Through the Glass, Lightly [Viewpoint]

I begin this article with the fundamental premise that wearable computing will fundamentally improve the quality of our lives [1]. I can make this claim because for the past 20 years I have been walking around with digital eye glasses (DEG), and I believe my life has been enhanced as a result. Perhaps I am biased about wearable computing, but like my EyeTap invention (www.eyetap.org) that computa-tionally processes everything I see, I try to tell it like it is. I am of course, only a one person case study, but I know there are others out there who feel the same way as I do, and perhaps for very different reasons. It is well known that when traditional optical eyeglasses were first invented, many wearers of these eyeglasses were treated poorly and discriminated against. But as time went on, society began to accept eyeglasses, even to the point where they have, in some instances, become fashion statements. Many people, who have no need for spectacles , will purchase zero prescription eyeglasses just to look smart. This says a lot about technological innovation and how society responds to it over generations of varying levels of acceptance. Especially as we age, it is my prediction that many of us will choose DEG, which can correct for more than just focus (e.g., prescriptions can be adaptive and interactive). And the wearable computer becomes, in effect, like part of the brain itself: " Eye is a camera " and " mind is a computer " [2]. Over the past 34 years of living my life through wearable computing, I have found myself on the receiving end of some shocking behavior. I can only describe it as resistance to technology. My guess is that some people are frightened of the cameras that are necessary for the functioning of mediated, augmented , and augmediated reality. People are possibly frightened of being recorded, or just plainly frightened of how the video may be captured and used against them at a later date. In the vast majority of adverse situations I have found myself in, people belonging to large multinationals and government agencies have been the most heavy-handed with me about wear-able technologies. It is ironic that those who are most frightened by my single camera, use numerous surveillance cameras throughout their establishments to Mann's 1999 " EyeTap Digital Eye Glass " My EyeTap invention (illustrated here at …