Segment 1: 2024 Year in Review SEGMENT BEGINS AT 03:25 In this segment, we’ll take a comprehensive look back at the major financial events that shaped this year. Segment one topics include: 2024 stock market highlights Top performing ETFs, Dividend Aristocrats,...
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:16 — 8.9MB) | Embed
There is quite a bit of excitement building in the technology industry regarding one of Google’s latest inventions: Google Glass Display Technology.
The head-mounted wearable computer can record video, take pictures, and even broadcast your images and videos in real-time to the rest of the world.
According to Google, Glass is a wearable computer that displays information like a smartphone, but in a hands-free format.
While the thought of consumers walking around wearing an expensive head-mounted computer may seem far-fetched a few years ago, major technological advances in recent years continue to make ideas formally reserved for sci-fi movies possible in reality.
Not surprisingly, the technology industry has been quick to embrace the Google Glass.
After all, technology pioneer, Douglas Engelbart, was once quoted as saying:
“Machines should do what machines do best, thereby freeing up humans to do what they do best.”
It’s hard to argue that this is what companies like Google do best.
At the most basic level, Google is a data management company. It collects, manages, organizes, and ultimately monetizes data. And so far, the company has been able to monetize its data very successfully. And while Google’s approach to data collection and monetization has been novel and wildly successful, it has numerous competitors whose sole goal is to out-innovate Google and to take market share from the company.
While we often hear about the explosion of information that is coming online every day, Google knows that the amount of data that exists on the world wide web is finite. In order to maintain the edge over their competitors, Google must create new channels for data creation and collection.
This is where privacy groups have expressed concerns surrounding Google Glass.
One technology expert summed up the privacy concerns when he said:
“From now on, starting today, anywhere you go within range of a Google Glass device, everything you do could be recorded and uploaded to Google’s cloud, and stored there for the rest of your life. You won’t know if you’re being recorded or not; and even if you do, you’ll have no way to stop it.”
Google has gone on record openly stating that your privacy is not their top concern.
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt was once asked about the company’s stance on privacy. His reply was blunt and to the point: “if you’re doing something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Final analysis: The final vestiges of personal privacy are being dismantled piece by piece right before our eyes.