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@ 2012/07/20The inventor of the digital eye glass, Dr Steve Mann, claims he was assaulted by French McDonald's staff for wearing his invention.
Mann wears his computer vision system, and carries a letter from his quack, as well as documentation, when he travels.
It must look a bit odd. The invention consists of a strip of aluminium that runs across the forehead, with two silicone nose pads. This holds an EyeTap device that causes the eye itself to function as if it were both a camera and display.
All was fine until he made the grave mistake of taking his invention and family to Paris.
Mann then compounded the matter by entering a McDonalds. France is a bit like Italy, you only go into a McDonalds if you are a foreigner because the locals are a little more picky about what they eat. So if you want to be rude to a foreigner an American fast food restaurant in either Paris, Marseilles or Rome is the place to work.
Anyway he was standing in line at McDonalds, when he was stopped by an employee who asked about his eyeglass.
He showed his doctor's letter and the documentation.
After seeing the letter the McDonalds employee accepted him as a customer, and left him to place his order.
Then it all seemed to turn ugly. Mann claims another person within McDonalds physically assaulted him while he was eating his McDonald's Ranch Wrap.
"He angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head. The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools," Mann wrote in his blog.
Mann showed him the letter from his doctor and the documentation he had. The staffer brought two other people - one was was holding a broom and dustpan, and wearing a shirt with a McDonald's logo on it. After reading the note one of the McDonalds staff angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from the doctor and his other documentation was also destroyed by the other one.
When Mann tried to see a name tag on one of the bloke's lapels, he turned it around and flung him out into the street.
The photographs of the incident were recorded because when the glasses are damaged they buffer all the images. These he censored a bit to protect the guilty and stuck on his bog.
McDonald's in Paris has not answered Mann's complaints and so far has not spoke to the press about the incident.
Mann is concerned that if his technology becomes a little more mainstream, thanks to things like Google Glasses, then there could be a lot of Americans or Canadians who wear them being assaulted in branches of McDonalds everywhere.
Mann wears his computer vision system, and carries a letter from his quack, as well as documentation, when he travels.
It must look a bit odd. The invention consists of a strip of aluminium that runs across the forehead, with two silicone nose pads. This holds an EyeTap device that causes the eye itself to function as if it were both a camera and display.
All was fine until he made the grave mistake of taking his invention and family to Paris.
Mann then compounded the matter by entering a McDonalds. France is a bit like Italy, you only go into a McDonalds if you are a foreigner because the locals are a little more picky about what they eat. So if you want to be rude to a foreigner an American fast food restaurant in either Paris, Marseilles or Rome is the place to work.
Anyway he was standing in line at McDonalds, when he was stopped by an employee who asked about his eyeglass.
He showed his doctor's letter and the documentation.
After seeing the letter the McDonalds employee accepted him as a customer, and left him to place his order.
Then it all seemed to turn ugly. Mann claims another person within McDonalds physically assaulted him while he was eating his McDonald's Ranch Wrap.
"He angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head. The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools," Mann wrote in his blog.
Mann showed him the letter from his doctor and the documentation he had. The staffer brought two other people - one was was holding a broom and dustpan, and wearing a shirt with a McDonald's logo on it. After reading the note one of the McDonalds staff angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from the doctor and his other documentation was also destroyed by the other one.
When Mann tried to see a name tag on one of the bloke's lapels, he turned it around and flung him out into the street.
The photographs of the incident were recorded because when the glasses are damaged they buffer all the images. These he censored a bit to protect the guilty and stuck on his bog.
McDonald's in Paris has not answered Mann's complaints and so far has not spoke to the press about the incident.
Mann is concerned that if his technology becomes a little more mainstream, thanks to things like Google Glasses, then there could be a lot of Americans or Canadians who wear them being assaulted in branches of McDonalds everywhere.
