Daniel Jackson

Yesterday at SXSW, the world's grooviest 'interactive festival', the head of Google X – the company's mysterious research lab – finally admitted it. Google Glass was one gigantic embarrassment. Or, as Astro Teller put it, 'We allowed and sometimes even encouraged too much attention for the programme'. You don't say. For a glimpse of the sort of attention Google didn't want, just look at the photograph above – some poor sap on the subway using Google Glass and a smartphone. It went viral on Twitter. The guy was dubbed 'the glasshole', a pun that works in both American and English accents. Google Glass has given wearable tech a bad name: it's raw material for standup comics.

Given their record in government, any sane person would regard a pledge by the Liberal Democrats with a healthy dose of cynicism. Their latest hobby-horse is mental health; it has been the subject of several recent speeches and the issue has a dedicated page on their website. The ‘mental health action plan’ consists of seven pledges, most of which are pitifully vague. For example, the pompously named 'Crisis Care Concordat' is about 'making sure no one experiencing mental health crisis is ever turned away from services'. I'm not being flippant when I ask: what do they mean by 'mental health crisis'? It's not like diagnosing pneumonia or a broken leg.

Apple’s new smart watch, unveiled by Tim Cook yesterday, had incredible potential. But its functionality has been hindered by technical hitches – and, especially, overzealous legislators. Their cloying presence must have been felt at every product meeting. Engineers working on Apple’s watch did so with the rasping breath of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the back of their necks. The result? Apple is nowhere near giving us a device that allows comprehensive self-monitoring of health – thanks to federal regulations. Public health services everywhere tell us that prevention is better than cure.