Google Glass: The Daily Show Nails IoT

It's awesome to see see/hear/feel when someone finally says what we're all thinking, but are either too kind or too fearful to say it ourselves.

At TechEd 2014 I saw one individual wearing a pair of Google Glass. After chatting with others, they had seen it, too. Some experienced one other individual wearing a pair during the weeklong Microsoft event. Seeing someone approaching wearing a pair makes you stop and pause. More than just a mere Google Glass sighting, it almost felt like I was being approached by the Borg. I kept checking my shirt for those beady red circles, and making sure I didn't do anything that seemed at all overly hostile or resistant to avoid being assimilated. Besides just looking plain silly, Google Glass was off-putting. I wanted to follow the person I saw and ask questions about the device, but I also wanted to avoid the uncomfortableness of the situation. The latter won out, as I'm sure it does in most cases.

As wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) start to breach the corporate shores, it's important to get a handle on what exactly these things are intended to do. Google, of course, relies on being able to lull the public into relinquishing private data so they can monetize it. Many other IoT vendors are also attempting to lure wearables into the Enterprise, because the market can't exist and expand if its use stops at the company entrance. The majority of consumers have jobs, by the way, particularly those with money enough to burn on high-priced gadgets. So, what happens when something like Google Glass is invited into the boardroom?

As we've experienced in the last few months to a year, BYOx vendors are making it harder and harder for IT to produce and keep solid and secure corporate policies. Policies are being broken and IT finds that enforcing them is becoming more and more futile. You think the Cloud is causing disruption? Just wait until technology shows up in previously unrecognizable forms. Could that smartwatch be secretly recording the company's annual, private finance meeting? Could that Android-based smart-necklace or belly-button ring be connecting to the company's network and storing documents?

The Daily Show's Jason Jones takes on the Google Glass experience, giving it just the right amount of comedic seasoning to help uncover the bare nonsense in Google's wearable devices, and it's a great way to start out the week. But, it's also a foreboding look into what could be the next challenge for IT Pros.