Bars ban Google glasses after attacks

Bars in San Francisco have started banning people from wearing hi-tech Google glasses in their establishments following a number of attacks on users.

The $1,500 devices allow people to browse the internet, record what they see and use voice commands to bring up information on a small glass screen, viewed in their peripheral vision.

However their appearance at several bars in San Francisco have led to the assault of several of their users by patrons who apparently thought they were being recorded without their consent, according to a report by The Telegraph,

In one incident in February, as reported by The Telegraph, technology writer Sarah Slocum was criticised in a bar for wearing the spectacles and turned on the recording device in an effort to diffuse the situation, but her actions had the opposite effect.

The glasses were taken off her face by a group, including one woman who can be heard telling Ms Slocum, “You are killing the city”.

Others have had their glasses stolen or destroyed by people who object to the industry which produced them, Google, whose headquarters are based just a few miles away.

The attacks have taken place against a backdrop of increasing hostility between San Francisco’s “ordinary citizens” and the technology industry who they claim is pricing them out of the city.

Protestors have in recent months blocked commuter busses carrying employees from Google and Yahoo! to their respective headquarters.

A spokesman for Google told The Telegraph that it was “thinking very carefully” about how Google Glass was designed, because “new technology always raises new issues”.

It added: “No one should be targeted simply because of the technology they choose. We find that when people actually try Glass first-hand, they understand the philosophy that underpins it: Glass let’s you look up and engage with the world around you, rather than looking down and being distracted by your technology.”