An engrossing look at the eye-tracking wizardry of Google Glass that doesn’t quite bear out its own alarmism.
A hot new digital device could let sinister—or at least annoying—forces read your mind according to this intriguing if overwrought exposé.
Google Glass, a tiny computer worn like eyeglasses, projects an optical display into the user’s eye. It has already been accused of everything from welding people even more closely to the Internet to violating privacy by enabling wearers to surreptitiously take photographs and videos. The author adds an ominous new possibility: Google Glass, he contends, could divine its wearer’s conscious and even unconscious thoughts, emotions, “temptations, cravings and strong urges” and reveal them to third parties. Wedam, working from a close if sometimes-disorganized exegesis of Google patent filings, explains that Google Glass meticulously tracks its wearer’s eyes and, possibly, pupil dilation; it knows when you are gazing at a fashion ad and how aroused you are by the pretty dress you see (or the model wearing it). It can also, he notes, detect “saccades”—the tiny, rapid eye movements that give away mental preoccupations we aren’t consciously aware of, although he doesn’t explain how the computer could differentiate the myriad possible subconscious states. Written in straightforward prose that makes technical issues accessible to laypeople, Wedam’s brief account of the eye-tracking technology that makes Google Glass possible, and the neuro-cognitive science behind it, is lucid and compelling. It also raises timely and unsettling questions about the subtle intrusions of digital technology. Unfortunately, while he harps on the menace of Google Glass to privacy and autonomy, he fails to actually demonstrate it. He invokes the specter of marketers sussing out and manipulating our secret desires and makes dark references to “nefarious hackers,” but he never explains what harm will come of all this other than, say, an augmented bombardment of pop-up ads. The incursions Wedam spotlights seem more tiresome than threatening, as inevitable in the digital age as death and taxes.
An engrossing look at the eye-tracking wizardry of Google Glass that doesn’t quite bear out its own alarmism.Pub Date: May 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496173720
Page Count: 56
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An intriguing collection of essays covering much familiar ground, but with enough new insights and fresh perspectives to interest both Civil War buffs and casual readers. Boritt (Civil War Studies/Gettysburg College; Why the Confederacy Lost, 1992) assembles five essays by top specialists in the field, exploring the relationship of wartime Commander-in-Chief Lincoln to his leaders on the battlefield. The common denominator in those relations, the volume argues, was conflict, in part because of the inherent tension between civil and military authorities but also due to the personalities of Lincoln and those he chose to command. Stephen Sears (George B. McClellan, 1988) again examines ``little Mac,'' a supremely cautious man who never thought he had enough men or matÇriel to fight the Confederates; Lincoln removed him from command after he failed to exploit the narrow Union victory at Antietam. Mark Neely (The Last Best Hope of Earth, 1993) assays ``Fighting Joe'' Hooker, who led Union forces into a blundering defeat on bad terrain at Chancellorsville. Boritt looks at George Meade and the Battle of Gettysburg; like McClellan, Meade was cautious and slow, a trait that infuriated Lincoln and led him briefly to consider leaving Washington to take command of the Army himself. Michael Fellman (History/Simon Fraser Univ., British Columbia) writes about William Tecumseh Sherman, with whom Lincoln had distant and infrequent contact. Lincoln counseled Sherman to show mercy to Southerners—advice the general ignored, but his March to the Sea helped clinch Lincoln's re-election, which for a time seemed doubtful. Finally, John Y. Simon (History/Univ. of Southern Illinois) discusses Ulysses S. Grant, the general with whom it is often assumed Lincoln had the best relationship: The volume makes it clear that was true only in comparison with the president's other fractured ties. Five thoughtful and well-written essays, further grist for the mill of seemingly endless fascination with America's costliest war.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-19-508505-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The fundamentals of Einstein's theory of special relativity, presented in the form of a series of imaginary dialogues among scientists of three different eras. Fritzsch (Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich; Quarks: The Stuff of Matter, 1983) begins by sending a fictitious modern physicist, Adrian Haller, to England, where he meets Sir Isaac Newton, who has been returned to Earth. Newton is curious about developments in physics since his day, and the two men spend several chapters discussing Newton's concepts of space, time, and light. When the conversation arrives at the subject of Albert Einstein's contributions to science, Newton persuades Haller to take him for a visit to Bern, Switzerland, where they meet the father of relativity. The three physicists then engage in a series of dialogues on how Einstein modified Newton's ideas of the universe, and on how modern science has both verified and extended Einstein's own theories. While there is an unavoidable kernel of mathematics in any discussion of physical concepts, the derivation of Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2, should be within the grasp of anyone who passed high school algebra. The key ideas are presented clearly, and the discussion touches on such subjects as the source of the sun's energy, the future of nuclear and fusion power, antimatter, and the decay of the proton. Fritzsch's handling of the dialogues and of the flimsy narrative framework does not suggest that he should take up fiction as a career. But the ideas come across clearly, even entertainingly, in spite of what appears to be a rather pedestrian translation. Occasionally stiff, but always readable; a good introduction to modern physics for any reader willing to invest a little thought in the subject. (45 halftones, 41 line drawings, 1 table)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-226-26557-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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