back to article Google Glassholes can't take long walks off short piers thanks to Merc app

Google Glass wearers will have to get used to privacy-conscious people telling them to get lost - but a new map app from Mercedes for the techno-goggles may make that impossible. The German maker of flash motors is working on software for Google's controversial camera-fitted wearable computer, a gadget that beams information …

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  1. wowfood

    Best use for voice control in cars

    You've just been in a car crash, nobody is around you for miles. Your phone is working, but you can't reach it because your arm is dislocated.

    "Siri turn on GPS"

    "Siri call ambulance, car crash, badly injured, give GPS location"

    *Siri then proceeds to report a car crash, badly injured passenger at GPS coordinates xxx, xxx"*

    In fact, I'm patenting that right now. Nobody can use their voice to inform emergency services that they were in a car crash, injured or give out their location without paying me royalties.

    1. Steven Raith
      Joke

      Re: Best use for voice control in cars

      In reality:

      "Siri turn on GPS"

      "Siri call ambulance, car crash, badly injured, give GPS location"

      *Siri then proceeds to order a pizza with extra ground beef to your mother in law*

      Sorry...couldn't help it (and it's true of all non-trained voice recognition tools in my admittedly fairly limited experience)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Best use for voice control in cars

      Sorry, somebody beat you to it.

    3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Best use for voice control in cars

      > "Siri call ambulance, car crash, badly injured, give GPS location"

      Sire: Nearest cash dispenser has GPS location xxx,yyy

      User: "No, not CASH, CRASH"

      Siti: "Are you sure?"

      User: "Yes, FFS"

      Siri: Very well. Please fasten your seatbelt.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. Fink-Nottle

      Re: Best use for voice control in cars

      > In fact, I'm patenting that right now.

      Too late. As reported by a reliable source the system already exists.

      1. Steve Evans

        @Fink-Nottle Re: Best use for voice control in cars

        And that will stop the US patent office from issuing a new patent how exactly?!

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Fink-Nottle

          Re: @Fink-Nottle Best use for voice control in cars

          > And that will stop the US patent office from issuing a new patent how exactly?!

          Ah yes ... the 'merkin fondness for riding roughshod over the rights, laws and IP of the rest of the world.

          Unfortunately, Europe's eCall system (E112 protocol) has it's counterpart in the E911 standard described in the U.S. Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999.

          I'm sure the FCC would have something to say about OP's claim that Nobody can use their voice to inform emergency services that they were in a car crash, injured or give out their location without paying me royalties..

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      @wowfood

      "In fact, I'm patenting that right now. Nobody can use their voice to inform emergency services that they were in a car crash, injured or give out their location without paying me royalties."

      Good for you!

      Fortunately for me my company has a patent on the process of "announcing to patent an automated emergency response system in public". We did that to help prevent confusion amongst people interested in using such a device, not for the money of course.

      SO I guess we'll now have to sent you a bill :-)

    6. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Best use for voice control in cars

      All very well, but for your future reference: when you phone 911/112/999 etc that the mobile operator already relays your position to the emergency service dispatcher. It's a network service, but it's based on multilateration ("triangulation" with more than three stations involved), so you can get down to about 10 m accuracy - certainly close enough to visually spot a crashed car anyway.

      All US operators provide the service (it's in their licence terms), and most Europeans too.

      Basically, any dumb-phone dialling system would work here - Thankfully, when something is really important, we still try to make it available for everyone, not just those who can afford Apple products.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Best use for voice control in cars

        All very well, but for your future reference: when you phone 911/112/999 etc that the mobile operator already relays your position to the emergency service dispatcher. It's a network service, but it's based on multilateration ("triangulation" with more than three stations involved), so you can get down to about 10 m accuracy - certainly close enough to visually spot a crashed car anyway.

        I would have no problem with that use of my location information, provided:

        1 - I gave permission for that specific use. Yes, I know I need to do that upfront, but that's the point: I have the option, and yes, accept the consequences if I opt out.

        2 - that information stays there, and goes no further. This is also the primary problem with the current warrant free intercept: not just that it's uncontrolled, but also that you don't have a grip on what's actually happening to that data after they stole acquired it.

        I see far too many thing happening that try to suggest that handing such information is no longer a privacy issue and that you should just play along. Well, f*ck that.

  2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    A vision of a world in which no one need ask for directions again

    And this is desirable how?

    1. Anonymous Blowhard
      Happy

      Re: A vision of a world in which no one need ask for directions again

      So a man's view of the world?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I find all the privacy stuff pretty funny, a mate of mine already has a pair of oakleys with a HD camera in them (primarily for snow boarding) but he sometimes just wears them out or to events where holding a camera would be a pain in the arse.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Privacy Stuff

      Hilarious, those oakleys your mate owns, what google glass records or see's you don't.

      Unless of course you relish the prospect of taking a massive shit in the bathroom wearing the glasses and don't mind the NSA/GCHQ seeing those big veins popping out on your forehead in the mirror then letting any government or private company have access to it?

      1. Fink-Nottle
        Unhappy

        Re: Privacy Stuff

        > seeing those big veins popping out on your forehead in the mirror

        If you're defecating into a porcelain receptacle with a mirror in front of it, then you're doing it wrong.

      2. LinkOfHyrule
        Joke

        Re: Privacy Stuff

        The government needs to see your popping veins to check to make sure you're not conducting a terrorist attack on the sewer system by dumping a huge pipe blocker of a turd!

        You need to stop criticising dude - THEY ARE DOING IT FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR CHILDREN! Jeeze!

        </joke> - don't worry I'm not Eadon 8.1 lol

      3. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Privacy Stuff

        Why are you wearing sunglasses to do a poo?

        If you think NSA wants to watch you pooing, I think you're getting things a bit confused.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Privacy Stuff

          If the NSA want to watch me poo that's there business, just as long as they aren't watching my internet.

    2. Kubla Cant

      You're holding it wrong

      "holding a camera would be a pain in the arse."

      1. BorkedAgain
        Pint

        @Kubla, Re: You're holding it wrong

        Well played, sir.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Turn Left...

    *smack* Your maps need updating. You have hit a wall and acquired concussion, would you like directions to the nearest hospital?

  5. Grikath

    "Glassholes"

    I miss the days where we could upvote an article, just for the word...

    1. sunnyskies
      Happy

      Re: "Glassholes"

      So I will upvote your comment then :)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    a SatNav for walking?

    But, it's not very long ago that El Reg was awash with stories of people driving their cars into lakes and so on, by blindly following their SatNavs.

    I don't see how, just because it's in Google Glass, this will be any different? The technology is different, but there's nothing to suggest the users will be any less stupid:

    "No sir, this is the girls changing rooms, you can't walk through here"

    "Out of my way, you buffoon! My Google Glass is telling me this is a pedestrian shopping zone!!"

    1. wowfood

      Re: a SatNav for walking?

      I would normally laugh this off as "If you're walking surely you'd not be dumb enough to walk into a wall" but the other day I was using my phone for GPS trying to find a store on a backstreet. Ended up walking into a bolluck high bollard.

      I swear they put a lot of effort into making those things nad height.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: a SatNav for walking?

        I once watched a mate of mine walk into a lamp post while eating a kebab, he was far to intent on the delicious kebab to pay attention to anything, the polystyrene seemed to slowly collapse like a crumple bumper on a car! It was hilarious.

        1. Robert E A Harvey

          Re: a SatNav for walking?

          >intent on the delicious kebab

          That will be why they don't make that sort any more?

        2. TheOtherHobbes

          Re: a SatNav for walking?

          Which is why Google Kebab should be *banned.*

          The technology is unfinished and unsafe and the public just aren't ready.

    2. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Re: a SatNav for walking?

      My android phone's Google navigation app suggested a route where a right turn at traffic lights is not permitted, so even with Google's mature maps there's still lots to do when it comes to actual navigation data, not just the actual maps.

  7. Wize

    "Tech companies are zeroing in on cars as one of the great unexploited markets."

    There is a lot of exploitation going on. Look at the price to update a built in satnav for example.

  8. Don Jefe

    Keeping Up Appearances

    So much of a luxury automobile is tied up in how it makes the driver look. Why would someone so concerned about their appearance want to look like an ass wearing Glass?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not in West Virginia...

    ...the state that has already started on a law against glassholes from driving with their spex on.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Not in West Virginia...

      Nothing like a kneejerk reaction to technology nobody making the law has probably even used.

  10. Minophis

    One Vision

    "Mercedes told the Silicon Valley Business Journal about its vision of a world in which no one need ask for directions again".

    As visions of the future go that is pretty unimpressive. I know they are not in a position to bring about a world without war, starvation or disease. However having to say hello to a stranger and have a short conversation doesn't strike me as even a minor blight on mankind that needs solving.

    1. Don Jefe
      Happy

      Re: One Vision

      If you ask my wife we already live in that world.

      I'll find it damnit. I'll just keep driving around until I do.

  11. tojb
    Black Helicopters

    Travelling internationally.... people with facemasks on (OK usually just in Asia)..... and wearing cybervisors telling them what to do and where to go.

    Its just freaking creepy.

    Take this idea to the US, add a gun (or just use the one that many of them have anyway) and "retarded doofus" becomes the new "predator drone".

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sergey Brin may have talked about having a phone and looking at it being weird and annoying. But most of us prefer to keep a phone as just an object within our world. Not merge the digital world with the natural world.

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