Google Glass isn’t even available to the public yet, aside from 8,000 trial models, but a dive bar in Seattle is banning the gadget, even before it comes out.
Google Glass isn’t even available to the public yet, aside from 8,000 trial models, but a dive bar in Seattle is banning the gadget, even before it comes out.
According to a report on GeekWire, the 5 Point Cafe has Google Glass on its banned list and writes on its Facebook page that “ass kickings will be encouraged for violators.”
Part of the Facebook message was in jest, owner Dave Meinert later told a local radio station, but there are real privacy concerns behind the ban, as well. “You have to understand the culture of The 5 Point which is a sometimes seedy, maybe notorious place and I think people want to go there and be not known,” Meinert told the radio host.
ZDnet writer James Kendrick points out that Google Glass also has the potential to raise issues around U.S. wiretapping laws. (Note: The same laws don’t apply here in Canada, so record away once the glasses make their way north of the border.)
A spokesperson for Google responded to a CNet blog post about potential Google Glass bans, saying that people will get used to the product. “It is still very early days for Glass, and we expect that as with other new technologies, such as cell phones, behaviors and social norms will develop over time,” the company said in a statement.
As for the 5 Point Cafe, it received so much attention over the ban that it followed up with another Facebook message on Monday: “If nothing else, we’re saving you from looking like a complete idiot in public. You’ll be thankful in a few years when your kids grow up and don’t have to see photos of you wearing these ridiculous things.”