What if Trayvon Martin was wearing Google Glasses?

What if Trayvon Martin was wearing Google Glasses?(medium.com)

9 points by erickuhn19 12 years ago | 22 comments

hga 12 years ago |

This is rather disconnected from the established facts of the case.

I'll just point out the most obvious one that is totally indisputable: about the same time Trayvon might have started the suggested process that would include calling 911, Zimmerman called the police on their non-emergency number (NEN) and got them dispatched to the location.

erickuhn19 12 years ago | |

My main point would be that each party involved in the situation would be more careful on how they react. How would Zimmerman approach Martin if a police officer was standing there? The Google Glass would be evidence as if an officer or court room was standing there at that moment.

hga 12 years ago | | |

If you were even vaguely familiar with the case and/or fair minded---after all, the jury validated to some degree the following---you would know that according to Zimmerman he never "approached" Martin in any sense of the word that I'm familiar with.

Let's put it this way: you're implicitly asking to know the truth of the incident; I suggest you don't ask unless you're willing to face the truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

The investigating officer testified at the trial that when he lied to Zimmerman and told him a video had been found of the entire incident, he looked relieved and said "Thank God." Assuming that someone with a documented history of fighting like Martin would want the truth to be available for the authorities is ... a bit further than I'm willing to go, and there fails your concept ... well, unless you put the pair of glasses on Zimmerman.

I'll bet you more than a few Neighborhood Watch types are going to start using Google glasses when they become generally available.

angdis 12 years ago |

Wearing "google glasses" might not make a whole lot of difference. It presupposes that the images and sounds captured by the camera will have enough fidelity to capture the details which actually matter and that's not a given even under ideal circumstances. Finally although a murder case would certainly get scrutiny, it would be hard to get a cop to even watch a video of a run-of-the-mill crime. Cyclists have been wearing video cams for years and there have been very very few cases of action being taken against motorists even when the cameras capture egregious behavior. There is no reason to think that a different maginalized group such as young black males will fare better because of google glass.

erickuhn19 12 years ago | |

Why does anyone invest in security cameras then? What would be the point? Every street corner in NYC has one, buildings, and now peoples homes. Without video the Boston bombers would not have been caught as well. Video has a place in the court room and gives law enforcement more information about what happened.

stormcrowsx 12 years ago |

Trayvon Martin would have never turned his glasses on, you don't record yourself pummeling someone unless you want to get arrested.

erickuhn19 12 years ago | |

He might have turned them on prior to any altercation, which might have deterred both individuals from taking the situation to the next level.

lifeformed 12 years ago |

You could kind of do this with a phone. Hit an emergency button and it starts discretely recording audio remotely. It wouldn't be overt, but you'd get a lot of evidence.

erickuhn19 12 years ago | |

I agree, but the presence of video could deter many actions from taking place.

hga 12 years ago | | |

What it would not deter, though, is a worst case Martin scenario: he sees that Zimmerman is wearing the device and without words ambushes him from behind, making sure it never gets to transmit a clear picture or useful audio of him.

Which strongly argues for covert monitoring, the same reason a lot of people prefer concealed to open carry. At net such an overtly visible system might get more people hurt and killed....

PaulHoule 12 years ago |

I'd rather be wearing an Iron Man suit that works and open a can of Whoop-Ass on 'em myself.

The question is: what is the MVP?

hga 12 years ago | |

If this is a serious question I've got ideas, and I strongly recommend reading a particular slow glass story by Bob Shaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_light#Slow_light_in_fictio...). This last one I remember, as he worked through the possibilities, entails the authorities spreading very small spheres of slow glass in public places. If an incident occurred, they'd just vacuum up some of them and wait for the light to get through and see what happened.

Which brings me to my first point: passive always on is nice, unless of course you are the criminal, but expensive in battery power for which there is no Moore's law. Given that, it should take very little to get it going, which isn't necessarily compatible with the MVP of a smartphone app capturing sound.

DanBC 12 years ago | | |

How expensive is a rolling buffer of 1 minute, which then gets written to disk (with everything following it written to disc too) when a button is pushed?

I'm imagining something like the Cisco Flip but at 360 (or maybe 720) and with much better batteries. (My Flip uses 2 AA batteries or a rechargeable battery pack.)

achughes 12 years ago |

It would just give the defense even more evidence. The decision was about whether or not Zimmerman shot him in self-defense, NOT whether or not Zimmerman was responsible for creating the situation that resulted in Trayvon Martin being shot.

erickuhn19 12 years ago | |

Maybe it would have or maybe it would give the prosecutor more evidence. At this point we will never know. The only fact we do know is that it would have provided more total evidence for both sides to interpret what happened.

bobdvb 12 years ago |

Isn't wearing Google Glasses reason enough to get shot?

erickuhn19 12 years ago | |

DanBC 12 years ago | | |

People get mugged for cell phones. (At least they used to, often, I'm not sure how common it is now.)

I can imagine someone getting mugged, perhaps violently, for their Glass or some future version glass.