Google has just announced that it's searching for test subjects for one of the company's newest projects, a pair of Internet-connected eyeglasses called Google Glass. Testers are expected to pay $1,500, plus tax, for the privilege of trying a pair of glasses that display information on a minuscule screen at the top of a person's field of vision. In the promotional video, users are shown flying airplanes and biking in traffic, which to me suggests an obvious question: Will Google be including an organ donor card with the glasses kit?
A number of other obvious questions appear to have been neglected, not just by Google (a company that seems to have forgotten the phrase "core business strategy" in recent years) but also by the mostly fawning reporters who cover it.
Those questions mainly concern "the public," most of whom do not have the time, the money or the interest to be early adopters for an idiotic-looking head device but will have to deal with the sorts of people who are already eagerly plugging the Twitter hashtag "#ifihadglass" into their application.
OK, I said "the public," but I'm talking about myself.
I'm talking about the most basic things, really. I'm talking about the number of people who walk straight into me on the street every day because they're too busy scrolling on their smartphones to watch where they're going, and never think to apologize for it.
I'm talking about feeling tired of not being able to go into any public place without the risk of having my picture taken without my permission by someone who wouldn't even know what the idea of permission means.
I'm talking about how much our basic social standards have already been eroded by "smart" ubiquity, and how as a society we haven't even digested what we've already got.
I'm really not interested in the questions that are being asked about Google glasses (When will they be for sale? What will the retail price be? Is hipster eyeglass company Warby Parker really going to be designing them? How will they be serviced?) when the simplest one hasn't yet been discussed: Do we need these right now?
When something new comes on the market in this tech-obsessed region, it's always considered crazy talk to ask why instead of why not. But the truth is that these products create changes in behavior that affect us all. If the loss of civil public behavior doesn't bother you (or if you're part of that problem), there are still fundamental matters that need to be addressed.
I recently read that pedestrian deaths are up 4.2 percent and injuries up 19 percent nationwide and that 1,152 people went to the emergency room last year thanks to "distracted walking." (That number's considered to be very underreported, because people are still rightfully embarrassed to admit to lacking common sense. Sadly, that sense of shame is likely to erode, too.)
Imagine the numbers a few years after a flock of people have started wandering the streets with a computer plugged into their eyes.
It's not the business of either Google or any other technology company to think about manners or public safety and certainly not common sense. It's up to the rest of us to consider those things. Unfortunately, when it comes to the basics, our vision right now is as cloudy as those silly glasses.
When something new comes on the market in this tech-obsessed region, it's always considered crazy talk to ask why instead of why not.
Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner
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