Because that's what they are?
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Privacy
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You either get bought by Google as a start up, or live long enough to see yourself make all of Google's mistakes.
I'd wear them if they didn't have a camera - the idea of a little screen and the music/phone call capabilities baked into something I have to wear every waking moment anyways actually sounds really nice. I'd probably turn off the display after the novelty wore off, but the audio alone is still worth it to me.
yeah the camera is the troublesome part. Thing is it is useful for camera tracking.
No way, microphone is much worse
Eh. It's already pretty easy to conceal a microphone. Harder to conceal a camera.
microphone has many more basic uses. taking notes. voice command. I mean we all realize all the smartphones have both of these things right. I mean that is why I don't really like them but I would more like AR although realistically not in a corp is controlling everything way. If it was open source and local and under my control that would be super cool.
Don't call them that!
Slandering the innocent perverts of the world by association with Facebook isn't gonna make 'em quit marketin spookware to assholes who oughta know better. =U
Yeah this problem goes far beyond Eugene and Rusty
The prevalence of negative impacts is absolutely a reason to push back on these specific glasses.
Due to aphantasia and ADHD, I would love to be able to manually record and store locally what I am seeing in a wide variety of situations. That guy I talked to about the thing? What was his name and what did he look like? All I remember is he had curly hair and he had a common name. Being able to play back the introduction would let me refresh myself to keep up with people who remember a large number of names and faces in a short period of time. If I do something like work on my PC being able to record as I go without needing to set up the phone on a stand and hope I don't block it would be great.
Yeah, the negatives outweigh the positives and fuck meta for using what could be a great assistance device to collect everything they interact with instead of it being a locally stored thing that decent people could use.
this is the problem with great tech, it can be used for valid purposes like yours, or for nefarious purposes, and the maker doesn't fuckin care.
if this was a product made by a reputable company I'd say go for it, but considering their wretched history of invasive garbage, I'd hold out for a better take.
I'm setting up a viture luma to do something like this as well as have a HUD like interface for task tracking, like you'd have in video games. That said I'm taping the camera looking thing and I'm just going to use my phone when I need to take pictures or video. I'm setting it up where I could just transfer needed data directly whenever possible to avoid needing to use my phone camera. Most likely if i do use photos, it will be more of a photo journal than recording everything I see. This is mostly to try to keep others comfort and privacy in mind even though it would be stored locally on a raspberry pi.
Technically I could ask people if I could record them using my phone but it would be awkward to do so and worse for social interactions that my current methods of discreetly asking people who they are and hoping for a list of participants with photos.
Right, though if you could get by with a single photo, you might be able to use a photo from their social media, and use a description when that isn't available.
The thing is, I'd love glasses with a private display. Imagine walking around a strange city with maps displayed in your vision, or giving a talk and having your notes in your view. Specs with screens! But why would I also want a camera? If I wanted to photograph something I can use my phone - perhaps using my SpecScreen as a viewfinder, sure, but the camera can happily live in my phone still. Basically, I'm worried the perverts are going to ruin glasses with HUDs for the rest of us. There must be dozens of us non-perverts, surely?
How would a view like that work without a camera? It needs to see streets to display the map accurately since GOS could only be accurate within 5meters sometimes.
Same. I even have a pair that I'm working on setting up as an accessibility device, but i worry that even with the camera looking thing taped, that it's going to cause issues, especially since I'll have a visible wire hooked up to a raspberry pi.
EDIT: I forgot to specify that this is a viture luma and not the meta raybans, which i wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole
There are plenty of legit use cases for a camera. Traveling in a foreign place the glasses could overlay text in your language. Looking at a transit table it could highlight the correct route and time. And anytime you meet someone new it could store their name and face in a database.
does that utility outweigh the privacy of the public though?
Shame it's meta because the answer will always skew towards invading privacy and shitting on the others.
There is no privacy in public, by definition of those two words. I’m less concerned about a camera on somebodies face, and more concerned about the legality of doing facial recognition, and identifying and tracking of people without their explicit consent. See one is about the personal utility of camera-interfaced computing, and the other is corporate espionage. But unless lawmakers can draw that line and enforce it, we will probably just end up with spyware.
There is no privacy in public, by definition of those two words.
creep. so quick to carve out the rules by which you and other can invade the privacy of individuals. you know there's a difference between general photography and this. you know this. I don't have to explain it to you.
you're just a creep who wants to creep on women and kids.
A while ago I would have agreed with this whole heartedly.
Now I'm old and grumpy and everything seems like a can / should question where the "should" part is only satisfied if a really significant problem is solved, because the "can" part always requires a trade off that is rarely worth the cost.
Anyone wearing those are absolutely being a perv and playing dumb about it. Apple will probably come out with those next, and push them just like they have air pods so that they'll have a camera to go with their always active mics! Fucking drives me nuts when people act like they're so technologically savvy by using siri to call people on the phone.
What the fuck do AirPods have to do with this? Any wireless earbuds are awesome. I can start playing a video on my phone, and it connects. I take a call on my laptop, and it jumps there immediately. I don’t have to fiddle with a cord that constantly gets tangled and then eventually just stops working because it’s been bent in the same spot for 2 years. I can connect my AirPods and my wife’s AirPods to my phone on a plane, and we watch a video together, and I didn’t have to remember to bring my headphone splitter. Wireless earbuds are not the same as a mass surveillance device.
Fucking drives me nuts when people act like they're so technologically savvy by using siri to call people on the phone.
Years ago, I worked with this guy who would purposely leave his office and pace the halls only to stop in my doorway to say, “hey siri, call _____” with a huge fucking smirk on his face!
He was so annoying.
I've had to inform all my boomer/genx peeps that have one about how they send video footage back even when you aren't recording. Instances like people just putting the glasses down on their bedside table and some meta contractor ends up seeing your wife get dressed after a shower.
My beef, what about underage users?? Let's say a high schooler gets frisky with his gf?? A kid at my kid's school was bragging about using his glasses for school work, and they were joking about taking a poop, etc then a kid joked about walking into the girls bathroom with them on.. Idk man, so many problems with them!!
Don’t forget…Facefuck was found by a massive letch/perv.
I hate how these are being used, both by Meta and by creeps.
I bought a pair of them after trying out a friends (back before they had any AI capability, and had not yet been hacked to dox people) because they're really good speakers and the exact same style of sunglasses that I've worn for 30 years. The first thing I did was disable the always on mic (which required me to log in to meta, which I had to make an account for using a burner email). The second thing I did was purchase lens covers so people could be confident I wasn't recording them. Finding covers that worked for the lens and not just the light was a pain because I apparently everyone is doing the opposite thing with these that I wanted to. Also, I wanted to make sure that the lens cover could be removed because I wanted to be able to retain the ability to make hands free first person videos (in places without other people). It's also super helpful for making footage of things that require you to use both hands.
I hope any future smart glasses (because there's no way this product is going to go away) don't just indicate when they are recording, but they make it obvious to others when they're in a state that they cannot be recording (video at least). A built in lens cover solves that. If I was to buy another pair of smart glasses (which I currently have no plans to do), it would be an absolute requirement that people around me understand that I'm not making video of them, doxxing them, or in any way using an image of them.
There are a ton of great applications for this and other cameras. If you're a woman walking around by herself it could help prove that an assault took place, for example. The problem is that the people buying these things are the freaks, not the innocents.
I was hoping pedo glasses would catch on as a term but I can settle for this.
Do you truly believe that those who have sold you your mechanical eyes have resisted the temptation to peek through them? Cameras are all around us, even within us! Your joys, your worries, your life... for them it is all mere spectacle. - Garry the Prophet
It was the first thing I thought of when I saw these glasses: 100% perverts are going to buy them.
Perverts and predators. I fully expect to hear about stalking and murder rates going up due to these-- and hopefully the makers will be sued out of fucking existence.
there's already a booming market for disabling the recording light.
I was calling them "stalker" glasses. Everything facebook (meta) does is about stalking humanity. Creepy, creepy weirdos.
article is already a decade too late. I’ve perceived them as pervert glasses for years!
Despite the constant push to normalize creepiness, you were morally correct then and equally morally correct now!
Embarassing it was ever anything besides 'pervert glasses'
The one good use I’ve seen: member of my fam has been deaf since childhood and recently got glasses that transcribe conversations
The problem is that influencers are already way ahead of you. Lots of normalizing them for "content creation" when they want to film in public. And if they had a sponsorship in a different video? Coincidence.
A bunch of those influencers are perverts and creeps themselves, though. Not just inherently because they're using the glasses, but because they post video evidence of themselves creeping on and harassing people in real life.
You know what sucks is I wear heavy framed Ray-Bans that have no camera. Now I could get lumped in w/ these chomo's... Fucking hell.
I guess its back to wire frames that can't handle any abuse...
I got new glasses recently, and chose thin frames for this reason.
It really sucks that we have to think this way...
If you're not blind or deaf it's gonna get mighty expensive standing in front of me with that shit on.
You can wear them if you have a blind cane and the lenses are blacked out.
I think there’s real value as an accessibility device for something like this. But not from Meta.
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