Google Glass in the Wild

Last night, during the "Champagne [actually Prosecco] Walk" in the lobby of Davies Symphony Hall as part of the Opening Night Gala for the San Francisco Symphony, I had my first Google Glass sighting. I told the young woman wearing it that it was the first time I had seen one. She replied that there are plenty in San Francisco, but I clearly do not hang out in the places she frequents. This was affirmed when I observed that she now had a great way to read her program notes while watching the performance. Her blank stare made it pretty clear than she was not interested in either.

Now that it is "the morning after," however, I realize that a more critical issue is at stake. I appreciated that issue after returning to Rachel King's discussion of Google Glass features for ZDNet last May. The critical sentence from her text is the following:

The video recording feature was basically the star of the outrageous show when Glass was unveiled at Google I/O last year.

It goes without saying that video capture of a San Francisco Symphony performance is strongly prohibited, even if the pre-performance announcement (inaudible last night due to the din of the crowd entering the hall) only cites the prohibition of photography. Google Glass is about to push us down a slippery slope where the intellectual property of the performing arts is concerned; and I fear that, once again, the nerds will triumph over the artists.