Sergey Brin: Smartphones are 'emasculating'

[cali]

Mobile phones may generate the fastest-growing segment of Google's revenue, but the experience of using them still bothers Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Speaking at the TED Conference today in Long Beach, Calif., Brin told the audience that smartphones are "emasculating." "You're standing around and just rubbing this featureless piece of glass," he said.

Using Google Glass requires a fair bit of rubbing as well, and the prototypes have fewer hardware features than most phones. But Brin said they improved on smartphones in certain ways, particularly in having a camera ever-ready to start snapping pictures. (The same camera is also the source of the most serious privacy concerns raised by Glass.)

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57571612-93/sergey-brin-smartphones-are-emasculating/

Well, what can you say in response to that comment?

I predict (or maybe just hope) That Google Goggles will be a huge flop.

[Drale]

1. The google Goggles will probably fail but

they will lead the way to better more advanced and more efficient tech.

[alpizzy]

2. Is search voice activated?

Do you have to speak every search? If so, awkward!!! If not, how do you search using Glass?

[Blue_Tires]

3. Simple translation:

"Ditch the smartphones and buy my product, and the ladies will be all over you!"

[arcane1]

4. Does he even know what that word means?

Does it "emasculate" women too?

[frazzled]

5. Smart phones (or rather, any cell phones) and gender

Brin is obviously saying something ridiculous, and frankly offensive. But I was pondering the notion of cell phones and gender the other day, when we were discussing with some people why we still retain a landline in our house.

Both Mr. Frazzled and I both have smart phones, though I use mine rather rarely: only when I'm out or am traveling. Then it's great. But I work from home, and there are several reasons I still like to maintain a landline:

(1) Being a woman, I don't generally put a phone in my pants pocket. Sorry, I like slim jeans, and it's simply not comfortable to put a phone in your pocket that you can carry about the house with you everywhere, including up and down stairs. My phone is usually in my purse, where I left it when I went out. By the time I run from my office (or worse, upstairs bathroom) to the other room where I left my purse, the call is missed. Men tend to drag their phones around with them in their pants; women do not. More pockets for women, I guess.

(2) I often have to have telephone conferences with clients that involve using and even typing on the computer as we discuss changes. Sure, I could put the iPhone on the desk and put it on speaker, but I share my office with my husband, and that would be an added distraction to him. Having to listen to a one-way conversation is bad enough; listening to a two-way conversation is, blechhh.

(3) I'm old. I'm used to having a landline around. It feels substantial and reliable.

[KamaAina]

6. You've got to wonder who's rubbing his featureless piece of glass

As rich as he is, I'm sure it's someone.

[Marr]

7. Oh. It's a sales pitch-- that explains it.

At first I was confused as to how anyone could consider a smart phone to be a threat to their masculinity. Then I realized he's selling an alternative to the smart phone, and nothing sells expensive consumer items better than appeals to mens' masculinity issues. At least in the US.

[Divernan]

8. Replacing phones source of increasing heavy metal poisoning

There seem to be so many Americans who define their self-worth and the worth of others by how recent their latest gadgets are.

"In the fashion-conscious mobile market, 98 million U.S. cell phones took their last call in 2005. All told, the EPA estimates that in the U.S. that year, between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other equipment were discarded. If all sources of electronic waste are tallied, it could total 50 million tons a year worldwide, according to the UN Environment Programme."
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text

American electronics sent offshore to countries like Ghana in West Africa under the guise of recycling may be doing more harm than good. Not only are adult and child workers in these jobs being poisoned by heavy metals, but these metals are returning to the U.S. "The U.S. right now is shipping large quantities of leaded materials to China, and China is the world's major manufacturing center," Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer says, a chemistry professor at Ashland University in Ohio. "It's not all that surprising things are coming full circle and now we're getting contaminated products back."http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9919304-54.html?tag=nefd.lede
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/earth/15obrecy.html?ref=technology

Now we can add radioactive poison to all the other hazardous materials we inflict upon our own citizens and ship to 3rd world countries! A new version of American Exceptionalism! http://consortiumnews.com/2013/02/04/recycling-radioactive-metals-disputed/

[backscatter712]

10. Yes. E-waste is a huge problem.

If you throw them in the garbage, you get to drink the lead, mercury, brominated fire-retardants, and delicious carcinogens that end up in your area's ground water.

If you do the right thing and try to recycle them, guess what. They get packed into shipping containers, get sent to China, India, or some other hellhole with no labor laws, so children can throw them in fires, burn them, breathe those brominated fire retardants, so they can recover the copper and gold. There's recycling for you!

[Divernan]

13. Plus they are recycled and sent back to the US in all kinds of products.

[backscatter712]

9. I'm calling them Gargoyle Glasses.

Those of you who've read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson know what I'm talking about.

[Brickbat]

11. The bizarre "emasculating" comment and his excitement about the ability of the Glass to take a

picture instantly makes me think he's been putting all his smarts to bear fruit for his childhood wish that someday a woman's clothes will fall off right in front of him and he'll be able to take a picture of it. Without her knowing. AWESOME.

[winter is coming]

12. Emasculating? No, but those Siri commercials make people look pathetic.

People talking to their phones as if they're a friend.