Google Glass Victim Defiant: "Never Expected Such Hate And Venom"
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- The woman who said she was attacked at a San Francisco punk club for wearing Google Glass offered more details about her tense encounter Tuesday, and explained her decision to wear the technology into a bar named after an incendiary explosive.
"I never expected such hate and venom for merely having a computer cell phone on my head," said Sarah Slocum, who reported the attack by an angry group of patrons at Molotov's bar on Haight St. early Saturday morning.
Slocum said it got ugly after a small group of people began to insult her and shout obscenities. "They called me a bitch, they yelled, 'F*** Google!'" said Slocum. "One of the women shouted, 'you guys are killing the city.'"
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Slocum said her experience was positive at first, as people were eager to see the device.
"When I first walked in there, I demonstrated it to this lady. She was very excited to try it on. Another person was also curious."
But then, she said one group began making side comments. A woman flipped her middle finger and invaded Sarah's personal space. Slocum said she felt threatened, and so she informed the woman that she was going to start recording the scene with her glasses.
"This girl and this guy started calling me names and waving their hands in front of the camera trying to block it," Slocum said.
"Then, the girl threw a dirty bar rag at me. So I got pissed off and start calling them names back. And then one of the guys came over, grabbed it off my head and ran out the bar. I ran after him. I'm holding on to him because I didn't want him stealing or breaking my Google Glass."
"I'm pleading with him, yelling at him. He's waving it around, threatening to smash them. The bouncer went out there. Finally, I get him to relinquish them and when I ran back inside, my purse was gone. I lost my cell phone and lost everything. But luckily, I got my Glass back."
Slocum said the Glass recorded video of the incident, but she is not yet ready to make that video public.
Slocum said she called police right after the incident, but when they didn't show up after nearly an hour, she called them back and told them she was going home. She said she drove back into San Francisco the next day and filed a police report.
She said she is overwhelmed by the experience, but still believes most people have a good attitude about Google Glass because she said every day people are excited to have it demonstrated. Until Molotov's.
As for those who question whether she herself is to blame for wearing Glass out in public or to a punk bar in the lower Haight, Slocum is defiant.
"Ridiculous. Do punks not use and have smartphones?" she said. "Just because mine is on my head, I can't wear it into some 'special' establishment? Makes no sense."
"This is the future. They will have them on their head in a year. Once Google releases the mass-market version in a few months and the price comes down, they will roll out just like the smartphones did."
