The first arrest filmed on Google Glass?
A Google Glass explorer happens to be on a New Jersey boardwalk when a fight breaks out. His footage shows how easy it is to film, well, anything surreptitiously with Google's glasses.
"No, officer! Don't arrest me, arrest him! The weirdo with the strange glasses! He's far more dangerous than I could ever be!"
Had one New Jersey reveler been slightly more mentally alert on July 4, he might have used this dialogue to divert the police's attention.
Instead, his arrest was filmed through the Google Glass worn by Chris Barrett, founder of PRServe and Google Glass explorer.
Barrett was wafting about the boardwalk at Wildwood, N.J., when he heard news of wild, independent behavior.
Yes, a fight in New Jersey. Who would have believed it?
So, as he told VentureBeat: "I walked right up, saw a crowd forming, and people were saying a fight was going on. With Glass I went closer to the action than I probably should have and saw a couple fights going on. I think I got the first arrest with Google Glass. Kinda cool!"
I am sure that some viewing the Glass footage Barrett posted to YouTube will, indeed, find some level of cool in it.
Others might kinda feel a touch of chill.
It seems that no one thought Barrett and his new glasses represented anything out of the ordinary. He told VentureBeat that only a couple of people even asked him about them.
So even though his footage is largely mundane -- yes, there are so many men in Jersey who wear their baseballs caps backward -- it was clearly no effort to capture everything that was happening.
It's not surprising that a Google Glass pioneer might think this terribly exciting.
Barrett told VentureBeat: "This is a huge step in citizen journalism. If Google Glass takes off, everyone's going to have their entire life captured ... first words, first steps ... but also people getting shot, and natural disasters."
Yes, just think of the the gruesome footage that might have been immediately posted to YouTube yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the Asiana plane crash.
Moreover, for every alleged step forward there is often a concomitant step into discomfort. For every citizen journalist, there might also be a citizen snoop.
For all those who believe that Google Glass might represent greater (and more covert) intrusion in their lives, this footage might serve to increase their discomfort.