What may be the world's first cybernetic hate crime unfolds in French McDonald's

What may be the world's first cybernetic hate crime unfolds in French McDonald's

io9.com

Steve Mann, the "father of wearable computing," has been physically assaulted while visiting a McDonalds in Paris, France.

The Canadian university professor was at the restaurant with his family when three different McDonalds employees took exception to his "Digital Eye Glass" device and attempted to forcibly remove it from his head. Mann was then physically removed from the store by the employees, along with having his support documentation destroyed.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Crazy #. To me it seems like it was totally unprovoked, and if that's the case, those employees should be fired and sued. We have enough hate crime in this world without people starting to go after those with prosthetics, so we better make some warning examples of those who would go after people like Mann.

Reddit has apparently set up a page or whatever for it as well, and John Biggs on TechCrunch calls for a boycott of McDonalds. I got to say I agree with him.

io9.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

:O Madness! I feel sorry for the man who had to put up with this.

so he had a robot eye and they try to RIP HIS EYE OUT!?!?!?


WHAT THE *******************???


WHY.



this has to be mainstream fabricated news designed to get people to harbor NEW types of hate.


i don't believe it.


if its true, G help us

the Term
"Hate Crime"

is a savage hypocrisy
skip to 3:11 in the vid
and all will be understood




boycott on McDonalds
over this

every one should boycott
them for the poison they
are serving to millions on the daily...

the dood was a borg
and they didn't want him to
assimilate their big mac

really

Took a while to find any mainstream news sources that wrote about this, but I found some random newspaper called the Herald Sun, so here's a link:

Macca's staff broke my hi-tech glasses, says Steve Mann

As you guys say, this is madness. If I were him, I would not have hesitated to defend myself with excessive amounts of force.

Edit to add: Trying to find the man's blog. Does anyone have a link to it?

reply to post by spoonbender


Very good points made, dude. I don't particularly like the term 'hate crime' myself, though T&C requires me to use the exact header of the articles posted.

reply to post by Gauss

How mainstream do you want?

Here's a forbes.com article.

And here is his blog.

I wonder why he had a "doctor's note" for the device. Maybe because it was attached?

reply to post by Gauss


Probably not allowed to film or photograph inside McD's since supersize me they are probably a bit twitchy about it. Beside what right does he have to go round photo graphing and filming people without their permission.

Id assault his ass too if he came round my place and started filming my wife/kids without permission. The French arn't like Americans they stand up for themselves, their culture and their beliefs, they certainly wont put up with some cheeky yank with a fancy camera.

btw I would hardly call McD's a restaurant...

reply to post by OneisOne


Thanks for the links, man. Checking them out now.

reply to post by CrimsonMoon


You'd "assault his ass too", huh?

I guess you're the kind of person who hit first and ask questions when everybody's unconscious.

Although the assault and discrimination this man experienced is wrong and the perpetrators should be arrested for their crimes...this incident raises other larger questions for me;

What are the laws either in France or other countries, for recording someone without their permission or knowledge?

Could this device, Google glasses or similar devices further erode one's right to anonymity or privacy?

If these types of devices gain more popularity, will we see an increase in incidents against those who wear them?

Don't get me wrong, from a medical perspective, I can see the value of the device by either assisting or allowing one with vision problems to see the world around them...it's the recording aspect that concerns me and the possibility of the information being hacked or remotely monitored from third parties that truly raises the red flag.

(sorry if this sounds paranoid but the Trojan horse was a gift and so to is the gift of vision)

reply to post by Ericthenewbie


You pose some interesting questions, dude.

I do know that the EyeTap that Mann used didn't record anything until after it was damaged by the rejects at McDonalds, and then only photos, not actual video footage.

But yes, it does pose an interesting problem, the idea of cybernetic eyes and the like, and I honestly see no way of protecting anonymity without banning the ability to record video with such future implants. Honestly, though, I think we're going to have to reevaluate our stand on anonymity/not being filmed without our consent in the future as this technology develops more, for better and for worse. The exception to this is of course in our own homes.

Other interesting situations are when somebody with this tech goes to a casino (where cameras are not allowed) or a strip club or something of the like. But, this is for somebody more intelligent than me to figure out. I'll just stick to being awed by the technology.

Again, however, for the record, the EyeTap that Mann wore did not have the ability to film something, and only took photos after it had been damaged by the McDonalds retards.

Originally posted by Gauss
reply to post by CrimsonMoon

 

You'd "assault his ass too", huh?

I guess you're the kind of person who hit first and ask questions when everybody's unconscious.

Nobody got made unconscious. Dont be a drama queen you sound like like him now jumping it all up.

You cant walk into other peoples cultures and expect to do what you want.

If he wanted to go in there and film people he should have had the common courtesy to ask permission first. He does not need them for any medical reason he is performing an experiment. They probably asked him to turn it of and leave, i then bet he refused, and when he refused they walked him out the door. He is drumming this up for damages.

You don’t want big brother filming you but you are happy for an individual to do it even though those same devices will one day be accessible to big brother. Can you not see the irony in this??? You cant have it both ways.

WAKE UP OUR PRIVACY IS A STAKE HERE

Of course, the irony is, the only reason his "augmented reality" glasses recorded anything at all was because of the damage done during the assault.

His blog post states:

The computerized eyeglass processes imagery using Augmediated Reality, in order to help the wearer see better, and when the computer is damaged, e.g. by falling and hitting the ground (or by a physical assault), buffered pictures for processing remain in its memory, and are not overwritten with new ones by the then non-functioning computer vision system.

As a result of Perpetrator 1's actions, therefore images that would not have otherwise been captured were captured. Therefore by damaging the Eye Glass, Perpetrator 1 photographed himself and others within McDonalds.

It isn't normally recording and retaining anything. It was the assailant's actions that caused his own image to be saved.

Originally posted by CrimsonMoon

Nobody got made unconscious. Dont be a drama queen you sound like like him now jumping it all up.

Just like nobody got filmed here. In your own words; don't be a drama queen, dude. The EyeTap did not violate anyone's privacy. It did not save any data of any kind until after the assault, and only then due to the damages sustained to it by the three perpetrators.

Edit to add: CLPrime got to it before me. Drats.

reply to post by Gauss


To clarify, recording in my mind doesn't exclusively mean video recording, having the ability to take pictures should also be considered recording as it captures a moment in time as well. What I mean is who is to say that a multitude of pictures can't be taken every second to form a collage of an event. Also in this case the pictures may have been taken as a result of damage but the pictures provided in the article would indicate other wise as there's pictures of before the actual attack (witness 1 and 2 behind the till taking the order). Logically even if the intent is only to take pictures as a result of damage, the capability is there and who's to say some tech guy/girl somewhere couldn't trick the device into thinking it is damage in order for images to be taken when the device isn't damaged...either way I think the possibilities need to be assessed before we accept this technology with open arms.

reply to post by Ericthenewbie


Some images recorded by the glasses need to be buffered as the glasses build their "augmented reality." By definition, buffering is temporary data storage. Images of before the assault only exist because these buffered images had not yet been overwritten by other buffered images. Had the assault not occurred, all of these buffered images would have been overwritten.

Damn thats retarded.

Well, at least they wont be able to reproduce in a couple decades......

reply to post by Gauss


You miss the point, the eyetrap contains a CCD Digital camera.

Recording or not is irrelevant, it has the capability. Don't get me wrong I think the technology is neat, but when people start becoming complacent about being filmed, that's when our privacy will be threatened the most.

He was totally wrong to expect it was his right to walk into anywhere with equipment like this without showing some respect for other peoples privacy & rights. Not just the staff but other punters in the 'restaurant'.

Good on them they were right to stand up for their privacy and call him out.