this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
302 points (98.7% liked)

TechTakes

2705 readers
76 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
all 43 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] xenomor@lemmy.world 88 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s wild to me that Ray Ban chose to immolate their brand like this.

[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 30 points 2 months ago

Long term brand image is worthless. Number must go up this quarter, even if the world burns down. ~~Especially burn down the world~~

[–] wirebeads@lemmy.ca 55 points 2 months ago

Zuckerfuck is absolute cancer, but the even sadder part is how many losers buy this shit. Shame.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 42 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We had to ban these at my workplace.

They were already prohibited due to our existing mobile policies, but we had to especially ban them whenever someone brought them in.

[–] WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Did you already know they were creepy, or did they out themselves?

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 10 points 2 months ago

I imagine Andrew brought them on day 1

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Someone found the glasses charging. I don't know the individual, I can't even remember their name, and I've never interacted with them. As far as I am aware, it's a simple manner of not allowing someone to have a camera strapped to their head when working.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, they were a foreign national who claimed they needed to use them for translation purposes. However, such an excuse can in theory be used by someone trying to commit espionage, so we cannot tolerate it. It was just recommended to their department to provide translated materials to help them grasp work-related terminology.

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 42 points 2 months ago

Metas way to get AI training data is these glasses, palantir is flock cameras, Google is their existing inventory of video from mapping the entire fucking world, Musk has Tesla vehicles, they all have a means to watch the world and feed it to AI. Many have user data from all our devices and our online behaviors that can extrapolate and deduce what reality is.

We're legit fucked if these companies continue to operate in private, secrecy, and zero enforced return of value for he public well-being.

[–] Zephorah@discuss.online 41 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Zuckerberg is creepy so this follows. We are talking about a guy who would walk around his startup office with a samurai sword pretending to chop his employees with it. And a guy who deliberately got Julius Caesar’s haircut. And a guy whose original version of Facebook was a platform on which college students could rate the attractiveness of female college students.

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

The Social Network gives great insight into just how terrible and awkward he really is. Plus Jesse Eisenberg knocks it out of the park.

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Zusk will later introduce an "off" feature for 10 bucks a month.

(it will still record everything surreptitiously)

[–] BioMan@awful.systems 14 points 2 months ago

10 bucks each time you turn it off

[–] EdyBolos@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Governments should ban this crap. Too bad that they are in bed with Big Tech.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Sometimes literally.

I don't condone violence but,...

Actually, no, I do condone violence against these pricks. Zuck, Bezos, Musk & Co. deserve to be hung by an angry mob.

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 19 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ugh, this company is totally fucking creepy! If only there were a way to disrupt these glasses using readily available electronics...

[–] WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

There's an Android app that will constantly scan for their Bluetooth signature in the background and alert you.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have this app. I work with a douche who wears these (despite then being banned), and this app didn't pick them up.

[–] Beehaw_Girl@beehaw.org 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The app didn't detect the glasses that it was solely designed to detect??

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 4 points 2 months ago

Not in my case, no.

[–] Penguincoder@beehaw.org 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That must be a huge battery killer.

[–] shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nah, if you have Bluetooth on your phone is already doing it.

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 4 points 2 months ago

Basically this. The polling rate and client interrogation behavior can often be pushed to a far more aggressive stance than the usual defaults, but only in foreground mode on most mobile OSes.

[–] WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 5 points 2 months ago

I have it installed on mine & haven't noticed any difference.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I just bought new glasses and got an IR-blocking lens coating that's supposed to thwart facial recognition from things like these and Flock cameras and whatnot. It's not active disruption via electronics, but it is a countermeasure...

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 4 points 2 months ago

Countermeasures are good, despite them not being active...It's important to disrupt these terrible techs whenever possible!

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

They also make hats with IR LEDs that blind the cameras.

[–] stopdropandprole@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I thought IR only applies to night vision or low light modes, which not all cameras even use.

most surveillance cameras, including the ones being discussed in Meta glasses, just use regular optical sensors for well illuminated environments.

wouldn't IR blocking be completely useless when theres no Infrared LEDs projecting at you?

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Oh, boy, Rapist Glasses

There’s a UK Parliament petition to “Introduce an immediate ban on the sale and promotion of smart glasses”. If you’re in the UK, you might want to sign it. [UK Parliament]

Given Parliament's track record, they'll probably respond by banning glasses that don't have cameras, but I still endorse this

[–] chrisgerhard@mastodon.green 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@BlueMonday1984 @dgerard don't be silly, they will ban children from having glasses.

[–] scruiser@awful.systems 3 points 2 months ago

Isn't UK's usually problem the other way around, they use "Protecting the Children"^tm^ as an excuse to ban sensible things or take away privacy from adults? This would be a first, taking away something from Children to protect the adults.

[–] strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz -5 points 2 months ago

@BlueMonday1984
> petition to “Introduce an immediate ban on the sale and promotion of smart glasses"

This seems like kind of a knee jerk response. How are "smart" glasses defined? Could such a ban also limit privacy-respecting digital facewear? When covering protests for Indymedia, I would have loved a wearable camera.

If the only thing that makes these different from carrying a "smart" phone is the always-on camera, maybe it would be better to propose regulation specific to that?

@dgerard

[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

aka, Portable Flock cameras.

[–] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been calling them meat based flock cameras.

[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Meat Flocker.

You really should make it be a thing.

[–] arcine@jlai.lu 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I don't get why these things even need cameras ?

[–] gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 months ago

For mass data collection obviously

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

"influencer" trash

[–] Noortjevee@mstdn.social 6 points 2 months ago

@dgerard so...these camera's are recording without a notification light?

Thats...that has to be illegal...

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

When do we invent scanner darkly rorschack shit?