My sociotechnical plan involves using augmented reality as a learning tool. The concept involves developing a device that can provide instructions for a variaty of physical tasks. The device would be a headset like Microsoft Hololens that provides an augmented reality overlay that the user will see over their natural surrounding. The headset can track the users hands and movement and also see the users environment. Using this data, the system provides realtime instructions on how to perform various tasks like performing electrical or plumming work in the users house, or performing auto repair. The system would have tremendous commercial and personal uses from teaching homeowners how to fix a broken dishwasher, to guiding surgons during operations. A major impact that could result from the implementation of this type of device would be pulic concern over privacy. An example of how this may develop can be observed witht the history of Google Glass.

Google announced Project Glass in April of 2012 (McGee, 2015). Project Glass was name for the division at Google responsible for developing Google Glass, a wearable augmented reality device. Google Glass is a wearable computer that powers a small display window in the upper right or left corner of the users vision. The display can provide real time information based on several different factors like the users position, input from their phone, or even what they are looking at. Google Glass is equipped with a camera that records video and images that can be passed to Google search engines, captured on the users phone or cloud service, or streamed live over several social media applications. This is one of the aspects of Google Glass that lead to it being essentially abandoned as a product by Google.

When it was announced, Google demonstrated how Google Glass could instantly capture what the user was seeing by giving demos of skydivers, athletes, and regular users capturing their activites and live streaming them to You Tube, Twitter, and other social media sites. As Google Glass prototypes started being issued to Google employees for testing, growing public concern about privacy grew around the use of the device ("Global data protection authorities tackle Google on Glass privacy," 2013). People wanted to know if the system was always recording, or how they would know if a Glass users was recording them or sharing photos of them. People didn’t like the idea of possibly always being recorded.

One of the privacy issues with Google Glass was how it is engineered. The computer on the device needs to be small so it can be comfortablly worn, and it must offload processing to accomidate for being so small, and to reduce battery drain (Claburn, 2012). This means that the device must offload any recorded image or video to provide most of its augmentation features. Google Glass was being developed in a market where cell phone cameras were becoming the main way people recorded video and took pictures, and where debates about the ethicacy of recording strangers was a concern for many people. Google wasn’t very clear on when Google Glass would be recording or listening, and if users would even know if it was. Google wasn’t helped by reviewers wearing Google Glass in the shower, forgetting to take the devices off when entering restrooms and other private areas, and not being clear on when the device would send data back to Google servers. In the end, Google abandoned the project in January of 2015. They have since updated the software twice in 2017, but there is currently no commercial way to purchase Google Glass.

Using the history of Google Glass as an example of public reaction to privacy concerns dealing with augmented reality, I believe that concerns about privacy when using an augmented reality device can be broken down into two categories. The first is how the system processes and manages images, video, and sound. The second is the public understanding and perception of the use of that data. For the first category, I believe that we are seeing more devices being cloud enabled, and that this is a trend that is going to continue in the future.  While it could be argued that having a system that performs processing of recorded data locally would be more secure, I do not believe that this is a viable technical solution, and it is not the way that technology is trending toward. For the second category, public opinion about privacy may be changing. While Google Glass was generally rejected by the public over privacy concerns, devices like the Amazon Echo have become very popular. I believe that this is due to the Echo being in a persons home, and not a public space. Since my device would be used in a home or place of business, I think that this may change the way it is perceived as far as privacy is concerned. Each of these categories would require a large amount of research to be properly explored and could possibly be great dissertation topics on their own!

~ Ben

References:

Claburn, T. (2012). 7 potential problems with google's glasses. Informationweek - Online, Retrieved from https://proxy.cecybrary.com/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.cecybrary.com /docview/922740501?accountid=144789

Global data protection authorities tackle Google on Glass privacy. (2013). Biometric Technology Today, 2013(7), 1-3. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0969-4765(13)70116-4

 McGee, Matt, (2015) The History of Google Glass. Retrieved from http://glassalmanac.com/history-

google-glass/