On another occasion, Firstenberg admitted to walking into a bathroom wearing his Glass without realizing it.
"Most of the day I totally forget it's there," he said.
Many believe wearable computers represent the next big shift in technology, just as smartphones evolved from personal computers. Apple and Samsung are said to be working on other forms of wearable technology.
The test version of Glass looks like a clear pair of eyeglasses with a hefty slab along the right side. Since it began shipping to a couple thousand carefully selected early adopters who paid about $1,500 for the device, it has inspired a bit of ridicule - from a parody on "Saturday Night Live" to a popular blog poking fun at its users.
Other industry experts take a more serious tack, pointing out the potential for misuse because Glass can record video far less conspicuously than a handheld device.
Glass also has won many fans. Google and some early users maintain that privacy fears are overblown. As with traditional video cameras, a tiny light blinks on to let people know when it is recording.
Several Glass wearers at the developers conference said they whip the device off in inappropriate situations, such as in gym locker rooms or work meetings. Michael Evans, a Web developer from Washington, D.C., attending the Google conference, said he removed his Glass when he went to the movies, even though the device would be ill-suited for recording a feature-length film.
"I just figured I don't want to be the first guy kicked out of the movies," he said.
PRIVACY TRACK RECORD
Lawmakers are beginning to consider Glass.
On Thursday, eight members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, asking for details about how Glass handles various privacy issues, including whether it is capable of facial recognition.
According to Google, there are no facial recognition technologies built into the device and it has no plans to do so "unless we have strong privacy protections in place."
During one of last week's conference sessions - an open discussion about Glass - members of the Glass team answered a question about privacy by noting that social implications and etiquette have been a big area of focus during the development of the product, which is still a test version.
Some of the Glass-phobia may stem from Google's own track record on privacy. In 2010, Google revealed that its fleet of Street View cars, which criss-cross the globe taking panoramic photos for the Google Maps product, also had captured personal information such as emails and web pages that were transmitted over unencrypted home wireless networks.
"The fact that it's Google offering the service, as opposed to say Brookstone, raises privacy issues," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit privacy advocacy group, citing Google's history and its scale in Internet advertising.
Rotenberg says his main concern centers on the stream of data collected by the devices - everything from audio and video to a user's location data - going to Google's data centers.
Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor who specializes in privacy and technology, said Glass is not very different from other technologies available today, whether it is a smartphone or "spy" pens that secretly record audio. But Glass is on people's faces, so it feels different.
"The face is a really intimate place and to have a piece of technology on it is unsettling," Calo said. "Much as a drone is unsettling because we have some ideas of war."
For all the hand-wringing, some early adopters are sold.
Ryan Warner, who recently graduated from college and who has developed a recipe app for Glass with Evans, said he was surprised by the reaction he got when he went to a bar.
"I was like, 'I don't know if I should have it on or not.' I was kind of in that phase," he said, "and the bouncer was like, 'Oh, my god, is that Google Glass?' He was excited."
Reuters
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