Benefits/Advantages of Wearable Technology

Google Glass may be one of the numerous inventiveness geared towards wearable clouds for all people that can be applied in enhancing their lives in several ways. It benefits people owing to its appeal it has in bettering their lives. With an initial adoption rate of approximately 18%, Google Glass as a wearable computing is considered a great appeal to users owing to the rich data generation capability that it stores and allows for analysis in the cloud at anytime, anywhere without restrictions(Chang, Wang & You 2010). This use of Google Glasshas also renewed the hopes of users in achieving a focused attention, better interaction, continued enhancement, increased understanding levels, and better brain retention capability. Wearable technology like Google Glass has also been beneficial to the society in the context that it has enhanced the efficiency of surgical operations; hence, aiding in saving lives. Proportionally, about 82% of doctors surveyed in a US study indicated the increased efficiency of their work with the use of the wearable technology as they were able to visualize veins and specific cuts to be made by streaming surgeries and consultations remotely; thus, advancing health care (Bonato 2009). Google Glass also has other beneficial features such as its ability to allow for recording of videos and taking pictures without having to touch the hardware as one only needs to speak commands to the device (Bonato, 2010 August). It also allows for the reading of texts and emails received and replying to them via voice commands, besides allowing for translation of texts into divergent languages. The device also has other aspects of Google such as Google Search and Google Maps integrated into it; thus, enabling quick and easier use of these. Subsequently, the device allows for the integration of live video streaming that can be enjoyed by people far from one’s current location. Generally, to individuals and businesses, the use of wearable technology helps in advancing aspects of safety, security and efficiency (Engin, Demirel, Engin& Fedakar 2005).

Constraints of Wearable Technology

The various forms of wearable technology besides having notable benefits have side effects or drawbacks that hinder their complete adoption and use by people. First, the technologies are quite expensive; hence, out of the reach of many people who cannot afford them, as compared to Smart Phones. Second, wearable technology such as Google Glass can be perceived of as infringing in the privacy of people; hence, the common tendency of it being referred to as unfashionable and pretentious(Chang, Wang & You 2010).This is because, in most cases, other people are not informed of them being recorded by the Google Glass users. The ethics perspective involved in the privacy and security aspects of wearable technology has been the core constraint that has not been solved by the manufacturer of Google Glass. Third, the use of Google Glass leads to high distractions in that one is constantly being interrupted by an audio or visual data that does not relate to the specific task at hand. This makes the users develop a rude behavior largely because of the distractions presented by the use of the technology. In other contexts, the devices are expensive to maintain as they use batteries that get depleted easily; hence, requiring that they get charged quite often. In the health sector, doctors who have used the wearable technology such as Google Glass have been mainly concerned with the privacy concerns in that once connected to a wireless connection, the glass exposes the protected health data of patients by automatically syncing it (Ventura 2014). This causes worries in that there are possibilities of the data being transferred to unprotected servers outside of hospitals and used to breach the security systems of the hospitals.