Finally, something more distressing than Google Glass

Technically incorrect: Welcome to the Smabow, the baseball cap with a camera holder. Because you need two cameras these days, don’t you?

Given the constant exigencies of social media, we will never have enough eyes, ears, mouths and fingers to record and communicate everything we need to.

Google Glass was a valiant, if myopically misguided, attempt at giving us glasses that do more.

Snapchat has tried to create something a little cooler with its Spectacles that make it clear when you’re filming.

Here, though, is something that might distress you.

It’s the Smabow baseball cap. How, you might think, would a baseball cap distress you, unless it featured the New York Yankees logo?

Well, the Smabow baseball cap, a Japanese invention, has a camera holder above its brim.

Hark the breathless blurb from its makers: “Designed to fit almost all smartphones (all the iPhones, all the Galaxy S’s, all the Sony Xperias, and so on) as well as GoPro cameras, the Smabow Camera Hat allows you to shoot all those cool and dramatic first-person videos you see everywhere these days leaving your hands free.”

They’re right, of course. It does allow you to do that. And given that cyclists and bikers often have their GoPros attached to their helmets, what’s the fuss?

I fear that for me it’s the sheer defacement of a baseball cap. I thought they were sacred. I even bought myself a fine Yomiuri Giants cap when I was in Tokyo.

I admit that’s not all. Walking along the street constantly filming has been made popular by the painful invention known as the selfie stick.

People now think it’s acceptable to film every moment of every day.

And this is something the Smabow’s makers Thanko want to exploit further.

Again, from their blurb: “Talk about multi-tasking! Make even the most mundane walk in the park look like a documentary with this simple but ingenious gadget!”

The most mundane walk is just that: mundane. It’s OK to be mundane. It’s perfectly acceptable to let your being roam free without its every whim being recorded.

Of course, this could all be mere humor. Indeed, I looked at Thanko’s other products. I see a USB Forehead Neck Cooler, a USB Buru-Buru Helmet Head Massager and a Kiss Me Meter Breath Checker.

The Japan Trend Shop, which sells all these items, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, at $42 I fear that this is just what so many people actually want for Christmas.

How long before some medical specialist names a syndrome associated with neck strain caused by constantly perching an iPhone on your head?

Sourse: cnet.com

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