New Trends in Consumer Technology: Stealth Wear

Now You See Me . . .

One aspect of the trend toward photo conversing that I didn't broach in my last post has to do with privacy issues, a big, fat, open can of worms pertaining to social media that most social media pundits would rather not have to deal with.  But threats to privacy comprise the dark underside of all the fun stuff - the content creating and sharing that we read and hear about every day.

Perhaps the one emerging technology that has aroused the most serious concerns related to photo and video sharing is the potential for unsolicited and unrevealed image taking by wearers of Google Glass --the head-mounted glasses that have the capacity to shoot video, take pictures, and broadcast what the wearer is seeing to the world by uploading the content to the Internet within seconds.  Just as legislation appears to be doomed to failure when it comes to regulating new technology that enables peer-to-peer file swapping, I imagine that lawmakers will experience even more difficulty controlling the use of wearable recording and sharing appliances.

Short of trying to reason with image thieves (as I sometimes do when I'm with a Facebook user who
pulls out his or her iPhone to catch me on camera - 'uhn uhn'), there is, however, an emerging alternative:  'stealth wear,' a term used to describe clothing and accessories designed to protect the wearer from detection and surveillance.  In short, stealth wear encompasses a number of products that provide a technological solution for offer individuals privacy, such as hoodies and cloaks that use reflective, metallic fabric that promise to reduce a person's thermal footprint.  Another is a purse that sports extra-bright LEDs that can be activated when in the presence of someone who is attempting to take an unwanted photo or video.  Developed by stealth wear pioneer Adam Harvey, a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the effect of the lights-activated purse is to reduce an unwarranted photo to a washed-out blur (see image below).

Of course, this sort of product is the worst nightmare of paparazzi whose targets brandish such stealth devices.  On the other hand, I could never understand why stars and celebrities are so concerned about paparazzi in the first place - if you don't want your photo taken, don't be a damn celebrity.  As my fellow Baltimorean John Waters once pointed out, what's the point of being famous if you don't want people running after you all the time and invading your privacy?

To check out some other examples of Adam Harvey's stealth fashion, such as the 'anti-drone burqa' (below), be sure to visit his website.



Some other examples of stealth products include the following:

• a visor fitted with LEDs that emit light capable of blinding some camera sensors and blurring the details of a wearer's nose and eyes  (National Institute of Informatics in Japan)

• a lenscap accessory for people who do not want to be recorded while conversing with a Google Glass wearer, the latter of whom is asked to use the lens covering (vs. removing the glasses) so that no taping or photographing would occur during the interaction (Todd Blatt)

 More performance art than serious stealth wear examples are these urban camouflage creations by Japanese designer Aya Tsukioka - a skirt that camouflages the wearer as a soda machine and a  backpack that conceals a child behind something that mimics a Japanese-style fire hydrant:

Stealth wear innovators are currently encountering a marketing challenge in that high tech fashion of any kind has not yet caught on with consumers, be it stealth wear devices or tech-savvy haute couture, such as clothing embedded with illuminated lights.  One possible explanation for the mild level of enthusiasm for stealth wear is that many people just don't care all that much about their privacy, a point elaborated on by Frank Rich in one of his recent New York essays.  As Rich convincingly argued, 'spying is only spying when the subject doesn't want to be watched.'  And it seems that people are falling all over themselves posting photos of themselves and friends on social media, whether they are flattering or not.  When people stop caring about their privacy, they're in big trouble, whether they know it or not.

Now You Don't.

New Trends in Consumer Technology: Snapchat

No Comment

Without a CNN Headline News or other of the same ilk offered by my satellite TV provider, I often turn to Euronews for a quick overview of major news stories.  It does the job for the most part, but I often get infuriated by a regular feature they've dubbed 'No Comment,' which involves showing striking video footage without any off-screen commentary.  In other words, don't ask us, you figure it out. 

Here's how Euronews explains No Comment:

Well, that's peachy.  It's good to respect the intelligence of your audience, but images are not 'facts.'  Images can deceive, especially when details and context are eliminated.  Essentially, the viewer is left with the awareness, for example, that there was a pretty bad catastrophe someplace in the world - an out-of-control fire, a devastating environmental disaster, a street riot, or some other tragedy - without any of the details that journalists are supposed to be paid and trained to tell us (who, what, why, where, etc.). Imagine this conversation:  Honey, what's that you're watching?  Uhm, a story about a really bad fire somewhere, caused by who knows what, with any number of victims - your guess is as good as mine.

On second thought, forget about that conversation.  After all, who needs conversation when all you need to do is use your Snapchat app to take a temporary photo of the screen, which you can then send to whomever it is who may have phoned or texted you asking what you're watching on TV.  In the Euronews case, the photo meta-communicates the answer with a 'no comment' about a 'no comment.'  However surreal this may sound, this scenario is not only plausible, it already exists.  Snapchat, the pioneer iPhone and Android app in temporary image communication, has been around for a while now and is already enormously popular.  Snapchat allows a person to take a photo, send the image to a designated recipient, and control how long it is visible by the person who receives it, up to 10 seconds. After that, the picture disappears and can’t be seen again.  Talk about the ephemeral essence of photography.  On second thought, don't - no, don't speak - just snap and send.  What a misnomer, Snapchat, because in essence, its more appropriate name is Snapchatless.

That's the problem with Twitter . . . too chatty.  140 characters, waaay too many.  In fact, images sent by mobile phones continue to rise as text messages continue to fall.  CTIA, the trade association for the wireless industry reported that in the US in 2012, 2.19 trillion text messages had been sent and received - 5% less than the preceding year.  By contrast, MMS (multimedia) messages including photos and videos rose by 41% in 2012 to 74.5 billion.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the shift from verbal communication to visual nods.  Visual messaging breaks down language barriers, if not cultural differences in message interpretation.  True, if I take a photo of a pizza I am eating and Snapchat it, I doubt it will make a difference if I am sharing it with an Italian or an Aleut, but in other cases the image may be less straightforward.  What bothers me most about conversing by photo is a growing aversion to true verbal dialogue, debate, conversation.  Call me old-fashioned, but I love words.  On the other hand, as a student of photography, I remember fondly sitting in the classroom of Italian art historian James A. Fasinelli, the person most responsible for turning me on to cinema and photography.  Fasinelli would take an entire class session discussing the narrative messages conveyed by a single frame of a film like Juliet of the Spirits or Citizen Kane.  We are a visual species and it is likely more natural for people to read an image than to read and understand text.  Or maybe I'm only thinking about those apparently vacant Snapchat models like the ones you see at the top of this post.

Nonetheless, a new reality, according to Harvard photography professor Robin Kelsey, is that 'this is a watershed time where we are moving away from photography as a way of recording and storing a past moment' and are instead 'turning photography into a communication medium.'  But who is to say that these two kinds of photography can't coexist?  In the meantime, visual conversing just keeps getting bigger.  Over 300 million images are shared daily on Facebook (that's 100 billion photos per year), and WhatsApp (a messaging platform where people can share photos, videos, or audio notes), Vine (Twitter's 60-second video-sharing app), Flickr, Instagram
and Snapchat are thriving.  Just don't tell anyone about it.

Blush and Edward Snowdon: What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Privacy?

Rather than focus on the serious implications surrounding NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden's current plight, German luxury brand Blush has decided to exploit the funny implications of governmental domestic eavesdropping and surveillance.  Snowden, as is now well known, is the former Booz Allen employee and National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who leaked classified (NSA) documents detailing the NSA threats to Americans' constitutional rights to free speech, association, and privacy.  Whether you believe Snowden is a patriot or a traitor, I think we can all agree that these concerns are no laughing matters.  

Blush, on the other hand, wants you to like their brand and buy their lingerie.  So, haha, all this domestic spying stuff (and an on-the-run 30-year-old fugitive seeking asylum) is nothing more than fodder for underwear humor, as evidenced by the recent print campaign, courtesy of Berlin-based firm Glow.

 

 

'Uncover' - get it?  Or as Mashable puts it, a pretty juvenile play on words.

The campaign is reinforced on Blush's Facebook page.

 Blush isn't the only firm exploiting the NSA scandal.  The American restaurant (I use that term loosely) chain Denny's also sees the humor potential inherent in domestic data collection.

Who's the next bottom dweller to jump on the bandwagon?