Sex, lies, and Google Glass: Don’t believe everything you read

Eeeek! Aaaak! Google Glass is turning into a movable feast of porn! Actually, it isn’t. The funniest part of this week’s XXX-rated anxiety attack: Only 17 of the more than 2,000 folks beta-testing Google Glass had downloaded the porn app that got people so worked up, says Jesse Adams, a spokesman for Mikandi, the megaporn marketplace that briefly hosted an app called, um, Tits and Glass.

Of course, Google Glass isn’t even for sale, but it’s such an irresistible target that the search giant is spending time knocking down rumor after rumor: Google Glass will be equipped with facial recognition — privacy doomed! Uh, no. At least not yet. And even if it were built into Glass, facial recognition technology is still far from reliable on consumer-grade gear, making it next to impossible for anyone using it to identify a random person.

[ InfoWorld’s Galen Gruman explains why there’s much more utility to Google Glass than the popular media portray. | Stay ahead of the key tech business news with InfoWorld’s Today’s Headlines: First Look newsletter. ]

Google isn’t the only tech giant taking unfair shots this week. In a much less sensational and more nuanced turn of events, Apple is defending itself against the Department of Justice, which is taking time out from persecuting news organizations. The trust-busters at the DOJ are after Apple for allegedly fixing the price of e-books. Never mind that Apple’s entry into the market whittled down Amazon.com’s monopolistic slice of the e-book pie by about one-third, from 90 percent to a still hefty 60 percent.

I have real concerns about Google’s serial invasions of user privacy and about some of Apple’s actions in the marketplace, particularly its spiteful, anti-Android jihad. But neither company is guilty as charged in the tech press this week, and you are well advised to chill out. Maybe have a cocktail or two, or — if it’s all really getting to you — ask your doc for a Xanax.

Google shuts the door on wearable porn

If you’ve followed Google for any length of time, you know that many of its products are works in progress, often pushed out the door in an unfinished state and labeled “beta,” sometimes for years. After several conversations with both Mikandi and Google, it’s clear to me that events moved faster than Google could manage.

There’s been a lot of back and forth about who did what to whom, but here’s what happened: Some product person at Mikandi came to the obvious conclusion that porn, always one of the Web’s killer apps, would play very well on wearable displays.

Mikandi checked out Google’s online developer policies and didn’t see anything that explicitly banned explicit content, so the porn site went ahead and made an announcement about Tits and Glass last week. Here’s where the course of events is a bit murky: Mikandi says Google revised the terms of use after it made its announcement. Google said it did so before. It doesn’t matter which is true. The point is that Google had no intention of allowing Mikandi to move ahead with its plans and put a stop to it pretty quickly.

Mikandi then figured it could use Glass to make porn videos (talk about up close and personal), but Google has blocked the company’s access to the API, Adams tells me.

If Google made a mistake in all this, it was a failure to imagine that someone would view Glass a perfect vehicle for porn and ban it from the get-go. At this point, the rules for Glass are unambiguous: no adult content. The same is true for facial recognition on Glass — it’s not happening, though Google included some weasel words in its statement: “As Google has said for several years, we won’t add facial recognition features to our products without having strong privacy protections in place. With that in mind, we won’t be approving any facial recognition Glassware at this time.”

There are real concerns about how Google Glass will affect privacy in our public spaces. But facial recognition and wearable porn are simply not on the agenda.

In e-books, Amazon.com is the real monopolist

As a tech writer and consumer advocate, I’m frequently critical of monopolistic practices that drive up prices and reduce competition. But the brouhaha over e-books, and the lawsuit against Apple by the Department of Justice, turns that logic on its head.

Simply put, consumers are better off if the price of books, e-books or paper, doesn’t hit rock bottom. Sure, no one likes to pay more, but if you want a good product, it has to be worth someone’s time and trouble to produce it and sell it.

What happened in the e-book case is complicated. In essence, Amazon used its muscle to push down the price of e-books to around $9.99, and thus grabbed a market share of 90 percent. The low prices were designed to goose sales of the Kindle and lure shoppers to the site. Amazon, not the publishers, set the price.

Independent bookstore owners who embraced the digital revolution by selling e-books found themselves undersold. Scott Thurow, a best-selling mystery writer and president of the Authors Guild explained the result in an open letter: “Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open.”

In 2010, Apple, which had launched the iPad, formed a so-called agency model that meant publishers would set their own prices and Apple would, in effect, be their agent selling e-books on Apple’s iBookstore.

The DOJ saw this as an illegal, price-fixing scheme and sued Apple and several publishers, who quickly settled and left Apple holding the bag. Did Apple conspire with them? Quite possibly, and there’s apparently damning email from the late Steve Jobs that lends the charge some credence. The trial began this week and the legal system can sort out that question. (Apple vehemently denies the charge.)

The larger point, though, is that the real monopolist here is Amazon, not Apple. Amazon changed the economics of publishing long before the advent of the e-book. It’s becoming tougher and tougher for non-established authors to get published and for bookstores, even of the chain variety, to survive.

Sure, I’m a writer and have a dog in this fight. But so do you if you like to read books. I’m not pining for some long-lost golden age of publishing. The digital revolution isn’t going to be rolled back. But insofar as there’s a villain in this piece, it’s not Apple.

I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Post them here (Add a comment) so that all our readers can share them, or reach me at bill@billsnyder.biz. Follow me on Twitter at BSnyderSF.

This article, “Sex, lies, and Google Glass: Don’t believe everything you read,” was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.