look like a cool new invention, but it’s also an awful invention. Imagine someone driving with these glasses and seeing all these texts and email alerts popping up in their line of sight. You think you’re going to continue to pay attention to the road? Hell no. People already look like cyborgs with their blue tooths and now we’re going to add these glasses? I’m out. I can understand having these glasses maybe for a themed type of thing. Maybe an interactive ride at a theme park or a new way to guide people through museums with information about the piece of art their looking at, but for everyday, I think this is a little much. There is absolutely no need for glasses like this. Maybe I’m too scared of technology because I’ve seen too many movies and read too many books. I just don’t see the need for people to literally see the activity on their phones 24/7. Leave it in your pocket and if it vibrates, look at it.
The second invention by Google is a virtual museum called the Google Art Project. This one I’m a little torn about because it is kind of cool. Google has set up a museum guide similar to Google maps where you can guide yourself through museums around the world. They figure that if you can’t visit the museum, they will bring it to you. This is a good idea for people who just can’t travel around the world, but to me the best part of a museum is experiencing the museum itself. Being able to walk around is all part of the experience. Seeing a picture of a piece of art or virtually walking through a museum doesn’t even begin to compare to seeing it in person. I completely understand not being able to travel to the opposite side of the planet, but I have a feeling that if a teacher assigns a student to go to a museum and the kid is too lazy, they’re just hop on this site. But I guess kids will find ways around anything so maybe that’s a bad argument. So maybe Google does have something good here. I guess that I just have to raise my kids to actually want to go to a museum.
Either way, I thought the entire exhibit was pretty clever and I would totally take my kids. If you're in the area you should go!