Ever since Google Glass or Project Glass was unveiled, almost everyone dreamed of getting their hands on the gadget.  And interest on the device grew even more when Sergey Brin was spotted in the subway wearing the infamous spectacles.  After that, it only got more exciting when Google offered beta-test product Google Glass to anyone who can spare $1,500 and write up an awesome tweet as to what they plan on doing with Google Glass.

Everyone is talking about how awesome it would be to own Google Glass but has anyone thought of the implications of people actually using the device in public?

First off, there are the health risks like eye strain, cancer risk and of course wearing something that pops up information whenever it wants to can cause fatal accidents.

Appearing on today’s NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy, SiliconANGLE Senior Managing Editor Kristen Nicole stated that though there are possible health risks in using Google Glass, like eye strain, she doesn’t see it as something that would greatly affect the sales of the device once it goes commercial since there’s so much hype regarding the technology.  She also noted that at this day and age of digital devices, everything is a potential for health risks.  Though people are aware of the risks, they are not too concerned about it, people are more concerned about trying out the latest technology.

Check out the video below for the full analysis.

Then there’s the privacy issue.  Talking to a person wearing Google Glass can make anyone paranoid that he or she is checking out the other person’s Facebook profile or other social networking profile or worse, Googling everything about the person.

An article on Stat Spotting makes a compelling argument when the author of the post asked the following questions:

“Why is it that nobody is talking about the negative social implications of the device? How will I talk to you, if I have no idea what you are seeing when you are looking at me? Are you looking at my Facebook profile which shows I just got kicked out of my job? Or that I just broke up with my girlfriend, which due to my own foolishness, is public information today? Or, you are just saying hello to me, but are catching up on baseball scores on your Glass, in which case I should consider myself a complete idiot? Will I even want to talk to anyone, ever, wearing one of those stupid things?”

It makes a lot of sense, right?

Another article pointed out that since some establishments prohibit the use of cameras or any other recording gadgets in their premises, they ask violators to turn off the device and if the user doesn’t comply, they will be escorted out.  Will Google Glass users suffer the same consequence?  What if in the future, Google Glass looks like your regular prescription glasses and be used by sleuths to spy on cheating husbands or wives, will anybody even notice that?

Google Glass is quite unnerving though it can’t be denied that the technology is very impressive.

It is expected that the first wave of commercial Google Glasses will be available near the end of this year, the question is, are we ready to see our faces plastered on the web because of this?

Tips on how to protect yourself from Google Glass

Do not allow auto-tagging

If you’re on Facebook, you might have been tagged in photos taken by friends where you don’t look like yourself or in a compromising situation or just look hideous and you don’t want the whole world to see it.  But because of auto-tagging, the world has seen it before you did.  To avoid future embarrassment, edit your privacy setting.  Enable Timeline review by going to Settings (the little cog on the Facebook bar beside the Ticker), choose the Timeline and Tagging settings, then turn on the “Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline?” option.  Now you can review and set which tagged posts appear on your Timeline and won’t fall victim to auto-tagging.

Limit information shared

You don’t have to put your birthday, complete address, social security number, telephone or mobile number on social sites.  If someone you personally know asks for your phone number, don’t post it on your wall or the other person’s wall, just send a private message.  And don’t post photos of your credit card, driver’s license or any other materials that have your information on the internet, you’re just asking to be a target of identity thieves.

Google yourself

This might sound insane since what you want to do is limit what people know about you but in order to do this, you need to see what others see online about you.  So Google yourself, be sure to logout of all your accounts so you can check them out like you are a different person, then review all the information about yourself that you’ve posted and if you see anything that shouldn’t be up there, take it down.  This way, even if the person you are talking to is wearing Google Glass and is checking you out on Google, you can relax because everything that he or she finds on the internet are information you really want to share.

As for brands…

People aren’t the only ones at risk of getting scrutinized when consumers start using Google Glass on a daily basis.  There are a lot of internet vandals who deface brands or make fun of them.

If you’re a company and you want to make sure that your good name would not be tarnished, you could use LTU Technologies’ service to help track down your brand online, even in social media platforms, to make sure that no one is using your brand logo the wrong way.

“Brands and social media analysis services can benefit by incorporating sophisticated image recognition technology from LTU to automatically search and compares millions of images, analyze similarities and differences in colors, shading, and shapes. Advanced image recognition technology leverages artificial intelligence to function like the human eye, to understand minute similarities and differences between two similar images,” said Stephen Shepherd, General Manager, LTU Technologies.