Google Glass banned in UK cinemas

Google Glass has been banned in UK cinemas just a week after the first headsets became available in the country, The Guardian reports.

According to The Independent reports that the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association, which represents the interests of around 90 per cent of UK cinema operators, said it was introducing a blanket ban. Chief executive Phil Clapp said: “Customers will be requested not to wear these into cinema auditoriums, whether the film is playing or not.” Meanwhile Vue, the UK's third-largest cinema chain, said it would ask filmgoers to remove the eyewear "as soon as the lights dim".

The ban follows similar moves in the US, where the independent Drafthouse chain said last month that it was banning Google Glass over piracy fears. Industry bodies The National Association of Theaters Owners (Nato) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have also introduced rules outlawing all recording devices, including Google Glass. The devices have been available in the US since last year, but filmgoers opting to wear them in cinemas have faced draconian interventions. In January, a wearer was removed from an AMC site in Columbus, Ohio, and taken for questioning byhomeland security officials partway through a screening of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.