I was at a place recently that had a nude sauna. The year before a guy had been caught propping up his phone discreetly in a corner to film people, so this year their policy was that everyone had to declare their phones and switch them off before going inside. Which did very little to solve that problem, but I’m guessing confiscating everyone’s phones was too logistically difficult. My first thought was that this place is not at all ready for the onslaught of smart glasses.
I worry that these will become so discreet that people will be suspicious of anyone wearing any glasses at all, even dumb ones, in a locker room or bathroom.
Tech is so frustrating in real life. I feel like we have all the cool sci fi stuff I always wanted, but everything comes with a monkey's paw style gotcha. The idea of meta glasses is so awesome, I want a heads up display to show me whatever I want. But there is no way in hell I would use them because the company that makes it can’t be trusted.
> I would use them because the company that makes it can’t be trusted.
I think this gets at only half of the problem. Not only can meta not be trusted, even if I trust _you_ if you were friend, I wouldn't trust any _other_ random user of such a product. As such, better to not have such a product around.
I think I agree with this sentiment most. I am having trouble articulating it. I think wearing smart glasses in some situations is on a scale between rude, offensive, and wrong. I think that's what culture teaches us about what is and what isn't acceptable behavior, right? Like some places teach us it's rude to speak over each-other. Here in New England it is rude not to.
I am 100% on board with calling smart glasses "Pervert glasses" if worn in situations that call for it
I think maybe I in-artfully wrote it - I mean: there are situations when wearing smart glasses should be labelled 'pervert glasses'. Not that there are situations that require wearing of the glasses
Wearing them in a locker room or at a pool party or at the beach or really anywhere you might be likely to catch a recording of someone in a state of undress that they wouldn't want you to have a recording of?
Correct the issue isn't Meta people just don't like the idea they could be being recorded at any time to get blasted out to the whole world. Yes, in theory you're always open to being recorded in public but the glasses make it far more subtle /and/ up close so more normal interactions become subject to the intrusion in a way that would normally be quite obvious.
It's basically the same backlash that hit Google Glass over a decade ago. Nothing has really changed about the product and the reason people reject is so viscerally when they're not the user.
At my kid's daycare, they sent home an authorization form to allow them to use your kid in pics that might be posted to the internet. Some parents declined out of privacy concerns. Now I guess we are just blasting past all of that. Kind of like AI and copyright.
Phones already make people much more reserved and less "wild" eg at parties compared to pre-phone-cameras (that are always online and can upload to social media effortlessly).
It's true but phones are much more obvious that you have them out and probably filming where the glasses aren't so can be more controlled and at least reacted to. The glasses create more uncertainty about if the person is filming.
It's more obvious, but since people use their phones all the time anyway, you really have to look at the angle they hold the phone to be sure. So it's not super hard to be sneaky about it even with a phone.
After covid I forgot the names of coworkers, I'm really bad at remembering them. Having something that could just show me peoples names would be nice. Maybe I'm just a bad person for not remembering them and it could be a nice challenge to my existing social behaviors to ask again. I wouldn't trust meta enough to use these glasses, I dont even use instragram.
As somebody who is also terrible at remembering names, I also used to think this but ever since I saw this idea taken to its logical extreme by some students a few years ago I've become significantly more resistant to it: https://x.com/AnhPhuNguyen1/status/1840786336992682409
I feel you - I've always had a blackspot in my brain for names; I once was showing a new hire around, and about halfway through introducing my colleagues, my brain gave up and I couldn't remember anyone any more. Just awful.
I think you can be present in the moment, but still find value in a tool like this. I may not be "the norm" because I'm legally blind, but in some sense, a tool like this could make me even more present. I currently use my phone a lot to zoom in on signs to read them. I'd love it if I wouldn't have to hold a phone in front of my face, just to know whether the place I'm standing in front of is, in fact, Jimmy's Barbershop, or whatever place I'm trying to navigate to for the first time.
I do think accessibility is a great market for innovation like this, but it doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for general populations. Take electric mobility devices, for example. Electric wheelchairs are great for people who are paralyzed, but e-scooters have become a scourge for some urban residents as their users park them on sidewalks, block curb cuts, and generally get in the way of pedestrians.
I wouldn't wear them when I'm walking in the woods or hanging out at home. Having 'incoming car warning', or waypoint nav when I'm biking/running? That would be great!
Garmin has offered this for years. As a plus, the Varia taillight has a radar, so you don’t have to wear your pervert glasses on the back of your helmet to alert for incoming cars.
As a parent of a new kid, being present is exactly why I wanted a pair - I didn't want to spend time looking at them through a screen, but still wanted to keepsake some precious early moments.
(didn't work out that way in practice, but that was the idea)
It can be less intrusive than using a phone, I believe. That makes it a step closer to being present. (I don't know specifics, but I'm assuming that the display can be turned off when not in use.)
Also, if someone already wears glasses, why not have glasses that can do more?
You don't need a phone either and sorry but the idea of someone using a device to learn things about me that I did not share with them is frankly disgusting and dehumanizing.
You can simply talk to people, we don't have to enable your perversions because you refuse to interact with humans.
You google random people you see on the street? That is creepy. I don't think this is something that should be automated, like what the topic of this submissions is about: pervert glasses.
I'm with you, here. People just think very differently, though. For example, I really enjoy sci-fi, but I've always viewed as a neat fantasy. Sometimes I think "It would be cool if this were real," but mostly I lean toward, "I'm so glad none of this is actually real."
> notice the real world without the idea of augmenting it.
The core problem of solitude is curiosity and sonder.
When I smell fennel on a hike, I want to know what it is - yeah, this is dog fennel.
When I see a strange symbol on a taxi car, I want to know why it is 3 arrows on bow and what that is.
Seeing a strange dog and wondering what kind of dog that is (a whippet?). A glimpse of a black bird with red shoulder patches.
Hearing someone's ringtone (not these days anymore) and wonder why it is familiar ("ah, it is spelled fa9la, who'd have guessed").
There is a twinge of "This is why we can't have nice things" about the whole article for someone who can't get enough of the world you can see through your eyes.
Curiousity is characterized by the pursuit for the answer, not the ability or speed to find the answer. You can still be curious without a google search bar, and I often find those pursuits are (1) much more rewarding and (2) stick around enough to become knowledge.
I mean, the real answer is that we have the technology to be tech wizards. You could conjure spatially anchored widgets and screens and gauges.
You could put a cooking show screen above the stove, where a physical screen wouldn't work. You could put a synced calendar on the wall. Notes app on the fridge, weather reminders by the door. ...a million mundane conveniences in the house alone.
But still, its too heavy and to do the spatial anchoring you need a device with a constant camera feed and the only folks who make that at the moment have questionable morals.
People always say this like having an actual board of notes on the fridge hasn't been trivially possible for a century.
It's like people obsessing over window managers. 99% of the time, the amount of windows you have showing is not the problem, you can't really focus on more than one at a time anyway.
Consider as a demonstrative example, race car drivers. They have had options to have extremely detailed Heads Up Displays with all sorts of absurd data available at a glance for decades. But they largely do not use tons of data like that, because it's just not compatible with the human brain. They already are looking at things more often and processing more info than a "normal" person while racing, but that heads up display would not benefit them.
Similarly, the Heads Up Display for modern fighter jets is very lightweight, focusing on allowing you to see around it and provide you the very basics of flight instrumentation and a standard orientation instrument.
People just have wild ideas about how to "optimize" their lives that are just not supported by reality.
You would be better off making flash cards about those things you want to "know" in that moment and drilling them.
I too used to be drawn to this idea. Back in 2016ish, I got an ODBII dongle for my car and app for my phone and was so excited about all the data I was going to have at a glance, just like some sort of pro! But the data was pointless and meaningless. Oh, timing advance is at 20 degrees in this throttle regime. Cool I guess.
Eventually I gave up and only have my car showing instantaneous fuel efficiency, which is the only valuable data point for my needs.
but then you are not present, you are distracted by a computer. Just because that computer does not have a clunky monitor, doesn't mean that you aren't any less distracted.
Some of the attitudes on this website, especially ones like yours, are the literal reason we are in this mess today.
Please, please, if you have the power, push back on this nonsense from the inside. We need more people talking to other people like real humans, not like notes in a digital diary.
Nothing I described replaces or impacts talking to a human. If someone is going to distract themselves in XR, they can already do it more efficiently on a handset. The only change would be your posture and eye strain could possibly improve.
Probably different concerns. If you had a home video and I was in the background I wouldn't care. The odds of anyone recognizing me would be low. If you upload it to anyone using mass AI (YouTube, Meta, etc.) then I care a lot.
If I was a pretty girl that gets stared at I think I'd want to record the ones doing the staring
People generally commit less crime if they think they're on camera
If they do commit a crime, at least there would be video evidence
Or if they just want to be creepy, I'd send those stares to their wife
Considering motivated perverts would use hidden cameras, as opposed to cameras literally on their face, I think the asymmetry here is in favor of recording the perverts rather than vice versa
Startup idea: customers give you their Meta glasses, you smash the camera and microphone (with a tiny sledge hammer), and wrap most of the glasses and particularly where mic/camera would have been in a special casing with a very unique and patented design you also make a huge fuss on social media about, so everybody knows it.
The wrapper is hard/impossible to remove, only the company can trigger the self-release mechanism, and customers have to sign that they owe you a lot of money when they remove or damage it (which is risky, so they have to be careful or it's their problem). You basically just rent it to them, for lots of money per month, so they can show off their Good Guy Glasses (hey that's actually a name! can I have 10% please if anyone does this, I'll also help out if you want, maybe with the tiny sledge hammer. thanks!).
"Oh, you can afford Meta glasses to be a perv? Well, I can't afford the equivalent of a bunch of them every year, but I still do it because I'm a good person."
The ad could be some street kid in the rain with some guy (Morgan Freeman maybe) offering to sell it these glasses, saying "you can pay in tiny rates" and whatnot, and the kid just sadly shakes its head.. so the guy goes down on one knee, eye to eye with the kid and says... "When I was your age, I thought everything is about money, too. But some things are about being a good person. If you had a mommy, surely she would want you to be a good person, right?" The kid nods, still hesitates, but by the way the music swells as the ad fades you just know it's gonna be alright.
It’s so interesting to me that there are still so many people who see the monkey’s-paw thing as somehow secondary or incidental, even those who acknowledge that it’s often there! I don’t really understand why this is, or why I feel differently. To me at least, the monkey’s-paw aspect is primary now, to the point that the gee-whiz aspect hardly bears on my thinking at all.
I’m not telling you that I think you’re wrong or foolish, to be clear! I just have this different instinct from you, although it sounds like we basically agree on the reflective level. I’m interested in what it is that directs peoples’ attention and interest in such a way that new information technology products pattern-match to “cool, shiny, new, handy, exciting; freedom” or to “dystopian social control, creepy surveillance capitalism; unfreedom.” People have different System 1 intuitions, orthogonal to their System 2 thinking!
It’s so weird because I used to be the other way. I can’t put my finger on when or how the phase transition took place in my mind.
The web is truly taken over by the biggest scumbags on the planet preying on the technological naivety of a populous they helped entrap.
In the beginning they stepped in with the cloud to bring the "always available" thing to the masses, while simultaneously socially and legally destroying the burgeoning p2p ecosystem. Convenience at the cost of freedom.
That had the effect of kneecapping the technological progress and knowhow of ordinary people and has left them trapped on platforms they moved their lives to but are owned by their abusers.
The abusers are now in complete control and the abused have no ability to even imagine an alternative.
The alternative is to leave these platforms. Form alternate social groups with open technologies that stay resilient to outages and attacks.
We don't need the cloud anymore for the vast majority of civic and social life.
Bro, read the article. As much as I hate corporations, this is not there fault. It's women who don't like perverts using the glasses and the perverts who use these glasses to look at women.
This is a phenomenon among the masses of consumers who use this tech, the corporation has nothing to do with it. In fact the corporation is trying to reign in your freedom to use these tools by stopping this perverted stuff from happening. Blame US, consumers, not our corporate overlords.
Here's what I think: I think it is essential to protect freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This is just an unfortunate consequence of those freedoms. If you want to protect womens discomfort then you have to restrict these freedoms. I'm against that. This is an unfortunate situation but the alternative is worse. Because ONCE those rules are in place and codified into law, censorship and freedoms can become bigger and worse.
Women just need to deal with it. Assume that whenever you're in a public place, ALL your actions are PUBLIC. A women (and men) should dress and talk in a way conducive to the public arena.
Either way, despite what I believe, it's already to late. This freedom is already restricted by Wiretapping law. If someone threatens to kill you and you wiretap it as evidence... that evidence is dismissible in court even after said subject (you) was found dead. We are rapidly moving towards a world where a persons discomfort can control your freedoms and even dictate reality (evidence).
What does that have to do with freedom of speech? How is recording people without their consent or knowledge freedom of speech? That sounds absurd to me
The law allows recording of people without consent or knowledge now. From flock cameras to door bell cameras to store cameras your pcture is taken hundreds of times daily. To just restrict glasses can be seen as a freedom of speech issue.
I think of this like the camera shutter sound laws in Japan. We could easily regulate that the cameras must have visible indicators that they're recording, and ideally they should be required to be visually distinct from a normal pair of sunglasses in some way.
If someone threatens to kill you and you wiretap it as evidence... that evidence is dismissible in court even after said subject (you) was found dead.
That's not how the law works in the U.S. or most of Europe. A recording of the defendant threatening to kill the victim is admissible as evidence, especially if the victim winds up dead shortly thereafter. For example, see https://www.thebulldog.law/california-penal-code-633-5-the-v...
Imagine if tomorrow we invented ubiquitous instant teleportation to arbitrary locations.
There would be a moment where we hear how great it is to eliminate commutes, or air travel, followed shortly afterwards by the collapse of civilisation as societies grapple with the elimination of property, what remains of private space, and so on.
Meta should use their Kylie Jenner et al connection to design a camera that is both stylish and obvious.
AFAICT the main use case for camera glasses is very similar to the "gopro on your helmet" use case for cyclists:
- to record cool first-person video to upload to TikTok et al
- to warn cars / creeps "I'm recording this and will send footage to the cops"
AFAICT, influencers generally want people to know they're influencers. They're using meta glasses not because the glasses let them go incognito, they're wearing them because a gopro on a helmet is dorky.
And obviously an incognito camera is going to be much less useful staving off harassment than an obvious one.
I'm sure someone other company will make exactly those glaces, obvious and stylish recording devices.
In the meantime, it's quite telling that Meta is choosing not to.
They want recording to be constant, impossible to detect, and normalized. That's why the camera light is so subtle and easy to cover. The more constant surveillance is normalized, the more they have data about every single facet of our lives to sell to advertises.
At some point, incognito will scale to hidden and I think that's the part that has to be reimagined. It's not about hidden camera, it's about cooperative and consent based.
What comes to mind are those orange tip laws mandating that airsoft guns must be manufactured with an orange tip to differentiate them visually from real firearms.
In this case, maybe there could be some mandated standardized high-viz indicator that there is a camera lens being pointed at you in wearable devices.
I could see maybe allowing the high-viz element to be concealed if the mechanism concealing it also blocks the lens.
These glasses are really great to use. The camera is pretty fundamental functionality because you can use it to tell you things about the world around you. At the Vancouver Aquarium we asked about some fish we saw and stuff. I was quite surprised at the speed of the multi-modal model. It recognized the fish type, and then gave us some facts about it. Fantastic stuff, honestly.
Very ergonomic and you get your hands free to catch them if something is about to happen. In the end, we didn't end up using them that much because the whole charging thing makes it kind of annoying, but that's about the only reason. I can't imagine I'd use it in a context where I wouldn't wear a GoPro, but it's a cool form factor.
I agree, but unfortunately, they don't have great quality or support.
First, I've had these for about 2-years. I purchased them to capture candid pictures and video's on a cruise and they were fantastic for that purpose but I've bought two pairs in two years and won't buy them again.
When you email Ray Bans for support they send you a wall of text mentioning everything their warranty doesn't cover. It was enough to discourage me from continuing to get a case replacement 2-weeks after my purchase and I just bought a third-party adapter instead. I expected more from the brand. I won't buy Ray Bans (Meta or otherwise) again because of the hostility in that one email.
My first pair died after 1-year (I gave them away after 6-months and they only lasted the new owner another 6-months). My second pair died after just over a year.
I'd love to have a good pair of camera/audio glasses. The audio is one of the best parts. But these Meta glasses aren't it for me anymore.
The audio is actually remarkable. My wife could hear the whole description while I was standing next to her and heard nothing. There are these bone-conduction headsets that also do this stuff and it seems nothing short of magic. Sad to hear these ones didn't last. Who knows if they'll work if we ever take them out of the case.
Thinking completely selfishly, as a visually impaired person, I want these to succeed, because they can be a great assistive tool. And assistive tools being general consumer products makes them cheaper.
Our idea of a public/private privacy division where private recording is discouraged and public is a free for all really feels dated.
I know personally I'd love to see a private/local/wide distribution division or something like that where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net. There are real harms to being a public figure and the net rarely understands context.
I do have one note on all this though. I think there are some real benefits to being able to record people in public re corruption, criminality etc so I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead.
(Repost from the thread earlier today on the same subject)
> I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead.
I think this is pretty reasonable and something I hadn't thought of. I've been thinking about this generally a bunch as I agree that the blanket "No right to privacy in public" is really just lazy. Of course we've been filmed in public for decades now, but it wasn't being shown to people on the internet this whole time (or even to anyone in many cases). Concessions could be made for filming police/public figures and people committing crimes. It's probably harder than I think, but just being able to post anyone online is pretty terrible whether it's your "right" or not. Think of all the godawful nuisance "content" that would have just never existed.
> where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net.
I think this is wanting a rule that doesn't draw boundaries in a way that aligns with the natural world. Your right to see what is around you and to remember what you see is pretty fundamental. You might say there is a ethical reason not to gossip about what you remember seeing, but I would push back on the idea that it ought to be illegal for Bob to mention to Carol that he saw Alice at the store, and Meta glasses (or paparazzi or even Snow Crash's gargoyles) are a difference of degree, not kind, from the neighborhood gossip.
There's a lot of copyright and other rights management that can be applied. Many buildings are copyrighted. If you take a picture of a building, which you are free to do, you cannot make money from that image just because you took it while being in the open public. The same should be applicable to people as well. Yes, you took a picture of them while in public, but they people still own the rights to the likeness. If your image is clearly focused on a single person, you need rights releases to make money from that image. That's how it works in things like stock images. As far as how things work with the TMZ ilk of the world is an entirely different thing that we've seem to come to accept. The stalking of people, celebrity or not, just so people can be entertained at home with the personal drama of those people is just gross.
> Many buildings are copyrighted. If you take a picture of a building, which you are free to do, you cannot make money from that image just because you took it while being in the open public.
In which country? Certainly not the USA. There are very few countries in which this is true, such as France and Italy.
Nope, can't stop right there. It is the situation we live in now. You can release a product like a poster or puzzle or whatever and try to YOLO with your protest, but you will lose in court when you are sued by the rights holder.
There's a museum with a very distinct building that is infamous for sending security staff out to tell photographers they cannot image the building. They have no idea what someone will do with the image, so they have no legal basis to prevent someone from taking the picture.
Germany makes a distinction between expectations of privacy and being in a public space. If you’re in a cafe and talking to someone at your table, you generally do not expect others to participate and listen to your conversation, that can be enough to be considered private and would likely be illegal to record without consent. The act of recording audio is in itself restricted, though if you share you can have additional charges. I’m pretty sure that makes always-on video recording (with audio) very much incompatible with German laws.
It’s an ok system but too restrictive and outdated IMHO, so many people recording something with their phone will unwillingly record people passing by, which is likely not allowed.
I'm speaking generally here, not specifically about German or any law. I also know there are probably situations I'm not thinking about. But it seems generally pretty cut and dry as to what the focus of a recording is. If you are filming your friend in public and there are people in the background, I don't see that as a big deal. If you film strangers, get audio of their conversation, you should not be allowed to post this online. If they are interacting or harassing you, this should also be a pretty cut and dry case where posting them is ok. I do realize this probably opens up a bunch of loop holes but ya. I dunno. Honestly, I'd rather have the German laws than what we have in North America right now.
Why is Meta insisting on forcing these "pervert" glasses on us? I can tell you why: advertising. I bet some "pervert" within Meta (may Zuck himself) has already thought up that whatever you look at will result in you getting an ad for that item.
"I see you're looking at a car. How about this new Toyota RAV4?" "I see you're looking at a mobile phone. How about this new Samsung Galaxy Fold which is on sale." "I see you're looking at a cup of coffee. How about this new Latte from Starbucks down the road just a mile from here."
It's platform anxiety. Meta are still frustrated that they missed out on controlling the mobile platform and have to pay those 30% fees to Google and Apple.
The metaverse was the same thing: they are willing to spend an inordinate amount of money on the chance that something new - in this case face-computers - will be the next big platform.
If someone signs in and gives up their privacy, I don't care. Where I do care is when someone with their pervert glasses captures an image of me at my kid's little league game and now I'm getting ads based on that.
A little league game has hundreds of people taking pictures and video. Unless your child plays naked there is nothing you can do to stop them. If you really want to stop anyone from seeing your child in public you would need a Burka or don't allow them to be in public.
I think you are fighting a losing battle if you choose to allow your kids to enter society.
Scale matters. Parents taking their phones out to record discrete events in a visible way is one thing, and the data may or may not make its way to Facebook. Parents wearing glasses that record and upload 100% of what they are seeing to Facebook is qualitatively different.
Similar to how cops getting a warrant and tapping a single person's phone is different from the government spying on all citizens at all times.
It won't matter. People will assume it has a camera. The product category is most likely (and rather predictably) dead if it depends on people wearing them ubiquitously and in public.
Which will be incredibly problematic if the manufacturers continue to aim for something unobtrusive. Eventually, just normal spectacle wearers will be the targets of mistrust and, unfortunately, worse.
I do think that people should be legally allowed to make recordings in public, provided they are not harassing anyone. I do not think they are entitled to make those recordings in secret; just have a regulated indicator, like the bluetooth led.
The product you describe would have very limited use. The full HUD of realtime information absolutely has benefits for the real world, but of course it will be used for things people would subvert for a more malevolent purpose. There's no avoiding that. Does the malevolent use out weight the beneficial use to the point the product should never be allowed?
People misuse all types of technology, yes. For now I'm not wearing any camera on my glasses partially because I don't want people being wary of me, but also I don't think it'd be that helpful. I am fine taking my phone out when a camera is needed.
If anyone comes up with a nice set without a camera, I'll consider it.
It wouldn't do that. I think it would be more of a HUD that works with your phone/devices? Maybe some kind of wrist controller like the meta display already has.
I don't have a pitch deck ready to go, but I think if constrained to not have a camera, product teams may still come up with a compelling product.
I agree with the verbiage if not with the sentiment. These are a perversion of technology. People hold their phones up for entire songs at a concert instead of being absorbed in the experience. Removing friction from recording will multiply digital hoarding behavior no matter what other risks are at play. There is a balance there; it's nice to be reminded of experiences. But where is the line?
I do think its a bit odd to automatically and "obviously" default to the idea that people will be using these to be perverts. Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me.
Although its even more disheartening that most people's reactions to just about anything these days is dread about how it'll make their lives worse without fail.
> Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me.
What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'.
This product is absolutely toxic, and I can't imagine myself or anyone I know being willing to associate or socialize with someone wearing them (again, excluding some very specific a11y use).
> What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'.
Hmm, here's a few that could potentially be implemented in augmented glasses, though I have no idea if they're implemented yet:
- Giving me directions via an overlay when I'm walking around without requiring me to pull out my phone
- overlay of a recipe when I'm cooking something new
- pointing out constellations in the night sky
- reminding me of people's names and/or upcoming plans with them
- price comparisons in grocery stores; the glasses read the prices and tell you how they compare to prices in other nearby stores
- (at the gym) correcting someone's form on weightlifting, with visual overlays
My assumption about the default use case is that people want to take normal pictures. For example, I wear them to sporting events, and it's a lot faster to take a picture of the action with my Meta glasses than with my iPhone.
Being able to snap a pic without getting too far out of the moment, like when I am at a museum or in a beautiful place is great.
Even better is being able to snap a picture of my grandchildren without distracting them. As soon as I pull out my phone, they are grabbing for it. Some of my favorite pics were taken by my meta glasses.
I can't think of a better example of intrusiveness than "as soon as I pull out my phone [the kids] are grabbing for it", which I'm reading as "the kids want to use it even tho it isn't theirs". We've trained the kids to intrude on someone else so they can get a dopamine hit.
If photo quality is the only concern, a DSLR camera will take a better picture than a modern phone, so you shouldn't use a phone either. But the person you're replying to didn't say it was "better", they said "faster", so that's what's more important to them.
Fishing videos are one of the best usecases I've seen for them, but people generally go fishing alone or with close friends/family so it's a much different scenario than being a glasshole in public.
I for one prefer taking pictures with the Meta glasses when traveling. Taking a phone out of your pocket, launching an app, holding the phone in front of you until you align the object in focus and then tapping a button starts feeling so inelegant after a while, compared to a quick press on the side of the glasses. The picture also comes out looking exactly how you saw it, videos are from your POV.
When driving, I like hearing the GPS navigation instructions discreetly without having my ears blocked by earphones and the car music being interrupted (also my wife can't stand the navigation voice and always asks me to silence it. With the glasses I can still hear the instructions).
Again, when traveling, if I'm staring at a building or something I'm curious about, I can ask the AI to tell me more things about the thing I'm looking at. It's quick and convenient.
> I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'.
Obvious non-perverted use cases:
* HUD when your hands are occupied - biking, cooking, etc.
* Camera-augmented navigation directions, especially indoors
* Shopping, price comparison
* Tourism, museum visits - automatically surfacing
information about historical landmarks or artworks.
I would have loved to have smart glasses for these reasons, but unfortunately, the perverts ruined it for the rest of us and made the product category toxic.
They could have been of use to replace bike cameras for cycling (so that you have evidence of close passes etc), but the battery life and resolution isn't great, so bike cameras are currently a lot better for that.
> its even more disheartening that most people's reactions to just about anything these days is dread about how it'll make their lives worse without fail.
Maybe because most (tech) things do make most people's live worse without fail (such as these glasses being available)? I don't see how you can blame people for a very rational reaction here
I have a friend that works at Meta who was all the way convinced this tech was going to be ubiquitous well before they came out and I have always been like, "Yeah, until one hillbilly kills some guy for looking at his daughter with them on and it goes viral."
It just seems like a no-brainer that these things will invite violence upon you once a critical mass of the population understands what they are, and thus people will eventually stop wearing them in public.
I wore these glasses for two years. I won't buy them again for reasons mentioned elsewhere. In that time nobody ever mentioned them. It's relatively difficult to pick these out in a crowd, unless they are actively recording (and even then it's hard to notice).
This whole thing has felt very odd. Did we collectively forget about the Google Glass and glass-holes? This was entirely predictable. I guess the only difference this time around is how inconspicuous they are.
>“We’re at a very sensitive time for the tech industry in terms of trying to really preserve that positive consumer sentiment that’s taking a bit of a hit due to AI
Understatement of the year. That would be true maybe 10 years ago, during the Cambridge Analytics era. We are way, way past that point, and a so called tech analyst talking about "preserving the positive sentiment" is truly bizarre
> Gaby Luisa was standing outside a dance club in Arizona earlier this summer when a man wearing glasses threw out a pickup line.
“Did I just run into my future wife?” he asked.
She politely let him know she wasn’t interested and moved on with her evening.
She was shocked to find out later that their interaction was recorded and posted on YouTube without her knowledge or permission, using smart glasses which, she said, looked like Meta’s glasses.
Goddamn this wild. Maybe tell people you’re recording and later plan to upload to YouTube?
I was trying to brainstorm ways to make these palatable to general society. Because I think this kind of thing is going to happen, but a lot of people (myself included) have a legitimate problem with surreptitious recordings.
It needs a "recording" light when it is recording. But creeps will just disable the recording light with e.g. a sticker.
Idea: What if the recording light embeds a little IR signal, and if the camera recording doesn't pick up that signal, it stops working
I think the only way will be the tech getting too useful for the complaints to matter. Currently it's only marginally useful. Otherwise this irrational reaction will continue. Would help for the tech to come from companies with less awful reputations.
Alternatively, maybe the solution will be some sort of device signature embedded into the video data at the hardware level so that videos are traceable to the person that recorded them.
To me the main annoyance is that XR glasses partially rely on cameras to enable things like 6DOF tracking and hand tracking. Having that use conflated with people trying to secretly record others is pretty annoying.
This kind of discrete recording capability already is so widespread and accessible. Amazon is full of these kinds of devices, tiny "AI" audio recorders, pens with hidden cameras etc. They don't even require much technical competency.
People also walk around with their phones out so often. There's no way for you to know that they aren't recording. E.g. someone could easily be pretending to use their phone when climbing stairs while actually taking upskirt shots with the front camera.
Social media is also already full of people shamelessly recording others in situations where they would not want to be recorded.
Actual perverts have little reason to use these glasses specifically, and as mentioned in my previous post, the cameras have utility other than recording others.
Then you can filter only the visible part of the signal, plus if they become common you risk interference, contamination or long term exposure (Your face regularly points to other people faces/eyes)
If you want to secretly record someone in public, aren't there already plenty of much subtler ways? Pinhole camera in your shirt pocket, normal glasses with a hidden camera, camera integrated into a hat, etc? "Disable the recording light in your smart glasses" would just be one more entry in that list.
10 years ago one could buy "spyglasses" on eBay with camera in the middle hidden behind a polarizing filter, looking like regular glasses. This Meta stuff feels like a bad copy of the same.
The thing about smart glasses is when they try to do it surrepticiously, it puts that feeling on the wearer.
Google Glass looked quite different. Everyone knew how you were wearing it. Wear it long enough and people might have questions, try it out, and learn.
Hiding a camera in glasses doesn't allow for those kinds of interactions, its media going into an unknown bucket. It's also very one sided and to the benefit or decision of one person. If the person being recorded had full access to what was being recorded, maybe that might mean something to some folks.
It's too bad because there's probably cases where the form factor of meta's smart glasses are genuinely helpful for today. Instead of finding and rolling them out there first, by trying to push to the general public, the results can vary.
There's no shortage of folks and devices surreptitiously recording people with devices, or during meetings in person. Once that gets figured out socially these kinds of devices may have better reception.
The backlash itself may not mean much; it's what comes next that matters. If you want to regulate this, strike now while the iron is hot:
Meta and everyone else with experience knows that, for disruptive technologies, backlash is the stage before adoption. In a sense, the backlash means you're achieving market momentum.
Not all backlashes lead to adoption, but if you want to implement regulations (blur all faces in recordings, no identification, etc.), now is the time to move. At the adoption stage it seems to become normalized and people lose interest, like with other mass surveillance - obviously horrific and dangerous, but few will think about doing anything.
It's classic Meta. They made a consious decision to completely hide the cameras so the person wearing it wouldn't feel mildly uncomfortable while they completely violate everyone around them. The little light offers zero transparency - it's plausible deniability wrapped in a least-effort attempt at caring about your privacy.
The only thing that made this strategy fail the regular Meta playbook was the glasses became too popular too quickly, and rather that people slowly sinking into acceptance and complacency, they decided to speak up and shit on the glasses and call out the wearers for being creeps
>"Some people are using the glasses — which look like a pair of regular spectacles — to record people without their knowledge and publish the videos on social media.
The users secretly videotape and share what happens when they try to pick up women. Now, a growing number of people are worried they could be covertly recorded at the gym..."
Observation: The same technology could be used to record business deals, job interviews and other negotiations with consent of the counterparty... In fact, both parties in such transactions could record this way (legally and ethically!) if each has consent of the other...
>"pre-existing recording devices available already..."
Exactly!
People could be "covertly recorded at the gym" (as the article states!) by other pre-existing recording devices (any other kind of video camera, mounted in the gym or on a gym member's smartphone or other electronic device) -- not just Meta's smart glasses!
In other words, the central issue of the article seems to stem more from consent (more specifically, the lack of consent!) than it does from a specific type of video recording device...
Good. Sink these fucking things into the bottom of the ocean.
If you want this tech to help people (blind people, etc) make them fugly and very visibly as an aid, not some stupid fashion accessory where these retards can just completely hide them
The backlash on these is entirely about the fact that they are unfashionable looking. The previous RayBan Metas were very popular and no one had a problem with them. Then Zuck wanted to put in an LCD display so he made them chunkier and they don't look as cool. So people are retroactively coming up with objections to the technology. Nobody cared when the glasses looked good!
I did not like the original RayBan ones for the same creepy reason of recording people without consent. I am at least one person, I'm sure there were others.
I was at a place recently that had a nude sauna. The year before a guy had been caught propping up his phone discreetly in a corner to film people, so this year their policy was that everyone had to declare their phones and switch them off before going inside. Which did very little to solve that problem, but I’m guessing confiscating everyone’s phones was too logistically difficult. My first thought was that this place is not at all ready for the onslaught of smart glasses.
I worry that these will become so discreet that people will be suspicious of anyone wearing any glasses at all, even dumb ones, in a locker room or bathroom.
Tech is so frustrating in real life. I feel like we have all the cool sci fi stuff I always wanted, but everything comes with a monkey's paw style gotcha. The idea of meta glasses is so awesome, I want a heads up display to show me whatever I want. But there is no way in hell I would use them because the company that makes it can’t be trusted.
> I would use them because the company that makes it can’t be trusted.
I think this gets at only half of the problem. Not only can meta not be trusted, even if I trust _you_ if you were friend, I wouldn't trust any _other_ random user of such a product. As such, better to not have such a product around.
I think I agree with this sentiment most. I am having trouble articulating it. I think wearing smart glasses in some situations is on a scale between rude, offensive, and wrong. I think that's what culture teaches us about what is and what isn't acceptable behavior, right? Like some places teach us it's rude to speak over each-other. Here in New England it is rude not to.
I am 100% on board with calling smart glasses "Pervert glasses" if worn in situations that call for it
What situations call for "Pervert glasses?"
Active duty police officers. Anything that applies to bodycams should apply to other public recording devices.
I think maybe I in-artfully wrote it - I mean: there are situations when wearing smart glasses should be labelled 'pervert glasses'. Not that there are situations that require wearing of the glasses
They're just being intentionally obtuse.
Wearing them in a locker room or at a pool party or at the beach or really anywhere you might be likely to catch a recording of someone in a state of undress that they wouldn't want you to have a recording of?
Correct the issue isn't Meta people just don't like the idea they could be being recorded at any time to get blasted out to the whole world. Yes, in theory you're always open to being recorded in public but the glasses make it far more subtle /and/ up close so more normal interactions become subject to the intrusion in a way that would normally be quite obvious.
It's basically the same backlash that hit Google Glass over a decade ago. Nothing has really changed about the product and the reason people reject is so viscerally when they're not the user.
At my kid's daycare, they sent home an authorization form to allow them to use your kid in pics that might be posted to the internet. Some parents declined out of privacy concerns. Now I guess we are just blasting past all of that. Kind of like AI and copyright.
Phones already make people much more reserved and less "wild" eg at parties compared to pre-phone-cameras (that are always online and can upload to social media effortlessly).
It's true but phones are much more obvious that you have them out and probably filming where the glasses aren't so can be more controlled and at least reacted to. The glasses create more uncertainty about if the person is filming.
It's more obvious, but since people use their phones all the time anyway, you really have to look at the angle they hold the phone to be sure. So it's not super hard to be sneaky about it even with a phone.
After covid I forgot the names of coworkers, I'm really bad at remembering them. Having something that could just show me peoples names would be nice. Maybe I'm just a bad person for not remembering them and it could be a nice challenge to my existing social behaviors to ask again. I wouldn't trust meta enough to use these glasses, I dont even use instragram.
As somebody who is also terrible at remembering names, I also used to think this but ever since I saw this idea taken to its logical extreme by some students a few years ago I've become significantly more resistant to it: https://x.com/AnhPhuNguyen1/status/1840786336992682409
I feel you - I've always had a blackspot in my brain for names; I once was showing a new hire around, and about halfway through introducing my colleagues, my brain gave up and I couldn't remember anyone any more. Just awful.
"I'll let you guys introduce yourselves..."
Absolutely this. Even better, if you ever find yourself playing one of the "guys" in this situation, just act pre-emptively and introduce yourself!
Why do you want this? I honestly think we’ve completely forgotten how to be present and notice the real world without the idea of augmenting it.
I think you can be present in the moment, but still find value in a tool like this. I may not be "the norm" because I'm legally blind, but in some sense, a tool like this could make me even more present. I currently use my phone a lot to zoom in on signs to read them. I'd love it if I wouldn't have to hold a phone in front of my face, just to know whether the place I'm standing in front of is, in fact, Jimmy's Barbershop, or whatever place I'm trying to navigate to for the first time.
I do think accessibility is a great market for innovation like this, but it doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for general populations. Take electric mobility devices, for example. Electric wheelchairs are great for people who are paralyzed, but e-scooters have become a scourge for some urban residents as their users park them on sidewalks, block curb cuts, and generally get in the way of pedestrians.
I wouldn't wear them when I'm walking in the woods or hanging out at home. Having 'incoming car warning', or waypoint nav when I'm biking/running? That would be great!
Garmin has offered this for years. As a plus, the Varia taillight has a radar, so you don’t have to wear your pervert glasses on the back of your helmet to alert for incoming cars.
I personally prefer good old situational awareness
As a parent of a new kid, being present is exactly why I wanted a pair - I didn't want to spend time looking at them through a screen, but still wanted to keepsake some precious early moments.
(didn't work out that way in practice, but that was the idea)
I'm not the person that you're replying to, but:
It can be less intrusive than using a phone, I believe. That makes it a step closer to being present. (I don't know specifics, but I'm assuming that the display can be turned off when not in use.)
Also, if someone already wears glasses, why not have glasses that can do more?
You don't need a phone either and sorry but the idea of someone using a device to learn things about me that I did not share with them is frankly disgusting and dehumanizing.
You can simply talk to people, we don't have to enable your perversions because you refuse to interact with humans.
You mean like if they google you?
You google random people you see on the street? That is creepy. I don't think this is something that should be automated, like what the topic of this submissions is about: pervert glasses.
I'm with you, here. People just think very differently, though. For example, I really enjoy sci-fi, but I've always viewed as a neat fantasy. Sometimes I think "It would be cool if this were real," but mostly I lean toward, "I'm so glad none of this is actually real."
Different stokes, though.
> notice the real world without the idea of augmenting it.
The core problem of solitude is curiosity and sonder.
When I smell fennel on a hike, I want to know what it is - yeah, this is dog fennel.
When I see a strange symbol on a taxi car, I want to know why it is 3 arrows on bow and what that is.
Seeing a strange dog and wondering what kind of dog that is (a whippet?). A glimpse of a black bird with red shoulder patches.
Hearing someone's ringtone (not these days anymore) and wonder why it is familiar ("ah, it is spelled fa9la, who'd have guessed").
There is a twinge of "This is why we can't have nice things" about the whole article for someone who can't get enough of the world you can see through your eyes.
Curiousity is characterized by the pursuit for the answer, not the ability or speed to find the answer. You can still be curious without a google search bar, and I often find those pursuits are (1) much more rewarding and (2) stick around enough to become knowledge.
I'd say, if anything, this would make me less curious. The less you know, the better.
Because its cool.
I mean, the real answer is that we have the technology to be tech wizards. You could conjure spatially anchored widgets and screens and gauges.
You could put a cooking show screen above the stove, where a physical screen wouldn't work. You could put a synced calendar on the wall. Notes app on the fridge, weather reminders by the door. ...a million mundane conveniences in the house alone.
But still, its too heavy and to do the spatial anchoring you need a device with a constant camera feed and the only folks who make that at the moment have questionable morals.
People always say this like having an actual board of notes on the fridge hasn't been trivially possible for a century.
It's like people obsessing over window managers. 99% of the time, the amount of windows you have showing is not the problem, you can't really focus on more than one at a time anyway.
Consider as a demonstrative example, race car drivers. They have had options to have extremely detailed Heads Up Displays with all sorts of absurd data available at a glance for decades. But they largely do not use tons of data like that, because it's just not compatible with the human brain. They already are looking at things more often and processing more info than a "normal" person while racing, but that heads up display would not benefit them.
Similarly, the Heads Up Display for modern fighter jets is very lightweight, focusing on allowing you to see around it and provide you the very basics of flight instrumentation and a standard orientation instrument.
People just have wild ideas about how to "optimize" their lives that are just not supported by reality.
You would be better off making flash cards about those things you want to "know" in that moment and drilling them.
I too used to be drawn to this idea. Back in 2016ish, I got an ODBII dongle for my car and app for my phone and was so excited about all the data I was going to have at a glance, just like some sort of pro! But the data was pointless and meaningless. Oh, timing advance is at 20 degrees in this throttle regime. Cool I guess.
Eventually I gave up and only have my car showing instantaneous fuel efficiency, which is the only valuable data point for my needs.
but then you are not present, you are distracted by a computer. Just because that computer does not have a clunky monitor, doesn't mean that you aren't any less distracted.
Some of the attitudes on this website, especially ones like yours, are the literal reason we are in this mess today.
Please, please, if you have the power, push back on this nonsense from the inside. We need more people talking to other people like real humans, not like notes in a digital diary.
Nothing I described replaces or impacts talking to a human. If someone is going to distract themselves in XR, they can already do it more efficiently on a handset. The only change would be your posture and eye strain could possibly improve.
The glasses & software could have come from the Linux Foundation & the same concerns from people would remain.
Probably different concerns. If you had a home video and I was in the background I wouldn't care. The odds of anyone recognizing me would be low. If you upload it to anyone using mass AI (YouTube, Meta, etc.) then I care a lot.
I suspect you're not a pretty girl that gets stared at. Neither am I, but if I were I'd rather the stares weren't recordable.
If I was a pretty girl that gets stared at I think I'd want to record the ones doing the staring
People generally commit less crime if they think they're on camera
If they do commit a crime, at least there would be video evidence
Or if they just want to be creepy, I'd send those stares to their wife
Considering motivated perverts would use hidden cameras, as opposed to cameras literally on their face, I think the asymmetry here is in favor of recording the perverts rather than vice versa
Startup idea: customers give you their Meta glasses, you smash the camera and microphone (with a tiny sledge hammer), and wrap most of the glasses and particularly where mic/camera would have been in a special casing with a very unique and patented design you also make a huge fuss on social media about, so everybody knows it.
The wrapper is hard/impossible to remove, only the company can trigger the self-release mechanism, and customers have to sign that they owe you a lot of money when they remove or damage it (which is risky, so they have to be careful or it's their problem). You basically just rent it to them, for lots of money per month, so they can show off their Good Guy Glasses (hey that's actually a name! can I have 10% please if anyone does this, I'll also help out if you want, maybe with the tiny sledge hammer. thanks!).
"Oh, you can afford Meta glasses to be a perv? Well, I can't afford the equivalent of a bunch of them every year, but I still do it because I'm a good person."
The ad could be some street kid in the rain with some guy (Morgan Freeman maybe) offering to sell it these glasses, saying "you can pay in tiny rates" and whatnot, and the kid just sadly shakes its head.. so the guy goes down on one knee, eye to eye with the kid and says... "When I was your age, I thought everything is about money, too. But some things are about being a good person. If you had a mommy, surely she would want you to be a good person, right?" The kid nods, still hesitates, but by the way the music swells as the ad fades you just know it's gonna be alright.
And two months later, knock-offs that leave the camera and mic operable are available for $5 on Temu.
It’s so interesting to me that there are still so many people who see the monkey’s-paw thing as somehow secondary or incidental, even those who acknowledge that it’s often there! I don’t really understand why this is, or why I feel differently. To me at least, the monkey’s-paw aspect is primary now, to the point that the gee-whiz aspect hardly bears on my thinking at all.
I’m not telling you that I think you’re wrong or foolish, to be clear! I just have this different instinct from you, although it sounds like we basically agree on the reflective level. I’m interested in what it is that directs peoples’ attention and interest in such a way that new information technology products pattern-match to “cool, shiny, new, handy, exciting; freedom” or to “dystopian social control, creepy surveillance capitalism; unfreedom.” People have different System 1 intuitions, orthogonal to their System 2 thinking!
It’s so weird because I used to be the other way. I can’t put my finger on when or how the phase transition took place in my mind.
The web is truly taken over by the biggest scumbags on the planet preying on the technological naivety of a populous they helped entrap.
In the beginning they stepped in with the cloud to bring the "always available" thing to the masses, while simultaneously socially and legally destroying the burgeoning p2p ecosystem. Convenience at the cost of freedom.
That had the effect of kneecapping the technological progress and knowhow of ordinary people and has left them trapped on platforms they moved their lives to but are owned by their abusers.
The abusers are now in complete control and the abused have no ability to even imagine an alternative.
The alternative is to leave these platforms. Form alternate social groups with open technologies that stay resilient to outages and attacks.
We don't need the cloud anymore for the vast majority of civic and social life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
Check out the even reality g2. No camera
I suspect he wants the AR features (which require a camera).
The no camera HUD is exactly what I want, except I also want SSH (Mosh) and sending text to speech to it before I'd buy these.
Bro, read the article. As much as I hate corporations, this is not there fault. It's women who don't like perverts using the glasses and the perverts who use these glasses to look at women.
This is a phenomenon among the masses of consumers who use this tech, the corporation has nothing to do with it. In fact the corporation is trying to reign in your freedom to use these tools by stopping this perverted stuff from happening. Blame US, consumers, not our corporate overlords.
Here's what I think: I think it is essential to protect freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This is just an unfortunate consequence of those freedoms. If you want to protect womens discomfort then you have to restrict these freedoms. I'm against that. This is an unfortunate situation but the alternative is worse. Because ONCE those rules are in place and codified into law, censorship and freedoms can become bigger and worse.
Women just need to deal with it. Assume that whenever you're in a public place, ALL your actions are PUBLIC. A women (and men) should dress and talk in a way conducive to the public arena.
Either way, despite what I believe, it's already to late. This freedom is already restricted by Wiretapping law. If someone threatens to kill you and you wiretap it as evidence... that evidence is dismissible in court even after said subject (you) was found dead. We are rapidly moving towards a world where a persons discomfort can control your freedoms and even dictate reality (evidence).
What does that have to do with freedom of speech? How is recording people without their consent or knowledge freedom of speech? That sounds absurd to me
The law allows recording of people without consent or knowledge now. From flock cameras to door bell cameras to store cameras your pcture is taken hundreds of times daily. To just restrict glasses can be seen as a freedom of speech issue.
I'm guessing you're in the US; in the UK, door bell cameras are only legally allowed to film your own property.
I think of this like the camera shutter sound laws in Japan. We could easily regulate that the cameras must have visible indicators that they're recording, and ideally they should be required to be visually distinct from a normal pair of sunglasses in some way.
Same for phones too while we're at it.
You can disable the LED at the hardware level
If someone threatens to kill you and you wiretap it as evidence... that evidence is dismissible in court even after said subject (you) was found dead.
That's not how the law works in the U.S. or most of Europe. A recording of the defendant threatening to kill the victim is admissible as evidence, especially if the victim winds up dead shortly thereafter. For example, see https://www.thebulldog.law/california-penal-code-633-5-the-v...
freedom of speech != freedom to surreptitiously record
I think, sadly, this is the expected result.
Imagine if tomorrow we invented ubiquitous instant teleportation to arbitrary locations.
There would be a moment where we hear how great it is to eliminate commutes, or air travel, followed shortly afterwards by the collapse of civilisation as societies grapple with the elimination of property, what remains of private space, and so on.
Meta should use their Kylie Jenner et al connection to design a camera that is both stylish and obvious.
AFAICT the main use case for camera glasses is very similar to the "gopro on your helmet" use case for cyclists:
- to record cool first-person video to upload to TikTok et al
- to warn cars / creeps "I'm recording this and will send footage to the cops"
AFAICT, influencers generally want people to know they're influencers. They're using meta glasses not because the glasses let them go incognito, they're wearing them because a gopro on a helmet is dorky.
And obviously an incognito camera is going to be much less useful staving off harassment than an obvious one.
I'm sure someone other company will make exactly those glaces, obvious and stylish recording devices.
In the meantime, it's quite telling that Meta is choosing not to.
They want recording to be constant, impossible to detect, and normalized. That's why the camera light is so subtle and easy to cover. The more constant surveillance is normalized, the more they have data about every single facet of our lives to sell to advertises.
At some point, incognito will scale to hidden and I think that's the part that has to be reimagined. It's not about hidden camera, it's about cooperative and consent based.
What comes to mind are those orange tip laws mandating that airsoft guns must be manufactured with an orange tip to differentiate them visually from real firearms.
In this case, maybe there could be some mandated standardized high-viz indicator that there is a camera lens being pointed at you in wearable devices.
I could see maybe allowing the high-viz element to be concealed if the mechanism concealing it also blocks the lens.
They already have a bright light that when covered, disables the camera
These glasses are really great to use. The camera is pretty fundamental functionality because you can use it to tell you things about the world around you. At the Vancouver Aquarium we asked about some fish we saw and stuff. I was quite surprised at the speed of the multi-modal model. It recognized the fish type, and then gave us some facts about it. Fantastic stuff, honestly.
It's also marvelous for taking videos of your children playing at the park. Here's my daughter at Port Moody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLAByw6ZYc
Very ergonomic and you get your hands free to catch them if something is about to happen. In the end, we didn't end up using them that much because the whole charging thing makes it kind of annoying, but that's about the only reason. I can't imagine I'd use it in a context where I wouldn't wear a GoPro, but it's a cool form factor.
I agree, but unfortunately, they don't have great quality or support.
First, I've had these for about 2-years. I purchased them to capture candid pictures and video's on a cruise and they were fantastic for that purpose but I've bought two pairs in two years and won't buy them again.
When you email Ray Bans for support they send you a wall of text mentioning everything their warranty doesn't cover. It was enough to discourage me from continuing to get a case replacement 2-weeks after my purchase and I just bought a third-party adapter instead. I expected more from the brand. I won't buy Ray Bans (Meta or otherwise) again because of the hostility in that one email.
My first pair died after 1-year (I gave them away after 6-months and they only lasted the new owner another 6-months). My second pair died after just over a year.
I'd love to have a good pair of camera/audio glasses. The audio is one of the best parts. But these Meta glasses aren't it for me anymore.
The audio is actually remarkable. My wife could hear the whole description while I was standing next to her and heard nothing. There are these bone-conduction headsets that also do this stuff and it seems nothing short of magic. Sad to hear these ones didn't last. Who knows if they'll work if we ever take them out of the case.
Thinking completely selfishly, as a visually impaired person, I want these to succeed, because they can be a great assistive tool. And assistive tools being general consumer products makes them cheaper.
Our idea of a public/private privacy division where private recording is discouraged and public is a free for all really feels dated.
I know personally I'd love to see a private/local/wide distribution division or something like that where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net. There are real harms to being a public figure and the net rarely understands context.
I do have one note on all this though. I think there are some real benefits to being able to record people in public re corruption, criminality etc so I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead.
(Repost from the thread earlier today on the same subject)
> I don't think any changes should be about public recording but about distribution instead.
I think this is pretty reasonable and something I hadn't thought of. I've been thinking about this generally a bunch as I agree that the blanket "No right to privacy in public" is really just lazy. Of course we've been filmed in public for decades now, but it wasn't being shown to people on the internet this whole time (or even to anyone in many cases). Concessions could be made for filming police/public figures and people committing crimes. It's probably harder than I think, but just being able to post anyone online is pretty terrible whether it's your "right" or not. Think of all the godawful nuisance "content" that would have just never existed.
> where simply going outside to get groceries or whatever doesn't count as consent to be plastered across the net.
I think this is wanting a rule that doesn't draw boundaries in a way that aligns with the natural world. Your right to see what is around you and to remember what you see is pretty fundamental. You might say there is a ethical reason not to gossip about what you remember seeing, but I would push back on the idea that it ought to be illegal for Bob to mention to Carol that he saw Alice at the store, and Meta glasses (or paparazzi or even Snow Crash's gargoyles) are a difference of degree, not kind, from the neighborhood gossip.
There's a lot of copyright and other rights management that can be applied. Many buildings are copyrighted. If you take a picture of a building, which you are free to do, you cannot make money from that image just because you took it while being in the open public. The same should be applicable to people as well. Yes, you took a picture of them while in public, but they people still own the rights to the likeness. If your image is clearly focused on a single person, you need rights releases to make money from that image. That's how it works in things like stock images. As far as how things work with the TMZ ilk of the world is an entirely different thing that we've seem to come to accept. The stalking of people, celebrity or not, just so people can be entertained at home with the personal drama of those people is just gross.
> Many buildings are copyrighted. If you take a picture of a building, which you are free to do, you cannot make money from that image just because you took it while being in the open public.
In which country? Certainly not the USA. There are very few countries in which this is true, such as France and Italy.
> Many buildings are copyrighted
Well, let me stop you right there. That's the bit that needs fixing.
Nope, can't stop right there. It is the situation we live in now. You can release a product like a poster or puzzle or whatever and try to YOLO with your protest, but you will lose in court when you are sued by the rights holder.
There's a museum with a very distinct building that is infamous for sending security staff out to tell photographers they cannot image the building. They have no idea what someone will do with the image, so they have no legal basis to prevent someone from taking the picture.
> There's a museum with a very distinct building that is infamous for sending security staff out to tell photographers they cannot image the building
Which one is that?
> It is the situation we live in now.
That's what
> That's the bit that needs fixing.
means.
Germany makes a distinction between expectations of privacy and being in a public space. If you’re in a cafe and talking to someone at your table, you generally do not expect others to participate and listen to your conversation, that can be enough to be considered private and would likely be illegal to record without consent. The act of recording audio is in itself restricted, though if you share you can have additional charges. I’m pretty sure that makes always-on video recording (with audio) very much incompatible with German laws.
It’s an ok system but too restrictive and outdated IMHO, so many people recording something with their phone will unwillingly record people passing by, which is likely not allowed.
I'm speaking generally here, not specifically about German or any law. I also know there are probably situations I'm not thinking about. But it seems generally pretty cut and dry as to what the focus of a recording is. If you are filming your friend in public and there are people in the background, I don't see that as a big deal. If you film strangers, get audio of their conversation, you should not be allowed to post this online. If they are interacting or harassing you, this should also be a pretty cut and dry case where posting them is ok. I do realize this probably opens up a bunch of loop holes but ya. I dunno. Honestly, I'd rather have the German laws than what we have in North America right now.
Why is Meta insisting on forcing these "pervert" glasses on us? I can tell you why: advertising. I bet some "pervert" within Meta (may Zuck himself) has already thought up that whatever you look at will result in you getting an ad for that item.
"I see you're looking at a car. How about this new Toyota RAV4?" "I see you're looking at a mobile phone. How about this new Samsung Galaxy Fold which is on sale." "I see you're looking at a cup of coffee. How about this new Latte from Starbucks down the road just a mile from here."
Just thinking about it drives me nuts with rage!
It's platform anxiety. Meta are still frustrated that they missed out on controlling the mobile platform and have to pay those 30% fees to Google and Apple.
The metaverse was the same thing: they are willing to spend an inordinate amount of money on the chance that something new - in this case face-computers - will be the next big platform.
If someone signs in and gives up their privacy, I don't care. Where I do care is when someone with their pervert glasses captures an image of me at my kid's little league game and now I'm getting ads based on that.
A little league game has hundreds of people taking pictures and video. Unless your child plays naked there is nothing you can do to stop them. If you really want to stop anyone from seeing your child in public you would need a Burka or don't allow them to be in public.
I think you are fighting a losing battle if you choose to allow your kids to enter society.
Scale matters. Parents taking their phones out to record discrete events in a visible way is one thing, and the data may or may not make its way to Facebook. Parents wearing glasses that record and upload 100% of what they are seeing to Facebook is qualitatively different.
Similar to how cops getting a warrant and tapping a single person's phone is different from the government spying on all citizens at all times.
I hope one of these companies pulls off a compelling set of glasses with a display and no camera.
Even Realities G2, and MemoMind One + NIMO glasses coming soon.
Vuzix Z100 if you can find them anywhere as well...
All of these are green LED displays though, not a full color HUD.
It won't matter. People will assume it has a camera. The product category is most likely (and rather predictably) dead if it depends on people wearing them ubiquitously and in public.
Which will be incredibly problematic if the manufacturers continue to aim for something unobtrusive. Eventually, just normal spectacle wearers will be the targets of mistrust and, unfortunately, worse.
I do think that people should be legally allowed to make recordings in public, provided they are not harassing anyone. I do not think they are entitled to make those recordings in secret; just have a regulated indicator, like the bluetooth led.
Nah. If there's no obvious lenses, people won't assume that.
how would they know they are smartglasses? people looking at you head on can't see the display, depending on the set.
The product you describe would have very limited use. The full HUD of realtime information absolutely has benefits for the real world, but of course it will be used for things people would subvert for a more malevolent purpose. There's no avoiding that. Does the malevolent use out weight the beneficial use to the point the product should never be allowed?
People misuse all types of technology, yes. For now I'm not wearing any camera on my glasses partially because I don't want people being wary of me, but also I don't think it'd be that helpful. I am fine taking my phone out when a camera is needed.
If anyone comes up with a nice set without a camera, I'll consider it.
There's a kickstarter for "MemoMind One". Glasses with display and no camera.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1963472698/memomind-one...
How would it analyze your surroundings without a camera
It wouldn't do that. I think it would be more of a HUD that works with your phone/devices? Maybe some kind of wrist controller like the meta display already has.
I don't have a pitch deck ready to go, but I think if constrained to not have a camera, product teams may still come up with a compelling product.
I agree with the verbiage if not with the sentiment. These are a perversion of technology. People hold their phones up for entire songs at a concert instead of being absorbed in the experience. Removing friction from recording will multiply digital hoarding behavior no matter what other risks are at play. There is a balance there; it's nice to be reminded of experiences. But where is the line?
I do think its a bit odd to automatically and "obviously" default to the idea that people will be using these to be perverts. Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me.
Although its even more disheartening that most people's reactions to just about anything these days is dread about how it'll make their lives worse without fail.
> Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me.
What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'.
This product is absolutely toxic, and I can't imagine myself or anyone I know being willing to associate or socialize with someone wearing them (again, excluding some very specific a11y use).
> What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'.
Hmm, here's a few that could potentially be implemented in augmented glasses, though I have no idea if they're implemented yet:
- Giving me directions via an overlay when I'm walking around without requiring me to pull out my phone
- overlay of a recipe when I'm cooking something new
- pointing out constellations in the night sky
- reminding me of people's names and/or upcoming plans with them
- price comparisons in grocery stores; the glasses read the prices and tell you how they compare to prices in other nearby stores
- (at the gym) correcting someone's form on weightlifting, with visual overlays
- taking pictures in general
- easy recording of ICE or police
My assumption about the default use case is that people want to take normal pictures. For example, I wear them to sporting events, and it's a lot faster to take a picture of the action with my Meta glasses than with my iPhone.
I love mine.
Being able to snap a pic without getting too far out of the moment, like when I am at a museum or in a beautiful place is great.
Even better is being able to snap a picture of my grandchildren without distracting them. As soon as I pull out my phone, they are grabbing for it. Some of my favorite pics were taken by my meta glasses.
> snap a picture of my grandchildren without distracting them
That my friend is the reason everybody hates them
I can't think of a better example of intrusiveness than "as soon as I pull out my phone [the kids] are grabbing for it", which I'm reading as "the kids want to use it even tho it isn't theirs". We've trained the kids to intrude on someone else so they can get a dopamine hit.
It's very hard to imagine this being a better photo than one taken on a modern phone.
Also, I really, really hope you take them off when using the shared bathrooms at such an event. And you know, keep them off. Permanently.
If photo quality is the only concern, a DSLR camera will take a better picture than a modern phone, so you shouldn't use a phone either. But the person you're replying to didn't say it was "better", they said "faster", so that's what's more important to them.
What was your assumption about social media ca. 2010?
They are nice for skydiving and probably some other sports where action cams are dangerous / awkward. It's definitely niche tho.
The default is people live streaming their day. Live streaming is very popular with young people not so with older people.
Fishing videos are one of the best usecases I've seen for them, but people generally go fishing alone or with close friends/family so it's a much different scenario than being a glasshole in public.
i love watching all the youtube shorts and instagrams of ppl helping or doing good deeds
most of them use meta glasses it seems to record the pov
Have you used the glasses at all?
I for one prefer taking pictures with the Meta glasses when traveling. Taking a phone out of your pocket, launching an app, holding the phone in front of you until you align the object in focus and then tapping a button starts feeling so inelegant after a while, compared to a quick press on the side of the glasses. The picture also comes out looking exactly how you saw it, videos are from your POV.
When driving, I like hearing the GPS navigation instructions discreetly without having my ears blocked by earphones and the car music being interrupted (also my wife can't stand the navigation voice and always asks me to silence it. With the glasses I can still hear the instructions).
Again, when traveling, if I'm staring at a building or something I'm curious about, I can ask the AI to tell me more things about the thing I'm looking at. It's quick and convenient.
> I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'.
Obvious non-perverted use cases:
* HUD when your hands are occupied - biking, cooking, etc.
* Camera-augmented navigation directions, especially indoors
* Shopping, price comparison
* Tourism, museum visits - automatically surfacing information about historical landmarks or artworks.
I would have loved to have smart glasses for these reasons, but unfortunately, the perverts ruined it for the rest of us and made the product category toxic.
They could have been of use to replace bike cameras for cycling (so that you have evidence of close passes etc), but the battery life and resolution isn't great, so bike cameras are currently a lot better for that.
> Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me.
It's not an assumption. People started using it for being creepy almost immediately.
https://nypost.com/2026/04/14/business/metas-pervert-glasses...
https://fortune.com/2026/07/28/ray-ban-meta-pervert-glasses-...
https://thenextweb.com/news/instagram-meta-glasses-harassmen...
https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-the-ray-ban-meta-cre...
> Its a bit strange of a default assumption to me
You come off as naive.
> its even more disheartening that most people's reactions to just about anything these days is dread about how it'll make their lives worse without fail.
Maybe because most (tech) things do make most people's live worse without fail (such as these glasses being available)? I don't see how you can blame people for a very rational reaction here
I have a friend that works at Meta who was all the way convinced this tech was going to be ubiquitous well before they came out and I have always been like, "Yeah, until one hillbilly kills some guy for looking at his daughter with them on and it goes viral."
It just seems like a no-brainer that these things will invite violence upon you once a critical mass of the population understands what they are, and thus people will eventually stop wearing them in public.
I wore these glasses for two years. I won't buy them again for reasons mentioned elsewhere. In that time nobody ever mentioned them. It's relatively difficult to pick these out in a crowd, unless they are actively recording (and even then it's hard to notice).
This whole thing has felt very odd. Did we collectively forget about the Google Glass and glass-holes? This was entirely predictable. I guess the only difference this time around is how inconspicuous they are.
Agreed. The article and discussion is so deja vu...
>“We’re at a very sensitive time for the tech industry in terms of trying to really preserve that positive consumer sentiment that’s taking a bit of a hit due to AI
Understatement of the year. That would be true maybe 10 years ago, during the Cambridge Analytics era. We are way, way past that point, and a so called tech analyst talking about "preserving the positive sentiment" is truly bizarre
> Gaby Luisa was standing outside a dance club in Arizona earlier this summer when a man wearing glasses threw out a pickup line.
“Did I just run into my future wife?” he asked.
She politely let him know she wasn’t interested and moved on with her evening.
She was shocked to find out later that their interaction was recorded and posted on YouTube without her knowledge or permission, using smart glasses which, she said, looked like Meta’s glasses.
Goddamn this wild. Maybe tell people you’re recording and later plan to upload to YouTube?
Both wild but also very obviously was going to happen with a product like this.
Gosh, think what the backlash will be by the time the Meta EyeBall is released, à la Zuck’s android model, complete with the real time naked filter.
I was trying to brainstorm ways to make these palatable to general society. Because I think this kind of thing is going to happen, but a lot of people (myself included) have a legitimate problem with surreptitious recordings.
It needs a "recording" light when it is recording. But creeps will just disable the recording light with e.g. a sticker.
Idea: What if the recording light embeds a little IR signal, and if the camera recording doesn't pick up that signal, it stops working
Edit: I see they tried that already.
I think the only way will be the tech getting too useful for the complaints to matter. Currently it's only marginally useful. Otherwise this irrational reaction will continue. Would help for the tech to come from companies with less awful reputations.
Alternatively, maybe the solution will be some sort of device signature embedded into the video data at the hardware level so that videos are traceable to the person that recorded them.
To me the main annoyance is that XR glasses partially rely on cameras to enable things like 6DOF tracking and hand tracking. Having that use conflated with people trying to secretly record others is pretty annoying.
To be clear, I don’t think this reaction is irrational at all. I’m curious though why you do.
This kind of discrete recording capability already is so widespread and accessible. Amazon is full of these kinds of devices, tiny "AI" audio recorders, pens with hidden cameras etc. They don't even require much technical competency.
People also walk around with their phones out so often. There's no way for you to know that they aren't recording. E.g. someone could easily be pretending to use their phone when climbing stairs while actually taking upskirt shots with the front camera.
Social media is also already full of people shamelessly recording others in situations where they would not want to be recorded.
Actual perverts have little reason to use these glasses specifically, and as mentioned in my previous post, the cameras have utility other than recording others.
I think it’s rational to say “I don’t want this bad thing that exists to be more ubiquitous.”
Yeah that was my reaction too
If you're a pervert, you wouldn't want the victim to know you're recording them
If you don't want someone to know you're recording them, you wouldn't wear the famous Recording Glasses
But I don't know, maybe I'm overestimating the average pervert
Then you can filter only the visible part of the signal, plus if they become common you risk interference, contamination or long term exposure (Your face regularly points to other people faces/eyes)
I think they tried that, and people hacked around it:
https://www.engadget.com/2227710/a-dollar2-sticker-let-me-by...
If you want to secretly record someone in public, aren't there already plenty of much subtler ways? Pinhole camera in your shirt pocket, normal glasses with a hidden camera, camera integrated into a hat, etc? "Disable the recording light in your smart glasses" would just be one more entry in that list.
Subtler yes, but you can't point them or get good feedback for interactions, except I guess the hat
People already disable the recording light and the problem is so pervasive Amazon has "banned" the blocking stickers.
Create your own set of glasses with powerful IR LEDs. Then just stare at the glasshole.
It already stops working if you block the light.
10 years ago one could buy "spyglasses" on eBay with camera in the middle hidden behind a polarizing filter, looking like regular glasses. This Meta stuff feels like a bad copy of the same.
This isn't a GoPro. The whole point is that it doesn't look like you're recording.
With a GoPro, everyone knows there's a camera. With these, most people won't.
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240828
The thing about smart glasses is when they try to do it surrepticiously, it puts that feeling on the wearer.
Google Glass looked quite different. Everyone knew how you were wearing it. Wear it long enough and people might have questions, try it out, and learn.
Hiding a camera in glasses doesn't allow for those kinds of interactions, its media going into an unknown bucket. It's also very one sided and to the benefit or decision of one person. If the person being recorded had full access to what was being recorded, maybe that might mean something to some folks.
It's too bad because there's probably cases where the form factor of meta's smart glasses are genuinely helpful for today. Instead of finding and rolling them out there first, by trying to push to the general public, the results can vary.
There's no shortage of folks and devices surreptitiously recording people with devices, or during meetings in person. Once that gets figured out socially these kinds of devices may have better reception.
The backlash itself may not mean much; it's what comes next that matters. If you want to regulate this, strike now while the iron is hot:
Meta and everyone else with experience knows that, for disruptive technologies, backlash is the stage before adoption. In a sense, the backlash means you're achieving market momentum.
Not all backlashes lead to adoption, but if you want to implement regulations (blur all faces in recordings, no identification, etc.), now is the time to move. At the adoption stage it seems to become normalized and people lose interest, like with other mass surveillance - obviously horrific and dangerous, but few will think about doing anything.
It's classic Meta. They made a consious decision to completely hide the cameras so the person wearing it wouldn't feel mildly uncomfortable while they completely violate everyone around them. The little light offers zero transparency - it's plausible deniability wrapped in a least-effort attempt at caring about your privacy.
The only thing that made this strategy fail the regular Meta playbook was the glasses became too popular too quickly, and rather that people slowly sinking into acceptance and complacency, they decided to speak up and shit on the glasses and call out the wearers for being creeps
>"Some people are using the glasses — which look like a pair of regular spectacles — to record people without their knowledge and publish the videos on social media.
The users secretly videotape and share what happens when they try to pick up women. Now, a growing number of people are worried they could be covertly recorded at the gym..."
Observation: The same technology could be used to record business deals, job interviews and other negotiations with consent of the counterparty... In fact, both parties in such transactions could record this way (legally and ethically!) if each has consent of the other...
If you want to do that, there is a wide variety of pre-existing recording devices available already...
>"pre-existing recording devices available already..."
Exactly!
People could be "covertly recorded at the gym" (as the article states!) by other pre-existing recording devices (any other kind of video camera, mounted in the gym or on a gym member's smartphone or other electronic device) -- not just Meta's smart glasses!
In other words, the central issue of the article seems to stem more from consent (more specifically, the lack of consent!) than it does from a specific type of video recording device...
I wonder if there should be a provision in the ISO 27001 about not allowing these smart glasses into the workplace
If there isn't currently there will be very soon.
Good. Sink these fucking things into the bottom of the ocean. If you want this tech to help people (blind people, etc) make them fugly and very visibly as an aid, not some stupid fashion accessory where these retards can just completely hide them
> retards
Stop it.
These should have never even been prototyped. An obviously terrible ideal with obvious many negative social consquences.
They should be banned from the market immediately.
They'll keep trying because there's big advertising dollars to be had. Everything you look at will result in a "relevant" ad.
Google already found out the hard way that these glasses aren't socially acceptable. Meta will have to learn the same hard lesson. Maybe others too.
The backlash on these is entirely about the fact that they are unfashionable looking. The previous RayBan Metas were very popular and no one had a problem with them. Then Zuck wanted to put in an LCD display so he made them chunkier and they don't look as cool. So people are retroactively coming up with objections to the technology. Nobody cared when the glasses looked good!
I did not like the original RayBan ones for the same creepy reason of recording people without consent. I am at least one person, I'm sure there were others.
No, it’s not that. It’s that people know you are wearing the pervert glasses.
> very popular and no one had a problem with them
People certainly did have a problem with them.