Google Glass Wearer Claims 'Hate Crime' in Bar Incident

Google Glass has been involved in speeding tickets, alleged movie-taping, and now its first bar altercation. A woman in San Francisco says she got attacked by "wanker Google Glass haters" for wearing the glasses inside a Haight Street establishment, reports the Los Angeles Times. Tech publicist Sarah Slocum wrote on Facebook that a man ripped them off her face after a verbal confrontation and ran outside the bar. She got the glasses back but says his friends then stole her purse, cellphone, and wallet. In the huge online conversation this triggered, Slocum labeled herself the victim of a "hate crime." But her critics say she was being a "Glasshole."

CBS San Francisco talks to a bar patron who says that people were annoyed that Slocum was recording video. They were "rather insulted that someone thinks it’s OK to record them the entire time they’re in public.” Especially at a bar, near closing time. Things got testy, and one of Slocum's friends punched one of her hecklers, he says. Slocum posted a 9-second video of the moments before her glasses were taken, though it's a little tough to figure out what's going on, notes Adam Martin at the Daily Intelligencer. "So for now, this all sounds like some overly fraught discussion of some idiocy that happened on the kind of drunken night you would usually want to forget." (More Google Glass stories.)