Jim’s Rule

My friend, Jim, has a rule when he goes out to dinner with friends. Everyone has to put their smart phone on the dinner table and the first person to pick up the phone has to pay for the table.

Why? Here’s why:

SAN FRANCISCO — Brittany Morton used to cringe when her boyfriend would whip out his smartphone over dinner. Imagine what she’ll think when it’s attached to his face as computerized glasses or strapped to his wrist, demanding his attention at every glance.

It’s a familiar scene today: romance at restaurants with a gaze across the table to another transfixed — by a smartphone. That person texting or tweeting is sending the message that, well, you’re less important than their fleeting thoughts. One night, Morton got so upset with her phone-obsessed man during a dinner date that she stormed off to catch a cab.

Just as men barking into headsets on downtown streets becomes the new normal, the world is about to get even weirder —and perhaps more annoying — with a generation of wearable technologies. Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft are among companies vying for this next wave in computing. Think Internet-surfing glasses and watches capable of delighting or irritating partners, friends or strangers.

That technological shift in computing is just around the corner. Google’s Glass computerized glasses, coming closer to reality, are a buzzing topic of chatter in the tech industry.