meta is all about surveillance cant expect anything less
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Absolutely fantastic.
Wasnt there a ton of outrage and such incl people not being allowed on planes, back when google glass was released?
Why is it all OK now?
There's a window of attention for public discourse and there's fatigue. We, as a group, can only be upset about so much. It's a tried tactic to just try to distract us with some crazy shit, like Trump did with the alien files. If one crazy thing comes up in the news, other stuff will drop from our radar. And that's why people try shit again and again and again. Always in the hope that this time people are distracted by other stuff or are finally worn down enough.
Same reason our governments suck ass. Something unpopular tries to get passed again, and again, and again, and again, and eventually people get desensitized and worn out from trying to fight against it. That or it hits on the right time when people are distracted by something else bigger or more important.
Years of privacy violations going deeper and deeper under pretend of "progress" and "pRoTeCt the cHiLdReN". I am glad that people started rebelling against Flock, and some removed their Amazon cameras following the Superbowl's ads, but that's not even close to how much we should be mad at these mass surveillance actors.
I remember Google Glass itself receiving a ton of outrage actually: People hated it and anyone wearing one was made fun of ("glassholes" was a popular insult at the time).
Many years of indoctrination. When Google glass was introduced, it was just 'a neat idea'. Now it's a product, and therefore it's clearly more trustworthy because someone is profiting from it. (/s)
I dislike Facebook and deleted my account even before they changed to "Meta". I also value privacy.
But what privacy violations do "smart glasses" provide that weren't already trivially available? Tiny cameras are insanely cheap. A reasonably handy person could hide several on their person and there are plenty of "spy shops" that sell actual wearable hidden cameras.
The "I love ICE" kid was wearing Meta Ray Bans but the first video I saw of it was from someone else' camera. I can't leave the house without getting filmed from multiple angles. The only thing those glasses do is make it really obvious that the wearer is a dumbass.
The main differences I can think of are:
- Better video quality
- More normalized
- Easier to get your hands on
- They look like raybans and are brand name
- They're debatibly "cool"
- Also Facebook is involved
Basically they produce better video and are more normalized in society.
The difference is that meta glasses constantly upload to their creepy servers to do automatic face recognition.
You know what sucks?
In that AR glasses, in theory, are such an interesting technology with lots of potential, and certainly a piece of tech I would love to have and work with and on. Not to secretly record people, but to, well.. augment my field of view with whatever digital tools or displays I would like. It would be so useful
It's honestly kinda saddening to me that it most likely will get completely ruined by our current toxic relationship to technology. A step towards our ever increasing cyberdystopia, and not towards enchanting our limited lives
Obviously either way I don't trust Meta, but an open-hardware device running a FOSS AR system? It would be nice..
I still hold out hope that this somehow could be resolved, and I would love to contribute to open software for these devices. Maybe one day soon-ish I will. My expertise should be well applicable, after all
It would be incredibly useful in construction. Having a digital overlay telling you exactly where to put up the framing for a separating wall, or an overlay showing the correct distance between screws, or where wires and pipes are inside a wall? There are so incredibly many awesome possible uses for AR in construction.
I always wanted to build an AR app for inside data centers. Imagine looking at a server and being able to open a terminal or desktop that you can immediately interact with on the floor. or have it display resource information like hardware utilization, temps, network throughput and configuration, etc.
it would make a difficult job just bit more manageable.
I really like the special tagged tape that could bring up AR tags and details about it. Organization and directions are so more useful.
Or playing Pokémon GO
It's already used in construction as a documentation device. Photos are big as a documentation tool and some inspectors already use wearable cameras as a tool.
I'm in the AEC industry. Almost any implementation of on site augmentation sucks ass most especially because the tech nerds making them have a really hard time truly understanding the needs OF tradespeople and installers.
Almost all of them are top down implementations meant to assess tooling and field quality rather than actually acting as an overlay aid in construction (which, like, 90% of tradespeople worth their salt don't actually need FYI).
Also, I've found, most of these tech nerds making this shit don't know how to actually put a building together and are constantly flummoxed by the methodology.
Using an AR display on those glasses with frames that thick is such a horrible idea. Google was on the right track with the HUD displayed on a frame-less prism that doesn't block half your vision.
Last thing I'd want is to be in the middle of something with my hands full and the display bugs out, blocking the one eye, making me screw something up.
Drop the cameras and microphones and replace them with a couple accelerometers and gyros. Paired with your phone's GPS tracking, the glasses can tell where you're looking without actually seeing anything. You can get handy features like a floating 'turn here' sign over your exit while driving with GPS navigation without recording anyone or anything at any time. Better battery life, too.
Tbh I don't even mind cameras that much if they were entirely controlled by the individuals themselves. I have a much bigger issue with it when you're streaming my facial recognition data to Evil Megacorp 2™ servers that also feed directly to the "Not Spying.. Again" agency, though.
Is that what you're referring to? https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-facial-recognition-glasses These people have no ethics and no moral code. They know we'll hate it, so they want to sneak it!
I don't think that would work particularly well with AR: People get sick if movement isn't synced up properly, not having any sort of cameras or sensors at all would exacerbate that problem.
If you are talking about a simple HUD, then that might be a lot more viable, but for AR and the tech we currently have, some sort of camera or sensor array is kind of a requirement.
See, I don't really want full AR. I want a HUD, a very small number of rudimentary AR features, like floating windows for text documents or videos, physical buttons on the arms of the glasses, small drivers by the ears for audio, and battery life that will last most of the day. I already have to wear glasses and if I'm paying more for extra features I want ones that will last the whole time I might want them, not just the six or so hours a day that the current offerings have.
Well, my glasses don't give off bluetooth signal or record but I'm afraid I'll end up caught in the crossfire with my XR glasses on trains and planes. I travel for work so it's nice to have a big screen to watch media on when I'm traveling for 20+ hours.
Not the purpose of the thread I know but would you care to share additional information? Model, price, comfort, compatibility, are they good?

Perfect response. Record someone without consent, it should be the last time those glasses are wearable.
Paywalled article. Here's the link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.nearbyglasses
Edit: it's licensed under a license I never heard of. I'm curious, I don't understand why it was needed.
"Why draft new licenses? Until now, there has been no standardization of this kind of source code license, even though it has become increasingly common. This has resulted in confusing and overlapping licenses, which need to be analyzed one at a time. Lack of standardization has used up the time and resources of many in the software industry, as well as their lawyers. The objective of the PolyForm Project is standardization and reduction of costs for developers and users."
Seems like that exact XKCD about standards.
Admittedly, this is cyberpunk as fuck.
Should not be needed… but it’s a fucking cool solution.