Not content to be merely the portal through which people absorb much of their information and upskirt photos, Google has begun making great strides toward aggregating and filtering every single thing you see, marked by back-to-back announcements that the company is planning to launch both its own pay-cable service and Internet-enabled eyeglasses. Google’s first, suddenly old-fashioned expansion into TV service is currently being tested in Kansas City, where Google has applied for a video franchise license and begun building a fiber-optic network that would make it an autonomous, direct competitor to providers like Time Warner, and deliver live TV and on-demand video in addition to Internet service, while also taking steps to transform its Iowa data center into a “giant, virtual DVR for all the customers subscribing to a Google TV service.”
But the prospect of Google controlling your TV is, of course, nothing compared to the Android-powered, Oakley Thump-inspired Google Glasses that are expected to roll out later this year, which would project augmented reality information such as a detailed historical background when looking at a landmark. Or perhaps even more useful, “If facial recognition software becomes accurate enough, the glasses could remind a wearer of when and how he met the vaguely familiar person standing in front of him at a party.” You can be just like The Terminator, in other words, only your cold indifference to the people around you can’t be explained by a robot heart. Of course, the glasses are explicitly “not being designed to be worn constantly,” but Google admits that it expects users will wear them a lot, meaning you should probably get your fill of eyeballs and live human interaction while you still can.
After all, as the New York Times puts it, pretty soon everyone could be shrouded behind “thick-framed sunglasses, lurching down the streets, cocking and twisting their heads like extras in a zombie movie,” and living entirely within their isolated social media worlds. It’ll be a lot like our current existence, in other words, only without the cumbersome bother of having to hold up a Smartphone with these damned fleshy appendages, which could otherwise be used for flailing about in a virtual reality game or masturbating. The future!