A discussion about wearable computing from Andrew Goldman’s smart interview with Silicon Valley bigwig Marc Andreessen, in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine:
“People view you as an oracle in the valley. I was hoping you’d blow my mind with something you see in the future.
Gordon Bell at Microsoft is working on wearable computing, where it literally records everything around you all the time — video, your conversations. He wants to get to where it’s like a pendant around your neck. We also have a company called Jawbone that makes peripherals for smart phones and tablets. Today, they sell Bluetooth headsets and speakers, but soon they will sell all kinds of wearable computing devices.
Will we soon be dealing with antigaming laws so that drivers can’t play wearable video games while driving down the highway?
That assumes they’re driving. Google is working on self-driving cars, and they seem to work. People are so bad at driving cars that computers don’t have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the D.M.V. and look around, you’re like, Oh, my God, I wish all these people were replaced by computer drivers. Ten to 20 years out, driving your car will be viewed as equivalently immoral as smoking cigarettes around other people is today.”
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Gordon Bell records his whole life:
