Woman wearing Google Glass in San Francisco bar says she was attacked
SAN FRANCISCO -- A technology writer says she was attacked for wearing Google Glass at a bar in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
The incident took place Friday night at Molotov’s on Haight Street. Sarah Slocum, a contributing editor at Newsdab, said she was showing someone how the high-tech glasses work when a man grabbed the device and ran off with it. She pursued her assailant and was able to get back her Glass, along with video of the man ripping Glass from her head, but not before someone stole her purse and mobile phone.
“OMG so you’ll never believe this but ... I got verbally and physically asaulted and robbed last night in the city, had things thrown at me because of some wanker Google Glass haters, then some *bleeeeeeeeeep* tore them off my face and ran out with them then and when I ran out after him his *bleeeeeeep* friends stole my purse, cellphone walet and everything,” Slocum wrote on her Facebook page.
The incident caught the attention of Sarah Price, who manages social media for Google Glass. She tweeted to Slocum: “Hi, I work on Glass and I heard about what happened -- I’m so sorry to hear about this. Would you mind sending me a DM?”
Several witnesses told KPIX 5 that bar patrons were excited to see how Glass works, but some became upset about the possibility of being recorded by the device and asked Slocum to remove it.
A man who identified himself only as “Brian” said he was not surprised things got out of hand.
“You know, the crowd at Molotov’s is not a tech-oriented crowd for the most part,” Brian said. “It’s probably one of the more punk rock bars in the city. So you know, it’s not really Google Glass country.”
Slocum could not be immediately reached for comment.
Google sees Glass as a revolutionary new way to quickly and effortlessly connect people with information. Critics view Glass as an invasive new technology that -- if it takes off -- could rob people of what few shreds of privacy they have left. Sensitive to that, Google has put out a social etiquette guide for device owners.
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