Augmented Reality Explorer Steve Mann Assaulted At Parisian McDonald’s

You deserve a break today, indeed. Augmented reality pioneer Steve Mann visited a Parisian McDonald’s with is family a month ago. Mann has a system called the EyeTap physically installed in his skull that records video and streams augmented reality data directly to his retina. Upon ordering, McDonald’s employees at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris accosted Mann and tried to tear the glasses out of his head.

That was after he ordered something called a Chicken Ranch Wrap.

He writes:

Subsequently another person within McDonalds physically assaulted me, while I was in McDonand’s, eating my McDonand’s Ranch Wrap that I had just purchased at this McDonald’s. 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.
I tried to calm him down and I showed him the letter from my doctor and the documentation I had brought with me. He (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 1) then brought me to two other persons. He was standing in the middle, right in front of me, and there was another person to my left seated at a table (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 2), and a third person to my right. The third person (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 3) was holding a broom and dustpan, and wearing a shirt with a McDonald’s logo on it. The person in the center (Perpetrator 1) handed the materials I had given him to the person to my left (Perpetrator 2), while the three of them reviewed my doctor’s letter and the documentation.
After all three of them reviewed this material, and deliberated on it for some time, Perpetrator 2 angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from my doctor. My other documentation was also destroyed by Perpetrator 1.

That a pioneer like Mann would be accosted – in Paris, of all places – is a travesty. That it would happen in that paragon of openness and light, McDonald’s is an absolute shame. Apparently McDonald’s employees in Paris don’t like people taking pictures of their menus and this isn’t the first time Parisian Friends-Of-Ronald attacked someone with a camera in their stores.

Although I may seem flip here, I’m not. I propose a boycott of McDonald’s (not like you were going to go anyway) until Mann reports restitution for damages. This is an outrage and it’s terrible that Mann had to go through this.