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Google Glass

Title of Study

The reality of “Google glass” versus the “Black Mirror” TV show: eye implant technology

Author: James Glass
University: Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Supervisor: Dr. Manel Jiménez Morales

Abstract

This study examines the technology of “Google Glass”, an Optimal Head Mounted Display (OHMD), versus the suggested technology in the British television series: Black Mirror, season 1, Episode 3 - The entire history of you about an eye implantation device that is enables the user to view, record and playback everything that is seen through their eyes. Through a content analysis approach of academic articles and informational sources, this study will compare and contrast the applications of the “real” and “fictional” aspects of this technology and how it has impacted humanity in terms of human ability being replaced by technology. The study will also highlight any potential human impact factors along potential advantages and disadvantages of using the technology within a society and culture that is trying to keep up with technology advancements. Over the last 100 years human society and culture in conjunction with technology advancements beginning from the invention of Morse code to radio through to the television and internet achievements. There have been incremental steps in our society´s culture growth based on technologies.  

Keywords

Google Glass, OHMD, Black Mirror, eye implantation, real, fictional, society, technology advancements.

Introduction

The episode of “Black Mirror The entire history of you” originally aired in the UK in 2011 and a winner of an International Emmy in 2012 for Best TV Mini-Series, the drama series explores the dark side of modern technology and how technology has impacted humanity in many ways. We as human beings and a society have had incremental steps during the invention and development of technology. The television show of Black Mirror provides us with some tantalizing concepts about our humanity, relationships with each other and our reliance on technology for everyday life. The episode pushes the idea of how man and technology have merged in many ways, having this interweaving relationship of control and necessity within the episode. The reality is that the technology is here in the form of “Google Glass” however it was not just invented overnight the components of Google Glass have been developed over the last 15 years from other technologies and were brought together to form the “Glass”. If we conceive that “new technologies were not ‘inventions’ that came from nowhere . . . new technologies were constructed from existing ones” (Basalla, 1998, p. 2).

Mankind has had an important and fundamental relationship with invention and its environment. “Technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.” (Postman, 2015 p. 8). “The fact is worth remembering because it is often neglected that the words animal and environment make an inseparable pair. Each term implies the other. No animal could exist without an environment surrounding it. Equally, although not so obvious, an environment implies an animal (or at least an organism) to be surrounded. This means that the surface of the earth, millions of years ago before life developed on it, was not an environment, properly speaking” Gibson (1979, p. 8). Over the last 100 years, we have seen an unprecedented evolutional change with technology and its effects on our societies and cultures.

If we look at cybernetics, according to Weiner (1948) “control and communication” can define cybernetics yet there is a real comparison to the human nervous system with cybernetics, overall. Hence his writing is comprised of complex terminology of both physiological and mathematical logic intertwined with a sort of personal log that was published on the subject of cybernetics. The basic mathematical concepts, calculations and technological applications by computers and to track airplanes, for anti-aircraft guns, by the military and other such technologies were stepping stones in the developmental process of cybernetics. The act of communication and logic within these processes would help establish theorems by scientists plus the comparisons to the human nervous system that have been integrated throughout the conception of cybernetics as a field of study. The Journal of Philosophy (1949) suggests that Dr. Wiener could have expanded on the physiological mechanisms and also the underlying the recognition of structural patterns hence takes a negative stance against the author. Furthermore as suggested by the Journal of Philosophy (1949) on Weiner´s work, as to the “genesis” of cybernetics, the “statistical mechanics” of the process of various types pulsations involved in “signaling or communication”, (p. 737). Cybernetics, as a technology, along with the cultural influence has been a fascinating and a plausible concept since the 1940´s and will be of continual interest.

If we contemplate the historical relationships between radio, newspapers and television as forms of technology within the early period of their use, they were all delicate and complicated. There was a difference in what people could read within newspaper form as to what they could see in a visual form, in that, it could be visually deceiving, due to editing and camera perspective. In addition to the distorted perspective of these forms meant society had gotten used to the ease of seeing news, programmed TV shows and the capitalists saw this as an opportunity to invest in the commercial side of television, buy advert time during popular peak time viewing. Furthermore, “Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk takers but, more to the point, cultural risk takers” (Postman, 2015 p. 6). This was more common in America as compared to Britain, which only had the BBC to provide the first of the nation’s programs, through radio and then television, though later with independent channels, commercialism did occur. The intervals between popular television shows were obvious places for the advertising due to which there was a cause and effect justification for this, in that, money was to be made from buying airtime. Society benefited from such adverts and it all relates to the consumerism machine, which in fact has not changed much since the early 1950´s. It is an apparently sophisticated technological determinism which has the significant effect of indicating a social and cultural determinism: a determinism, which justifies the societal consent of allowing this to occur.

Black Mirror

In the episode of Black Mirror, “The entire history of you”, season 1, episode 3, the human characters are in a natural environment yet are dependent on the eye implant technology for their way of life, recording and replaying aspects of their lives. The episode revolves around infidelity, sex and emotions joined with this implant technology that is able to record aspects of life, to be replayed over and over again.

According to Postman (2015 p. 2) in an online article posed some questions “What will a new technology do?” is perhaps equal to the question "What will a new technology undo? This rethinking of what technology can undo rather than do, relates to the episode of Black Mirror in many ways as technology sometimes can take away the human factor to humanity and our senses. Furthermore, suggested by Postman (2015 p. 5) when the printing press was invented, in the 1500’s in Europe, it was not Europe and the printing press, it became a new Europe. Also when the television was invented and became wide spread in America, for example, it was not America and the television, society changed, the way we interacted at home changed. In summary, when a new technology is introduced it does not change one aspect of life, it changes everything. Society in many ways pays the price for a new technology. Further suggested by Postman (2015, p. 4) “technological change is ecological change”.

Technology has been and cause and effect of mankind’s endeavor’s to adjust and adapt to the social changes and demands throughout history. Only through the internal quest of being human and moving forward has the development of technology occurred. The writer, Raymond Williams “Television - Technology and Cultural form” wrote his book at an era of when old technologies, such as video cassette and video were products just being tested on the market and cable television was at its beginnings. The book was written from a historical viewpoint of how technological invention began with radio along with its scientific periods, its relationship with society, politics and the human condition developed through new forms of media such as television. As the author describes “mechanical and electric transport, or in telegraphy, photography, motion pictures, radio and television, were at once incentives and responses within a phase of general social transformation” (Williams. 1990 p. 11). Furthermore according to a reviewer in the “biological application of cybernetics: there is a close analogy between the nervous system and the single run of a computing machine, not merely because the active-refractory operation of the neuron and the synaptic contacts parallel the series of binary choices employed in the most efficient computer, but because analogues of memory and learning can be built into the machine; the analogy suggests a fruitful non-materialist approach to the psychopathology of functional disorders of the brain.” The episode transmits technology as part of humanity, part of our senses. According to Postman Technology giveth and technology taketh away. This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may exceed in importance the advantage, or the advantage may well be worth the cost.

Google Glass

According to Jeroudi et al., (2014) Google Glass is a modern device with optical head mounted display technology that is designed to function in a hands free smartphone in many ways, capsulated in an optical mount. Compared to the Black Mirror theoretical technology, the Google Glass is less intrusive though as a reality of our modern world it has applications not just for recreation but within the medical world as well, through surgeries, lifesaving first aid via the Glass. The Black Mirror episode that uses the technology of the eye implant which is embedded chip located at the base of the skull that enables the user to record and replay events the reality of our modern world with as parallels with the Google Glass technology.

Furthermore, according to Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google, during a recorded Ted Talks, “In contrast to a Smartphone, Google Glass allows people to keep their head up as digital onto their world, no matter where their gaze point is, information is overlaid” (Tedtalks.com). Technology has been integrated into our world as much as humanity has been integrated into it. Google Glass has many applications in the real world, from recording your wedding day to a fun day out moreover it has been pioneered not only in recreational use but in the medical industry, in surgeries and pharmaceutical use “Okay, Glass, take a picture,” Galdo and Bryant (2014) - produces an image that can be used for medication safety and error records. Overall technology, within today’s societies, is an integral part of our culture and way of life. “Technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.” (Postman, 2015 p. 8)

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