...what will it take for general acceptance to finally take hold?
I doubt it will ever be truly widespread. Isn't it still illegal in most places to record people without prior permission, and threatening to record can also be seen as a threat?
No, it is not. In a public place you have no legal expectation of privacy. People can record you all they want. And they do.
What's going on here is that people don't like that fact. They don't like the government and corporate and even the individuals that are recording them everywhere all the time. They don't like being recorded with cell phones, either. But until now, it has been difficult to object to this "invasion of privacy". Along comes Google Glass, which just brings the reality to the forefront where you can't even pretend it isn't happening. Google Glass is both a symbol of "lost" privacy, and the first on-your-face-in-your-face implementation of the coming privacy-invading cyborg culture. While some embrace this future, others loathe and fear it.
In the case of the girl who was assaulted, battered, and robbed at the bar, there is an additional social factor. The people in that neighborhood bar HATE Google and have been assaulting Google employees on the street on their way to work. Hence the comment from the bar patron, "You people are ruining our city!" This incident was as much about hating Google and yuppie-techies in the city, as it was about privacy.
The (actual) privacy-in-public culture we've been living in was a brief and anomalous period in our history. In earlier days, you did not have much privacy in public places like streets and bars. The town was small, and "everyone knew everyone" (to some approximation). The whole town knew who was out and about, on what business, and talking to whom. And of course you could be overheard in bars. If you wanted privacy, you had to be a lot more discreet. When cities got big, it was possible to "get lost in the crowd" and hide in plain sight. Now things are turning around, and your activity outside your house is potentially exposed to everyone. With our new technology will come a return to the old no-privacy culture.
Society will adapt to provide some kinds of "public privacy" by opening bars that have a no-recording-devices policy. And there will be technological aspects to this. One example might be jamming of mobile devices on the premises. (This is currently illegal, and there are several social and legal issues to address there.) Another example: having to walk through the Device Detector (like a metal detector) gate at the bar entrance.
I have, on my head, a device with which I can access all the worlds knowledge, communicate with everyone on the planet, and record and share my life's experiences. I use it for looking at pictures of cats and picking fights with strangers in bars!
