Author: David Newhoff

David is an author, communications professional, and copyright advocate. After more than 20 years providing creative services and consulting in corporate communications, he shifted his attention to law and policy, beginning with advocacy of copyright and the value of creative professionals to America’s economy, core principles, and culture.

Google Glass on hold. But what’s next?

Last week, Google announced that it will be halting the production and sale of its somewhat controversial product Google Glass. This eyeglass-style, wearable computer, retailing for $1,500, never really caught on with consumers; and based on reports about Google’s own rationale and future plans, I have to wonder if the company is right about why Glass flopped. Industry journalists report that Google’s publicly stated reason for what it’s calling Glass Phase 1’s failure was their strategy to employ the kind of iterative product development typically used by software makers, but not often a recipe for successful hardware launches. Companies that produce apps and other software-based tools often benefit by releasing Beta versions of their products and then crowd-sourcing improvements from consumers willing and eager to kick the tires on the new offering; but this approach is not typical for makers of physical products.

Google has stated that it is not abandoning Glass but is instead moving development to new internal management that will pursue the kind of model employed by successful device-makers, who develop in secret and then reveal fully-formed products. Tech writers like Ben Johnson reporting for Marketplace on public radio, make the natural comparison to the way Steve Jobs first rolled out the iPod as a thoroughly developed unit ready to go to market. And, of course, what tech company would not want to emulate the kind of theater that Apple, and particularly Jobs, has performed so well with many of its product reveals? But comparing the iPod to Google Glass (at least so far) is a bit like comparing an electric car to the Segway*. Because we already know what a car is for, and we have a pretty solid idea about the pros and cons that come with driving. The Segway, though, while it is a cool piece of technology, did not instantly offer a value proposition for mass consumption; and it raised some tough-to-answer questions like, “Would it be safe to have thousands of these things on city streets?”

By the same token, Steve Jobs did not invent the personal music device — we had this thing called a Walkman in the early 1980s — and he certainly did not need to create a demand in the market to listen to music. The iPod, though iconic and revolutionary and all that, is really just a very elegant improvement on other products that were already meeting consumer demand. The moment it was revealed, we intuitively knew what it was for, but he iPod was cool. It was beautifully designed, consistent with Apple’s tradition of redefining what technology can look like. But without music, the iPod would be a paperweight.

By contrast, I’m not really surprised consumers did not see Google Glass as an improvement to wired life; and many of the assumptions about the product that clearly came to mind sounded rather unsavory. Notions of unauthorized, P2P surveillance or even more acute forms device distraction than we have now  became the basis of criticism and satire. Plus, Glass was expensive and had a fashion-coolness rating somewhere in the vicinity of fanny pack and pocket protector. Seriously, even Sergey Brin, whose coolness rating is a net worth of about thirty billion dollars, looks like a complete tool wearing those things. The blogosphere popularized a term for early adopters and Beta testers — Glassholes. And in a few incidents, Glass wearers were beat up or harassed by people who felt threatened by the recording capabilities of the device.

Google has stated that the privacy concerns associated with Glass were based on misunderstanding and a failure on the company’s part to communicate; and this is somewhat consistent with a Beta-launch approach to development. But given Google’s poor track record so far for its stewardship of private data, I don’t think consumers are wrong to be concerned about the prospect of any device that helps us capture and “share” data even faster and potentially more intimately than we do right now with handhelds.

What intrigues me most about Google’s stated regrouping and re-strategizing for Glass is that I have to wonder what it is about the goals of this product that the company believes consumers will ultimately want. Innovative products help us do things we already know we want to do, but do them better; or they enable us to do things we didn’t know we wanted to do until we tried. Any technologist is asking us to accept a vision, but Glass makes an interesting statement, and the metaphor could not be more obvious. Google is saying, “See the future as we see it based on our assumption that what you want is to be an always-wired, walking, talking node of the interconnected, global network.” And given the level of apparent smart-phone addiction, maybe Google is right, though many average consumers and avid technophiles increasingly talk about the value of unplugging. Steve Jobs’s own kids weren’t even allowed to own iPads. A product like Glass could reemerge just as consumers are getting better at balancing real life with wired life, and Glass 2.0 could fail even if Google does redesign the dork factor out of the product.

And lest you think I’m overstating the larger implications of a wearable like Glass, I remind readers that, Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil will say without equivocation that the future of computing is what he calls “hybrid thinking,” made possible by nano-tech implanted directly in the brain. Why have a computer in your hand or across your face when it can be conveniently carried around inside your head to provide you with information at the speed of thought? This is an inevitability according to Kurzweil within just two or three decades. Maybe this sounds cool to some people, but I cannot imagine why anyone would think the communication would work in only one direction, and why, therefore, Kurzweil’s prediction is not literally the foundation for creating thought police?

Imagine by the time my youngest grandchild is born that Kurzweil’s hybrid thinking, nano-tech implants have become commonplace. Then, imagine society begins to reorganize itself because the people with implants have an advantage over those without implants. Perhaps certain economic sectors disappear altogether in favor of those that thrive based on the capabilities of the new cyber-human. Fast-forward another generation or so, and the implants are as common as vaccinations because nobody wants to disadvantage his child in the new society. Maybe they’re even mandatory.

Sounds a little creepy and maybe farfetched? I don’t know. Kurzweil is not wrong that the capability to merge with the network through nano tech is not far off. The desire to do so is another matter altogether, so we should be careful what we wish for. In this regard, I’m encouraged that consumers said no to Glass because I suspect the step before man becomes machine is man wears machine.

*Originally published as “Segue.” Thanks to a reader for pointing out the error.

Je ne connais pas Charlie

I have so far refrained from saying anything about the Charlie Hebdo murders.  For starers, I don’t like bandwagons and don’t feel a strong urge to restate the obvious. Naturally, we abhor this kind of violence and stand in solidarity with any creator, who at this moment is considering his/her own position on controversial free expression in the wake of this attack.  At the same time, I cannot claim to have had any previous knowledge of the work of these cartoonists and commentators and so cannot honestly claim to be Charlie when I don’t even know Charlie.

The free-speech-a-thon was to be expected.  This is the age of the meme, and nothing is easier, or quite possibly less relevant, than changing one’s profile photo and/or sharing an image that affirms one’s position at a moment of crisis, tragedy, or conflict.  Of course, the contrasts between that which goes viral and that which is overlooked is always an interesting subject in this regard.  A man in Saudi Arabia named Raif Badawi was sentenced to ten years and a thousand lashes for starting a blog that discussed politics and religion. And though this story is actually a more acute example of the right of free expression being repressed, we haven’t seen any memes declaring I am Raif.

I assume the Charlie Hebdo attack scares us more than stories like Badawi’s or journalists jailed or killed in dangerous and radicalized parts of the world. Because all these cartoonists did was go to work in a major European city, where the right of free speech already exists; and then violent thugs silenced them in a brutal and terrifying manner. That will give anyone who writes or creates anything, even in a free and relatively safe society, a moment’s pause.  On that subject, this interview by Celia Farber of American ex-pat cartoonist Robert Crumb is worth a read. As one of America’s most unabashed cartoonists, and a resident of France for over 20 years, Crumb found himself in a situation that demanded he say something. So, clicking like and share and all that is fine, but what if you are the cartoonist everyone is turning to for an illustrated response, and you’re now considering your own safety?

I’ve read a number of stories drawing distinctions between Charlie Hebdo’s editors as martyrs to free speech and the content of their speech, which has been described by some as racist, jingoistic, phobic, and offensively facile without satirical value.  As I say, I don’t know Charlie, and I have to wonder how many of my fellow Americans who say they are Charlie know him either, but assuming some of these criticisms of the work are valid, I have to ask this:   If some nut had gunned down Fred Phelps, would we have bothered to create a meme in his name proclaiming his right to free speech?  Probably not. But the truth is that’s when standing by speech really counts — when it offends you. And to our credit, nobody did shoot Phelps, though he could not have been asking for it much more effectively.

One of the more interesting pieces I have read questioning the value of the content of Charlie Hebdo is by Arthur Chu, writing for The Daily Beast, who describes their work as exemplary of “chan culture.” By this, he’s referring to the kind of sophomoric, scatalogical humor one finds on sites like 4Chan. Chu writes:

“When the only thing you’re reverent of is irreverence, when the only thing you hold sacred is the idea that nothing is sacred, well, you eventually get chan culture, you get one long continuous blast of pure offensiveness and taboo-breaking for taboo-breaking’s sake until all taboos are broken and there’s nothing left to say.”

Chu, as does everyone who has written from his perspective, goes to great effort to make clear that he would never suggest these cartoonists brought violence upon themselves; and it is indicative of our reactionary, meme-based times that he must tread so carefully to make that clear.  But his central point is worth consideration.  In this fleeting (and everything on social media is fleeting) canonization of these cartoonists, do we elevate the work to something it never was?  Quoting Chu again:

“. . .  the Internet is already busy at work deifying Charlie Hebdo as the new Satanic Verses and Charb as the new Salman Rushdie. People are changing their profile photos to crude, racist caricatures of Middle Easterners in solidarity with the principle of “free speech” and the average person’s Twitter feed is one-half gleefully “irreverent” reposts of offensive cartoons and one-half cloyingly reverent tributes to said cartoons.”

Like I say, I don’t know Charlie. I do know that Chu is right in principle — that merely being shocking for the sake of being shocking is easy and is not necessarily socially relevant satire. I don’t personally believe any icon or idea is beyond ridicule, but that doesn’t mean I cannot make a distinction between social commentary and offending just to be offensive. It also doesn’t mean I would necessarily have Crumb’s courage to draw what he calls “The Hairy Ass of Muhammed” in a new cartoon and wonder whether or not I had instigated my own personal fatwa.

To be honest, the Charlie Hebdo story and the editorials it has spawned serve principally to remind me that speech is dangerous, complicated business and always has been.  Perhaps in our globalized, networked, interconnected utopia, speech is becoming more dangerous in places we have long considered safe — like a movie theater running a basically dumb comedy making fun of a dictator.  Regardless, it is the seriousness of speech that forms the basis of my own scorn at the pampered, corporate elite who presume to tell us that the right of free expression not only depends on their gadgets now, but worse, that even those who risk their lives to speak don’t deserve to own their words.

Is an old conservative message working with new progressives?

As American progressives, especially New Yorkers, honor the passing this week of Mario Cuomo, editorials and eulogies in various forms will cite the former governor’s famous keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention.  In this speech, Cuomo challenged President Reagan’s statement that America is “a shining city on a hill,”  which comes from Matthew 5:14; and it is a phrase that has been synonymous with America’s unique capacity for divinely presumed exceptionalism since John Winthrop first invoked the words in advance of founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  (All credit to historian Sarah Vowell for making these connections in her book The Wordy Shipmates.)

Cuomo addressed Reagan directly, accusing the president of living in an ivory tower from which “the city” may indeed look shiny to him and his wealthy friends, but down on street level, where people work, struggle, and endure deprivations like homelessness, the American city is neither shiny nor on a hill.  Progressives like me didn’t think much of Reagan’s rhetoric that often glossed over real challenges (like energy and climate issues) that we are only now beginning to take seriously.  And we didn’t buy into supply-side economics or the deregulatory agenda that helped foster a culture of “conspicuous consumption,” which continues to distort the principles of responsible capitalism to the extent that contemporary progressives seem to have broken faith with the idea that the system remains a rational, economic model for a free society.

This understandable frustration, combined with an equal measure of distrust in government, appears to be leading many social progressives toward economic libertarianism that, ironically enough, champions the same deregulatory paradigm long-cherished by the trickle-down, supply-side conservatives.  What’s different this time is that it isn’t financial services, extraction industries, or the manufacturing sector promising the “market will solve everything if government gets off our backs,” it’s the high-tech industry, the disruptors of Silicon Valley.  Many of us democrats and progressives marveled at Reagan’s ability to teach the conservative, working-class base to vote against its own self-interests, and now the technocrats appear to be teaching progressives to do the same thing.

In an article that appeared yesterday in The Washington Post, writer Larry Downes offers old-school, industry-serving declarations dressed up in the new lingo used by the tech industry elite. Touting what he calls “Big Bang Disruptions,” Downes is not only promoting a new book, he is serving up classic, conservative rhetoric, sprinkled with a dash of Schumpeter, and folded into byte-sized hors d’oeuvres that smell tasty and fresh, but are really just pigs in a blanket again.  It’s just another business sector saying, “Get out of the way, and technology (i.e. the market) will meet all challenges and bring about prosperity.” And the reason I think this GOP stand-by is now playing among progressives is the aforementioned disenchantment with government in general and the nature of the Internet, which many see as an antidote to or substitute for government.  I honestly think we’re at a baby-with-the-bathwater moment when faith in both private and public systems is so low, that even traditional progressives are susceptible to messages like this one from Downes:

“We see . . . the FDA’s growing discomfort with new technologies, such as the DNA testing service 23andMe, that are being translated into new products and services circling the moribund health care industry, giving patients access to information about their own bodies that have long been the exclusive fiefdom of medical professionals.”

Of course such populist ebullience must be tempered in light of this piece by Sarah Zhang, which appeared Tuesday on Gizmodo; it reports that the supposedly self-empowering 23andMe is entering into deals with large biotech firms to sell the DNA data people have been voluntarily providing to the company through its app.  Not that I don’t hand it to guys who figured out how to make billions from spit, but Downes’s implication that their business model is going to solve the underlying flaws in American healthcare by disrupting the “fiefdom of medical professionals” is farcical.  Of course, nobody should be surprised that selling user data is where the money is, not only for these high-tech expectorant collectors, but for most of the companies Downes is assuring us will “build the future” if the damned regulators will just stay out of the way.

And I have little doubt they will build the future, but on the chance that it starts to look like a future we don’t like, on the chance we don’t want to allow our genetic data to be sold like bundled securities, I have to ask my fellow progressives precisely what hedge against this kind of corporate practice might they propose other than government?  We could argue about it on Facebook and Twitter, I suppose, but because Silicon Valley is interconnected by an incestuously small pool of venture capital, this “representation” through social media only makes more money for the new elite in their new towers. And from up there, America really does look a lot like a shiny city on a hill, doesn’t it?

It is also worth noting that some of the most successful Silicon Valley firms don’t have a particularly good track record for abiding by rules and regulations in the first place.  In their own words, they like to “break things” and “get big fast” and “apologize later,” meaning they’ll settle lawsuits and pay fines after  a few million dollars is a mere drop in their over-valued buckets.  As such, I think a little skepticism is warranted in response to the assertion that a shiny future is somehow being delayed by the prospect of regulatory oversight.

Rules are ignored, broken, and fought against daily by these companies, so where is the unfettered prosperity?  The economy is certainly healthier than it was when we were on the brink of disaster, but is the gap closing or widening between the ultra-rich and everyone else?  One need only look in Silicon Valley’s own neighborhood to see that not much trickles down from those particular hills to the streets below. And if an industry is not closing that gap through legitimate creative destruction, but is potentially widening that gap with with destructive destruction, then it has no right to say to the public, “Back off. We got this.”