1. Except where it has corroded away. In Australia, for example, maintenance of the ageing copper network is costing around $1B/year.

2. True, but ironically perhaps, using copper for your last mile ends up having MORE power problems than fibre. FTTN cabinets must all have backup batteries at the fibre/copper junction, whereas GPON nodes in a pure fibre network can be completely passive.

None of which is specific to Glass.

"Lower-cost" was a criterion. Just compile natively with the Android NDK in C/C++ or any compatible language.

OK, I can just about understand that - fear of being accidentally captured by an inadvertent glance.

But still, even if the wearer happened to glance up at you specifically (out of the rest of the restaurant also saying "hurray"), to the extent where they moved their head to point directly at you rather than just a flick of the eyeballs - they still wouldn't linger on you. You'd appear as a slightly blurred figure for less than a second. And still nobody watching the video would care; they want to see little Timmy's big grin, not some random stranger in the background.

Would that really be so bad? Is it so different from accidentally appearing in the frame of one of last week's LiveLeak videos, or being glanced at by a security guard in the local mall's recording room?

I can think of a couple of candidates.

Cnet: you're left with no doubt that you're being recorded.

I appreciate the in-depth response, as I'm still coming to grips with this concern some people have. And let me say clearly, I also don't want someone with a camera of any sort videoing me, specifically, in a private place (wouldn't be that comfortable with them following me around in a public place either).

What I still don't understand is the automatic assumption that any Glass user you see is not only always videoing everything they happen to glance at, but that they would bother to focus on you.

The former is highly unlikely, due not only to the battery expiring in a couple of hours, but because very few people care to record all the random crap they glance at, every single place they go. What would you do with all that boring video? Isn't it far more likely that people would only want to record significant moments - special events, friends, maybe a quick glance around a restaurant for context, then focusing on something they actually know and find interesting?

The other point is the apparent belief that a Glass user in particular is likely to point their lens and stare for extended times at all the complete strangers around them. That would be rude as you say, regardless of what sort of camera you use (or even without one) - so why do you think "Glassholes" would invariably lack such ordinary politeness? Because of their choice of technology? Surely if someone actually wanted to video people around them, they'd be far more likely to choose something a heck of a lot less visible than Glass?

I get that there's a potential for a Glasshole to rudely invade people's privacy in the way you are concerned about, just like anyone with a camera or smartphone or keychain camcorder, or even a bored security guard watching a surveillance camera. I don't get why people think it's so much more likely for someone wearing Glass to do this than anyone else. Particularly as it'd be so much more obvious with this weird Glass thing on your face. Glass does have a few other uses besides recording things.

"Rude invasive in your face things" like wear a Glass headset in your vicinity? Maybe even take a picture or video of a friend or landmark that happens to include you briefly in the background? Yeah, totally worth a beating.

Maybe you understand how committing such a heinous act as wearing a device with a lens instead of carrying it is inviting a shorter life; I don't.

That's a reasonable point. A lit-up Glass may be visually obvious, but not necessarily obvious that it's recording.

So.. if Google simply added a commonly-understood red LED that flashed when actually recording, most of this hysteria about "always-on privacy invasion" would disappear? Sounds like a good fix to me.

Oh, I absolutely agree that there are places people don't want to be videoed, and that would be why you don't see people whipping out their SLR or cellphone and videoing you there. It would be rude at the least. So why do you assume that any/all Glass users will be doing exactly that whenever you see one? Just because they could? If someone actually wanted to do that, there are far cheaper, more effective and less obvious ways than using a facially-mounted lens that lights up whenever you take a shot.

And even if they did - like, say, someone at the next table is using a camcorder to video their kid's birthday party. Would you object to that? Would you object if they were doing it with Glass instead? Doesn't seem to bother you if you're in random tourist photos, even if they're on the internet. Does it matter what device takes them?

It's like people are assuming that a) all Glass owners will be rude and intrusive enough to record everyone everywhere for the hell of it, rather than just the things they themselves are interested in, b) their Glass units will have enough battery and storage to allow that, c) all that video is simultaneously being geotagged and uploaded to Google's endless storage banks in their evil volcano lair, and d) Google's quantum facial recognisers will pick you out, staple your face & location to your SSN and forward it on to the IRS so they can audit you for taking your gf out to dinner on a company expense. Oh, and they'll automatically email that shot of you picking your nose to your mother as well.

Sheesh, Steve Mann never got this much backlash, and he actually was doing a), b) and most of c) as well.

Quite true. Recording is looped because 99.9% of recorded video is boring, useless crap that nobody wants to see. Same would apply to any random video that might be recorded just at that moment by a passing Glass user, or a teenager waving a cellphone around.

Of course, if you happened to be doing something unusual and interesting (like getting beaten by police, for example), then anyone nearby with a lens will probably be recording you anyway. And dashcam users (who are recording you automatically) can pull that video out of the loop just as easily. And any nearby security cameras can do the same.

We're surrounded by cameras - what makes a Glass user so much worse? Oh right, it's just a bit too obvious to ignore.

Really not sure where you're getting that idea from. You don't really think it's doing always-on geotagged facial recognition or something, do you? Can you imagine what that'd do to the battery life?

IF the user took a photo of your face (i.e. by staring in your face in public), and IF he geotagged it and uploaded it to Google+, and IF Google's facial recognition was turned on for that account, and (a really big) IF their facial recognition routines were good enough to pick you specifically out of the hundreds of millions of faces that are stored in their secret Evil DataVaults... then they get a single data point for the momentary location of one random person, woohoo. Your own phone in your pocket would probably tell them far more than that, if they cared, and your telco certainly could. If you're concerned about privacy to that level, then there are bigger things to worry about today than what future versions of Glass may one day finally be able to do practically.

On another note, when I first saw your sig (years ago) it led me onto a series of books I enjoyed immensely, so thanks for that :-)

Tourists snap pictures of Times Square - and thousands of people - daily, without permission. Teenagers take videos of each other - and passers-by - at malls & nightclubs and we don't object, though it's pretty likely those shots are getting uploaded to Facebook or YouTube.

What most of us object to is a lens following us around and staring fixedly at us, and if a tourist or teenager or Glass-user did that, most of us would demand they stop. But only a psychopath would punch a tourist or teenager in the face for anything less than extreme provocation, and certainly not for just using their camera as you were nearby.

So you're saying people would "understand" the assault, like when a drug dealer caps someone who scratches his ride? So long as you don't mean "fair enough, he had it coming". Because to me at least, incidental video capture, creepy stalking, and physical assault are all widely separated on the scales of acceptability.

Right, so that's a future fear, one I can understand and agree with - but it's not an issue today, and it's not an issue for anyone but the wearer.

You'd hate Russia. Every single car that goes past IS recording you.