Looking through the images on the White Men Wearing Google Glass Tumblr has convinced Marcus Wohlsen that the much-touted glasses have a lot in common with Segways, Bluetooth headsets, and pocket protectors. "They're all too dorky to live," Wohlsen writes in Wired. In theory, all these products seem useful, but we eschew them based on intangible factors—either because they're just somehow irrationally lame (Segway), or because they send bad social signals (Bluetooth headsets).
There's no getting around it, "walking around with a camera mounted on the side of your face at all times makes you look dorky," writes Wohlsen. It's inherently antisocial, separating you from the people around you. The hype surrounding it "is what happens when important tech people spend a little too much time congratulating each other." The future definitely includes wearable tech, but one look at that Tumblr is evidence enough "to transform the hypothesis 'Google Glass is too dorky to succeed' into a proven scientific theory." Click for Wohlsen's full column. (More Google Glass stories.)