[HN Gopher] Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 545 points
       Date   : 2023-09-27 18:18 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.meta.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.meta.com)
        
       | sp3000 wrote:
       | Any good argument that anyone can think of for a scenario where
       | smart eyewear will not be as ubiquitous as smart phones
       | eventually? I understand the privacy argument, but that is not
       | going to be enough. The ability to think or blink in a certain
       | way and capture anything you see is too powerful a tool,
       | alongside the augmented reality that is coming.
        
         | justinclift wrote:
         | > I understand the privacy argument, but that is not going to
         | be enough.
         | 
         | Why not? Privacy is important to people.
         | 
         | For a long time, the majority of people didn't really seem to
         | care about their online privacy. However, the EU still created
         | the GDPR.
         | 
         | Perhaps a "real world privacy" equivalent of GDPR should happen
         | at some point?
        
         | aftergibson wrote:
         | This comment may eventually seem as outdated as asking 'what's
         | the point of Dropbox,' but it seems we're approaching the
         | limits of human-computer interaction. It feels as if we've
         | reached a point where technology, originally a 'tool' to serve
         | humans, is beginning to erode essential aspects of our
         | humanity, manipulating our core motivations. People may start
         | to opt out, not necessarily due to a lack of useful features
         | and functionalities, but because the overall cost to our
         | humanity outweighs the benefits. This is something we're
         | gradually coming to realize more fully.
        
           | elfbargpt wrote:
           | I kind of agree with your first part. For a while now, I've
           | considered the possibility that a handheld device like an
           | iPhone is actually pretty close to the ideal way humans
           | actually want to interact with a computer. Even though it
           | seems cool as an idea, I don't think people want their
           | experience with a computer to be too immersive--handheld
           | device might be the sweet spot.
        
         | esafak wrote:
         | "Smart" glasses erode everyone's privacy unlike any other
         | technology. Cameras and cell phones have to be held up to
         | record. Glasses can stream effortlessly and continuously,
         | without anyone's consent. If that is not reason enough to
         | object what more do you want, my fist in your face?
        
           | diffeomorphism wrote:
           | Nah, earbuds and phones could do audio recording just fine
           | and for longer. Adding video does not make it "unlike any
           | other", so this is rather a minor erosion on top.
           | 
           | > Glasses can stream effortlessly and continuously
           | 
           | For a rather limited time duration and with a glowing light
           | and with actually quite a bit of effort.
           | 
           | > without anyone's consent.
           | 
           | Why? You still need the same amount of consent as with any
           | other camera.
        
             | smolder wrote:
             | Adding video is not a minor erosion on top of recording
             | from a microphone.
        
           | freedomben wrote:
           | I think your point would be a lot better without the threat
           | of physical violence at the end (which seems both silly,
           | uncalled for, and unnecessary).
           | 
           | I'm very deeply concerned about privacy, but a simple thing
           | like an "on" or "recording" light on the glasses could alert
           | people that recording is on.
        
             | tjpnz wrote:
             | But there will be physical violence if that light goes on
             | infront of the wrong person. Make no mistake.
        
             | esafak wrote:
             | By the time I am close enough see that puny light you've
             | already recorded me. It's an opt out mechanism, not opt in.
             | Maybe if there was an unobtrusive way for me to prevent
             | recording through a wearable, like a ROBOTS.TXT file, or a
             | universal gesture (a middle finger, or a grimace) to
             | indicate my desire to be erased from your recording, I
             | would consider it. I would also want some assurance that my
             | request is honored. Given how unlikely this all is, I am
             | simply saying "nope" today.
             | 
             | It's fine in situations where consent is obtained in
             | advance; e.g., events.
             | 
             | I should add that I take more pictures than the average
             | person, and used to be a street photographer, so I have
             | been in situations where people did not want their likeness
             | captured. Also in countries where people objected to
             | photography altogether on the grounds that it stole their
             | spirit. I always had to make a decision with my trigger
             | finger, so I was able to apply human oversight. My stance
             | is informed by experience.
        
               | nickthegreek wrote:
               | Committing violence against others who are not doing
               | anything illegal seems like a pretty easy way for you to
               | lose a lot of privacy.
               | 
               | Edit: OP removed their reference to punching people who
               | would dare film them. This thread will no longer make
               | sense to other's trying to catch up.
        
               | pzo wrote:
               | Try taking your phone out and start recording when
               | talking to some random people on the street or in shop at
               | cash register, or when talking to policeman etc. and see
               | if none of them will start getting very annoyed or even
               | aggressive - even if it's not (maybe) illegal people
               | won't like it.
        
               | nickthegreek wrote:
               | People are allowed to be annoyed. If you punch someone,
               | or break/steal their property for recording, there are
               | actual LEGAL consequences that could befall you. People
               | record others all the time, there is this whole Karen
               | phenomenon that is kinda hard not to know about..
        
               | Gud wrote:
               | There is a big difference between actively choosing to
               | film, showing you are filming someone and a passive
               | camera always on. The first one can be easily avoided,
               | the second one not so much.
        
               | nickthegreek wrote:
               | Who is talking about passive only on recording? This
               | device would melt your face before if it tried that.
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | That is a technicality; I object on principle. I
               | extrapolated current capabilities to underscore the
               | argument, because more people will lifestream/lifecast
               | the easier it gets. Tomorrow it may be a neural link.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestreaming
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | People should not be recording others all the time. It is
               | not consensual. This is the crux of the debate. The
               | legality is debated, and it varies by jurisdiction:
               | https://www.notta.ai/en/blog/is-it-illegal-to-record-
               | someone...
               | 
               | Don't squander your right to record in public on
               | something as mundane and personal as a civilian minding
               | his own business. Record a crime, at least. Otherwise the
               | law may change and you may lose that "right".
        
               | spigottoday wrote:
               | I don't like being recorded all the time when out in
               | public or in stores or hospitals or other places or
               | institutions. The thing that I find completly
               | unacceptable is having the recording sent off to meta or
               | google or somewhere to be analyzed and monetized without
               | my consent. Not only do I not benefit from this I
               | consider it a profound abuse of my privacy and autonamy.
               | before all this invasive corporate surveillance being
               | seen in public was a localized and ephemeral experience
               | and privacy laws were adequate to cover this. This is no
               | longer true. Not that I think this will happen any time
               | soon (or ever) because, you know, money; and not enough
               | people outraged about this or that feel safe enought to
               | express thier outrage, but a simple fix would be that if
               | I am not a consenting user of a corporate service like
               | meta or google or ticktock or whatever then that service
               | is not permited to retain or use that (personal)
               | information in any way. So when the service recieves
               | video it must remove or completely obsure any individuals
               | image and audio from the video that are not current users
               | of the service. Better yet and more feasible would be to
               | just flag and delete the video, which puts the burden on
               | the person making the video, where it belongs. Of course
               | this would apply to any and all information conected to
               | all non users of the service. To motivate compliance an
               | automatic award of, let's say, $10,000 to an abused party
               | would probably do the trick. If this sounds extream to
               | you I just consider it a good start.
        
               | pzo wrote:
               | I didn't mean that this is ok to punch someone. My point
               | is it will annoy a lot of people and some will eventually
               | punch you. There are many legal things that if you do you
               | are just asking yourself for a problem.
               | 
               | I also think in some countries it might be illegal to
               | record someone either video or audio without explicitly
               | telling or asking for permission. Even at the airport (at
               | least in many I have been) it was not allowed to do video
               | recording
        
               | SoftTalker wrote:
               | > there are actual LEGAL consequences that could befall
               | you
               | 
               | There are, but they are extraordinarly unlikely. People
               | push and shove each other all the time over minor insults
               | and disagreements and almost never end up in front of a
               | judge. Most cops would just say "you should have put the
               | camera down when he asked you to, now stop wasting my
               | time."
        
               | paganel wrote:
               | Then what else have we got left in order to confront
               | those very rude people that film you without your
               | consent? It's pretty clear that the law is not up to the
               | task.
        
             | pzo wrote:
             | such LED can be covered with tape, paint or damaged on
             | purpose.
        
               | antiterra wrote:
               | The copy _claims_ the glasses will complain audibly if
               | you cover up the LED, but doesn't say whether or not it
               | stops recording. It's also not clear how easily
               | circumvented this is, but they've obviously considered
               | the angle.
        
           | ActorNightly wrote:
           | If you are in PUBLIC, that is by definition NOT PRIVATE.
        
             | esafak wrote:
             | Correct, and people _do_ have expectations, albeit reduced,
             | of privacy in public too. Moreover, this expectation is
             | thankfully backed by the law in various jurisdictions. I
             | would very much like to see those rights beefed up for the
             | machine learning age, after reading all these comments.
             | 
             | Or would you like to live in a panopticon like the Chinese?
             | Hey, you're on PUBLIC property, citizen! Smile for the
             | camera, and don't think we can't read your lips. Like for
             | real; we got software for that.
        
               | ActorNightly wrote:
               | First, just because China did it doesn't mean its
               | necessarily wrong. The real bad part of Chinese system
               | are the laws that govern what is bad and what the
               | punishment - the surveillance in itself alone is neutral
               | at worst. More information never hurts.
               | 
               | Secondly, this would be "society filming society",
               | without the government being involved.
               | 
               | I really see only positive with the mass adoption of
               | these things. When I go out in public, I drive
               | respectfully, I don't cut in line, I clean up if I make a
               | mess, I don't play loud music or have an obnoxiously loud
               | car, I don't talk loudly, and am generally not an asshole
               | to people. If someone needs the fear of being recorded,
               | and put online and losing their job to not act like
               | asshole, then so be it.
        
               | wolverine876 wrote:
               | > More information never hurts.
               | 
               | How do you reach that conclusion?
               | 
               | > this would be "society filming society"
               | 
               | It would also be a corporation filming private citizens
               | on a very large scale (and government can obtain data
               | from corporations).
               | 
               | > If someone needs the fear of being recorded, and put
               | online and losing their job to not act like asshole, then
               | so be it.
               | 
               | People are attacked and shamed for many things that are
               | private or harmless or even good things.
        
               | ActorNightly wrote:
               | >How do you reach that conclusion?
               | 
               | Because the hypothetical damage a bad member of society
               | could do outweighs the potential risk of private life
               | details leaking (and any effect resulting from this) for
               | good members of society.
               | 
               | Say you live in a neighborhood with 50 people, and nobody
               | knows anything about each other. Then one day, a hacker
               | comes in an publishes a lot of private details about
               | every single resident - grocery shopping lists, movie
               | preferences, political leanings, website search history,
               | even private videos and photos. However, it turns out
               | that one of the residents is a serial rapist, while
               | another one deals drugs. Getting information on those two
               | is extremely valuable to the neighborhood, even if it
               | came at a price of reduced privacy.
               | 
               | >It would also be a corporation filming private citizens
               | on a very large scale (and government can obtain data
               | from corporations).
               | 
               | I get the whole "government bad" liberterian sentiment,
               | but this never really plays out in reality. I mean, lived
               | 4 years under a literal fascist and came out largely ok.
               | There is enough due process in place and good people in
               | the government to avoid misuse of power on a wide scale.
               | Furthermore, the government is a combination of
               | incompetency and not enough man power for the average
               | citizen to worry about.
               | 
               | As for corporations, most people are ok with data being
               | collected about them and used for things like
               | advertising, because they still continue to use the
               | products and apps, because the value add of those is
               | worth more than privacy (which many people don't even
               | understand what it is).
        
               | wolverine876 wrote:
               | > However, it turns out that one of the residents is a
               | serial rapist, while another one deals drugs.
               | 
               | Hypotheticals are easy to populate with supporting
               | examples, but also in the neighborhood are the political
               | enemies of the government, minorities, targets of
               | oppression (e.g., LGBTQ), etc.
               | 
               | > I get the whole "government bad" liberterian sentiment
               | 
               | Spare me your bullshit dimissal. Do you have anything
               | substantive or is that all you have?
               | 
               | > this never really plays out in reality
               | 
               | I think cracking open any history book or reading the
               | news will show the horrors inflicted by dictators. I'm
               | glad you were ok.
        
               | vunderba wrote:
               | I'm surprised you're not already aware that this is
               | already the norm. The number of cc style cameras in
               | London alone should give you pause.
               | 
               | If we're already dealing with ubiquitous recording _in
               | public_ , I'd rather give some of that power back to
               | individuals rather than the government.
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | It is not the norm everywhere and, in any case, we should
               | push back. It gives me no joy to walk past video
               | surveillance cameras. They stick out like sore thumbs to
               | me and make me feel treated like a potential criminal.
               | 
               | I believe we reclaim no power by recording our fellow
               | citizens going about their daily lives. We merely augment
               | the corpus of corporations and governments.
               | 
               | My beef with these smart glasses is that while they can
               | be used to document crimes, I estimate they will
               | typically be used for mundane purposes, while eroding the
               | privacy of law-abiding citizens. More so than cell
               | phones, which require you to at least hold the thing up
               | and press a button. You will do so to document a crime,
               | but not to mindlessly and continuously record everything
               | you see. This changes the balance.
        
               | ActorNightly wrote:
               | In case my top level comment was not clear:
               | 
               | if you are in public, you have no expectation of privacy
               | outside of physical interaction in your immediate space
               | outside your body (and even then, on crowded public
               | transport, this is not the case). If someone can see what
               | you are doing, there is no difference between that and
               | them recording it. If someone can hear what your are
               | saying, there is no difference between that and them
               | recording it.
               | 
               | If you don't agree, you are essentially saying that you
               | are entitled to do and say what you want, but gathering
               | any evidence of you doing so is not allowed, which not
               | only doesn't make sense but is also pretty indicative
               | that you are looking to be up to no good.
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | > If someone can see what you are doing, there is no
               | difference between that and them recording it. If someone
               | can hear what your are saying, there is no difference
               | between that and them recording it.
               | 
               | There is all the difference in the world. This is what
               | we're debating here. According to your binary logic,
               | everyone is within their right to record and retain in
               | perpetuity all public activity, with arbitrary high
               | fidelity. And if that's fair game, I suppose you'd be
               | okay with unifying them into one view and mining it? Like
               | China, but even worse. I would be disgusted and ashamed
               | to live in such a society. Fortunately, the law does not
               | say this.
        
               | wolverine876 wrote:
               | > I'd rather give some of that power back to individuals
               | 
               | You'd be giving it to Facebook, though I suppose
               | Zuckerberg is an individual.
        
               | diffeomorphism wrote:
               | For this specific product. If successful, you will no
               | doubt get some i-glasses, goggles, galaxy glasses, ...
               | and probably some infighting for openglasses and
               | libreglasses.
        
         | packetlost wrote:
         | Nah, I think it's the future. We don't have to have cameras on
         | them, but it does greatly hinder their utility.
        
         | jacobsenscott wrote:
         | Glasses are uncomfortable to wear all the time. They are hard
         | to control because they have very limited input methods. Nobody
         | wants to charge their glasse. Every "smart glasses" product
         | ever has failed - nobody wants these.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mFixman wrote:
         | The same argument I make against smartwatches: they are great
         | for people who regularly wear the dumb version, but
         | uncomfortable for people who don't.
         | 
         | Smartphones became ubiquous quickly because by the year 2007
         | almost everyone was used to having a cellphone in their pocket,
         | smart or not. Personally, I find regular sun/glasses
         | uncomfortable and I don't see myself ever buying smart ones.
        
         | rdtsc wrote:
         | > Any good argument that anyone can think of for a scenario
         | where smart eyewear will not be as ubiquitous as smart phones
         | eventually?
         | 
         | Yes, if it is clunky and doesn't look like an ordinary
         | accessory people would wear anyway.
         | 
         | Smart watches are popular enough as people might wear a watch.
         | Smart glasses could be popular if they look like actual
         | glasses. Smart pants? Sure, if they can be worn like pants,
         | thrown in the laundry and so on.
        
           | Jeff_Brown wrote:
           | I recently saw an ad, probably on facebook, for a camera with
           | a form factor the size of a USB stick, that you could clip on
           | your belt or lapel or whatever, and record whatever was
           | around you with a wide angle lens.
        
           | dkasper wrote:
           | fwiw the meta glasses look almost identical to regular ray
           | bans
        
             | rdtsc wrote:
             | Exactly. That's why I can see them being successful.
        
         | rattlesnakedave wrote:
         | No. Wearable AR tech is the future. The trend has been "get
         | this device as out of my way, and integrate it into my life as
         | much as possible." e.g: big iron -> desktops -> laptops ->
         | smart phones enabling greater mobility and flexibility of use.
         | 
         | We're just starting to see the next state of it with wearable
         | tech. Smart watches. Airpods. Many people have these. Many
         | people wear them for extended periods because they're
         | comfortable interfaces to the services they care about. A
         | family member has a hearing aid that's connected to their
         | phone's bluetooth. Comfortable enough to wear all day &
         | discretely listen to phone audio whenever. I think that's the
         | next step (obvious evolution from airpods). Glasses -> AR
         | displays shortly after.
        
         | parl_match wrote:
         | Eventually? Sure. Maybe. It wont be a capture story, it'll be a
         | consumption and interaction story.
         | 
         | The biggest thing preventing that future is hardware, and
         | considering how you're brushing up against hard physics, I
         | honestly don't see smart eyeglasses that look like normal
         | eyelgasses playing out in any serious capacity for a looooong
         | time.
        
         | nonameiguess wrote:
         | I don't want to typical mind the world and assume very many
         | people feel the same, but I'm at least chiming in with the few
         | here who have already they don't like wearing any kind of
         | jewelry or really non-essential accoutrement of any kind. I
         | have thankfully never needed corrective glasses, but I don't
         | wear sunglasses, either, nor a watch, nor hats. I don't even
         | wear my wedding ring except when I'm traveling and my wife nags
         | me enough. I get that a wearable probably feels less obtrusive
         | than a phone to someone who actually uses their phone a lot,
         | but I don't. It's not obtrusive sitting in my pocket and even
         | less so when it's on my bedside table charging and I'm
         | somewhere else without it. Anything I'm wearing is inherently
         | there. I don't particularly want to be that integrated with a
         | digital world. I don't usually feel much of a need to record or
         | augment my environment.
         | 
         | I'd go for musculoskeletal enhancement, given how much it sucks
         | to get old and have more or less at least one active chronic
         | joint injury at all times no matter what, but thankfully, for
         | now, my eyes and memory still work pretty well on their own.
        
         | KaiserPro wrote:
         | In terms of privacy its as bad as phones in top pockets. At
         | least with glasses they tend to have recording lights.
         | 
         | Moreover its really hard to upskirt with glasses on your head.
         | mobile phones however are super easy, as I witnessed last year.
         | 
         | As a capture device, smart glasses are a dead end. When they
         | have a display, and a ergonmic input system, then they'll
         | replace smartphones
         | 
         | oh and 100x battery density.
        
         | ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
         | I was one of the ridiculous-looking people who had a Google
         | Glass when it came out. It was clunky, and lasted a very short
         | time, and your face would get hot, and it had no real AR
         | interaction with the real world.
         | 
         | But. If you could squint at the rough edges, and project
         | forward what this could be like with more advanced tech, it was
         | a no-brainer for me that it will be a far superior form factor
         | for what we do with the phone. For 2 weeks, I tried hard NOT
         | using a phone and just using it. While it was difficult (mostly
         | because I couldn't have a conversation with anyone that didn't
         | begin with them asking what was on my head), when I went back
         | to the phone I so strongly noticed how much I was craning my
         | neck, how annoying it was to interact with tech like that, and
         | it kinda felt terrible.
        
           | jsight wrote:
           | I remember having similar thoughts about Google Glass despite
           | never using it and never really wanting to use it.
           | 
           | I mean, the concept seemed amazing, but it seemed clear that
           | it needed to be combined with vastly more AI capability. All
           | of the things that people imagined it doing were basically
           | impossible.
           | 
           | But now it seems like something much more powerful shouldn't
           | be that far away.
        
           | parl_match wrote:
           | Google Glass user here as well, and the one thing that form
           | factor is missing is input (possibly solved by AVP with its
           | eye and finger gestures).
        
           | itomato wrote:
           | Somehow it didn't stop millions of Angel and VC dollars from
           | flowing.
           | 
           | I worked at a such a startup. It was vapor.
           | 
           | At least Glass had an API.
           | 
           | I wonder if any of the VPs at Essilor and Meta who shook on
           | this are still with their companies and if their bonuses are
           | linked to adoption.
        
           | hinkley wrote:
           | I wonder if we will see an inversion of the clip-on
           | sunglasses design but with corrective lenses.
           | 
           | Clip your prescription to a pair of sunglasses instead, or to
           | your smart glasses.
           | 
           | You might have to clip them to the backside to get it all to
           | work out. But in that case variations in lens shape will be
           | less visible, because sunglasses.
        
             | ojbyrne wrote:
             | Maybe I'm not sure what you're getting at, but you can
             | order these with prescription lenses, either tinted or not.
        
             | dwighttk wrote:
             | prescription lenses for most people are extremely
             | inexpensive to produce... the only reason glasses cost a
             | lot is the luxottica cartel
        
             | smeej wrote:
             | If the sunglasses sit a normal distance from the face, most
             | people's corrective lenses won't fit behind them.
             | 
             | There's a reason over-glasses sunglasses are so big and
             | clunky and ugly.
        
               | hinkley wrote:
               | These days, at least if you can afford designer, they use
               | rare earth magnets and the frames are exactly the same
               | shape.
               | 
               | Since most glasses only grind the back side of the lens,
               | they fit pretty closely together.
               | 
               | Which is also why you wouldn't be able to reverse the
               | position of the lenses without changing how they're
               | ground (also thick lenses hidden behind the frame conceal
               | just how bad your eyes are, which some people get self
               | conscious about.
               | 
               | Point was, if you wear a pair of glasses that people
               | require you to take off regularly, you still need to be
               | able to see, and that means carrying two pair of glasses.
               | Transitions lenses exist in large part because people
               | can't be arsed to carry around two pair of glasses.
        
               | smeej wrote:
               | You're missing the point. Corrective lenses have
               | thickness. For the frames that use magnets to add a
               | sunglass layer, they only work because it can go on the
               | outside, with the lens already set in the frame at the
               | right distance from the eyes/lashes. It just wouldn't
               | work in reverse, to take a sunglass lens at the right
               | distance and snap something in behind it. You'd get oily
               | lash streaks all over the corrective layer constantly.
               | 
               | It's even worse if you wear really thick glasses, because
               | sometimes they even have to sit slightly proud of the
               | frame in the front.
               | 
               | Your solution just isn't viable for this problem, as any
               | longtime glasses wearer could easily tell you.
               | 
               | If that's not enough, there's a whole industry of people
               | designing eyewear; you really think "What if you just
               | added the corrective part inside the tinted part?"
               | wouldn't have been done if it were viable?
        
               | hinkley wrote:
               | No man. Look.
               | 
               | Take a pair of glasses. Attach sunglasses to them. Move
               | the bows from the glasses to the sunglasses. The geometry
               | of the glasses or frames don't matter, it's whether
               | there's enough distance from the eye.
               | 
               | My glasses have almost always sat proud of the frames.
               | And there's plenty of distance behind them. (I've had
               | sunglasses that brush my eyelashes though, when I was
               | young and they were cheap, and that bugs the hell out of
               | me).
               | 
               | > If that's not enough, there's a whole industry of
               | people designing eyewear; you really think "What if you
               | just added the corrective part inside the tinted part?"
               | wouldn't have been done if it were viable?
               | 
               | First of all, that's an Appeal to Authority, and you know
               | where you can stick that. Two, you think I'm trying to
               | solve a very old problem, which means _you_ missed the
               | point.
               | 
               | Putting something on your face that vastly outsizes and
               | outcosts your glasses is a brand new problem.
               | 
               | Scientists get eyepieces for microscopes with
               | prescription lenses. That's not on your face. Skiers just
               | buy goggles with prescription lenses, which cost almost
               | as much as VR goggles. That's basically a luxury market,
               | not a consumer market.
               | 
               | Also the whole fuckin' point is that none of these
               | solutions (to people insisting you take your glasses off)
               | work because a rounding error of people are going to
               | carry two pair of glasses with them, and even the
               | workaround is unwieldy. You're lost in the weeds talking
               | about the physics of it, which aren't a problem and
               | aren't the real problem.
        
               | smeej wrote:
               | What you actually said was: > Clip your prescription to a
               | pair of sunglasses instead, or to your smart glasses.
               | 
               | You might have to clip them to the backside to get it all
               | to work out.
               | 
               | And what does "Move the bows from the glasses to the
               | sunglasses" even mean? Bows?
               | 
               | You can't take a glasses frame that is designed to be
               | worn at a normal distance from the eye and then clip
               | something to the back side of it, between the original
               | lens and your eye. There's not enough space to add a
               | corrective lens back there.
               | 
               | Even if there were, it's _still_ unfeasible, because the
               | part you have to take off is the smart part or the tinted
               | part _not the prescription part._
               | 
               | Never mind that it's only a rounding error of people who
               | are willing to carry around a clip-on layer either,
               | because it requires nearly as much protection as a full
               | pair of glasses to avoid breaking it.
               | 
               | Making the prescription part the clipping part is inane
               | on every level. Nothing about it works.
        
           | esafak wrote:
           | You can talk to people with smart earbuds, with no invasion
           | of privacy.
           | 
           | edit: All right, all right! It's a fair cop.
        
             | freeflight wrote:
             | You can talk to people with smart earbuds, but you have no
             | clue if those smart earbuds are recording what you say or
             | not.
             | 
             | The person wearing them could be on a call, and the caller
             | on the other side would hear what you say.
             | 
             | The person wearing them could be streaming to twitch, and
             | everybody watching that stream would hear what you say.
             | 
             | All while you assume that you are having a private
             | conversation with earbud person.
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | > You can talk to people with smart earbuds
             | 
             | Which I don't do. If someone is wearing earbuds, that's an
             | unambiguous signal that they don't want people talking to
             | them.
        
           | jeremyjh wrote:
           | The Meta glasses don't have a display, it's just camera and
           | audio.
        
             | Animats wrote:
             | Huh? Then how do they deliver ads?
        
               | jeremyjh wrote:
               | Presumably they monetize by selling your real-time
               | location and live video feed to your local surveillance
               | authorities or political enemies.
        
               | ponyous wrote:
               | Is there any source that can back this up? I can't
               | imagine my local police paying to have live locations at
               | all times.
        
               | smolder wrote:
               | You can't imagine police departments that buy stingray
               | devices and spy illegally with them to also pay for
               | surveillance data? Anyway for real time tracking, police
               | stations can likely get the feds involved which get that
               | info from your telco, who are best buddies with the
               | federal government.
        
               | SantalBlush wrote:
               | They deliver ads to the people being filmed with the
               | glasses, once they're identified and tracked by facebook.
        
               | Gud wrote:
               | I wonder if Zuckerberg one day will wake up and realize
               | what he's doing to the world.
        
               | surfingdino wrote:
               | Knowing and reflecting upon what you know are two
               | different things. And even then the outcomes may be
               | different than what you would expect.
        
               | LASR wrote:
               | Doesn't he already? And that's why he's doing what he's
               | doing?
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | _" To conclude, it's worth noting that, at least for a
               | time, product managers at Facebook -- Russ' job before
               | starting DocSend -- were required to read Snow Crash as
               | part of their internal training."_[0]
               | 
               | I think he knows.
               | 
               | 0: https://www.deaneckles.com/blog/700_docsend_in_snow_cr
               | ash/
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | _flux wrote:
               | They'll quietly whisper them into your ear.. !
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | Wow dang, they really should make this more obvious. If I
             | bought one and discovered that (despite being able to
             | record and stream video) it had no display, I would be
             | pissed.
        
               | majikandy wrote:
               | I agree this marketing is definitely misleading, this
               | image is a clear representation of a screen. Very black
               | mirror. https://ibb.co/HYpNzxD
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | > Wow dang, they really should make this more obvious.
               | 
               | How? It's not mentioned anywhere that this is about
               | displaying content, but it's very clear it's about
               | capturing video and listening to audio only.
               | 
               | Or you want them to put "Notice: No display is included
               | in the device" on the landing page?
        
               | darkclouds wrote:
               | [dead]
        
               | OJFord wrote:
               | To be fair the second sentence in the short top
               | description is about staying connected with calls _and
               | messages_. I don 't think many people's first assumption
               | (without any other context/knowing more) would be that
               | that means having them read out.
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | The full quote is:
               | 
               | > Stay connected with hands-free calls and messages and
               | listen to your favourite tracks through built-in
               | speakers.
               | 
               | Which makes it seem pretty clear they're talking about
               | stuff you can do because of the speakers.
               | 
               | Then later:
               | 
               | > No more stopping to answer your phone. Also, make calls
               | and send messages on WhatsApp, Messenger and SMS,
               | completely hands-free - simply by using your voice.
        
               | justinclift wrote:
               | > Which makes it seem pretty clear they're talking about
               | stuff you can do because of the speakers.
               | 
               | That's true. But it's not excluding display stuff.
               | 
               | It's along the lines of some product having multiple
               | features, and some marketing point only talking about the
               | advantages of the first feature. People would expect
               | further marketing points to address the other features,
               | and/or not even realise they'd not seen the other
               | ("assumed to be present") features mentioned later on.
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | > That's true. But it's not excluding display stuff.
               | 
               | How many product landing pages talk about what you cannot
               | do with the product or what it doesn't include? That'd be
               | a very strange landing page for a product...
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | I think you're technically correct, it definitely is
               | unusual to talk about what you cannot do.
               | 
               | However, do you really think the marketing team didn't
               | get together and recognize the major limitation of not
               | having a display, and carefully craft the marketing so as
               | to minimize that?
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | > However, do you really think the marketing team didn't
               | get together and recognize the major limitation of not
               | having a display, and carefully craft the marketing so as
               | to minimize that?
               | 
               | Probably a bunch of people wished it was Google Glass 2.0
               | because it'd make the marketing people jobs easier/more
               | interesting, but I don't think they'd craft the message
               | to trick people, it'll impact the amount of returns and
               | they'll probably lose more handling that than people not
               | buying it because it doesn't have a screen.
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | The first part seems intentionally ambiguously worded to
               | be interpreted as:
               | 
               |  _> (Stay connected with hands-free calls and messages)
               | and (listen to your favourite tracks through built-in
               | speakers)_
               | 
               | vs:
               | 
               |  _> (Stay connected with hands-free calls and messages
               | and listen to your favourite tracks) through built-in
               | speakers_
               | 
               | So it's not clear from that wording that there isn't a
               | display, or that the messages are read aloud. An
               | unambiguous wording would be:
               | 
               |  _> listen to your favourite tracks and stay connected
               | with hands-free calls and messages through built-in
               | speakers_
               | 
               | As, well, the below statement is true whether there is a
               | screen or not, and also doesn't specify that the messages
               | are read aloud:
               | 
               |  _> No more stopping to answer your phone. Also, make
               | calls and send messages on WhatsApp, Messenger and SMS,
               | completely hands-free - simply by using your voice_
               | 
               | That plus the image of the screen floating next to the
               | glasses definitely make it seem like marketing is trying
               | to trick people into thinking there's a display without
               | explicitly claiming it
        
               | dwighttk wrote:
               | I don't use WhatsApp or Messenger, but the messaging apps
               | I use are I'd guess at least 10% gif/photo/video
               | content... some threads more...
        
               | OJFord wrote:
               | > The full quote is:
               | 
               | > > Stay connected with hands-free calls and messages and
               | listen to your favourite tracks through built-in
               | speakers.
               | 
               | > Which makes it seem pretty clear they're talking about
               | stuff you can do because of the speakers.
               | 
               | I don't agree at all (I wasn't not quoting to hide
               | anything, I was just typing from mobile with a crappy
               | connection on a train) - that's not clear to me - but ok.
        
               | jacobsenscott wrote:
               | Meta is all about VR. VR means a display. Anyone would
               | assume "meta glasses" are AR glasses. This is just a
               | desperate attempt to boost the meta hype because they
               | have made no progress on actual VR products.
               | 
               | They are also called "smart glasses", but they are just
               | headphones and a camera. Nobody calls their bluetooth
               | headphones "smart".
        
           | nickthegreek wrote:
           | I found google glass to be great. It had real world AR in
           | directions. I used it several times in other cities to move
           | about. I never really had any heat issues. I do wish we could
           | have gotten a couple iterations, but that's Google for you.
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | Google Wear is the second iteration of Google Glass, pretty
             | much the same UI, but on your wrist instead of awkwardly up
             | and to the right.
        
         | addicted wrote:
         | That same ability might lead people to ban people wearing smart
         | glasses from participating.
         | 
         | If we were having a party, we'd almost certainly not allow
         | people to keep their smart glasses on because the complete lack
         | of friction would mean certain individuals who are decently in
         | the public eye would have to basically spend the whole evening
         | just making sure there's not even a suggestion of a still
         | picture capturing something that may go wrong.
         | 
         | You will almost certainly be required to remove your smart
         | glasses before entering any sort of medical institution, and
         | even a building containing a medical institution would probably
         | have you removing it on entering the building itself.
        
           | Gud wrote:
           | Thanks a lot for this viewpoint. This type of surveillance
           | tech is extremely scary to me. I have no doubt a big enough
           | minority will want to embrace it, without a moments thought
           | to what the people around them might feel like.
           | 
           | But it's very comforting that in many places they will be
           | outright banned. I will do my best to get them forbidden in
           | as many places as I can.
        
             | braislan wrote:
             | "Would you favor or oppose the government installing
             | surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic
             | violence, abuse and other illegal activity"
             | 
             | In the 18-29 age range, 30% said yes.
             | 
             | I agree with your sentiments but we have already lost. You
             | just have to enjoy what we have now because it won't last
             | forever. Someday everyone's entire life will be filmed and
             | watched over by AI. To me, that is absolutely obvious at
             | this point. If that was not going to be the case we
             | wouldn't be where we are now.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | euroderf wrote:
           | Fistfights at Burning Man.
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | I wouldn't allow someone in my home if they're wearing these.
           | If I were at a social function where someone had these on,
           | I'd almost certainly leave.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | "Capture anything" aka recording videos is exactly one use case
         | compared to a smartphone which can do that and..basically
         | anything else. So I don't see how smart glasses will ever
         | approach the ubiquity of a phone.
        
         | xmprt wrote:
         | The only argument that I have is that wearing glasses kind of
         | sucks and is pretty inconvenient. And glasses are kind of a
         | fashion statement so unless these manufacturers can come up
         | with a way to easily swap out parts like the frame (just like
         | people change phone cases today) and lenses (to support people
         | with prescriptions), it'll be tough to reach the mainstream.
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | Social pressure, perhaps? If people generally object, wearing
         | them when you're interacting with people will come with a
         | social cost.
        
         | audunw wrote:
         | Why glasses? I've paid a lot of money not to have to wear
         | glasses.
         | 
         | I might use some kind of camera attached to my head if it was
         | something most people used. Would be nice to be able to capture
         | moments instantly.
         | 
         | I haven't seen a use-case for low quality augmented reality
         | that would make me use glasses daily. Then again, I personally
         | don't find smart watches worth it and lots of people use those.
         | 
         | I think the Apple Vision kind of illustrates what it'd take for
         | really compelling augmented reality. If it can replace my TV I
         | might actually use it. But then they clearly don't intend for
         | you to use them outside. And I'm still not sure if it's worth
         | the discomfort of wearing tightly fitting glasses.
        
           | gorjusborg wrote:
           | > Why glasses? I've paid a lot of money not to have to wear
           | glasses.
           | 
           | Because it's the only socially acceptable way to point a
           | camera at people without tipping them off.
           | 
           | That's one reason google glass didn't take off as well. When
           | you show up at the party waving your camera around on record,
           | people tend to find a way to distance themselves.
        
             | makeitdouble wrote:
             | It means that either this line of product will ruin glasses
             | (false positives of people assuming your thick frame
             | glasses are a hidden camera) either people really aren't
             | tipped off and we'll have a moral panic about private
             | footages overflowing in the media.
             | 
             | I see a future in smart glasses, in particular for
             | notifications, but they absolutely need to tip off people
             | when the camera is pointed at them.
        
               | justinclift wrote:
               | > they absolutely need to tip off people when the camera
               | is pointed at them.
               | 
               | Which is already "too late", as most of the time the
               | person will be recorded before they've noticed it.
               | 
               | Not sure there's a perfect solution to the problem
               | though, as it's the intersection of several concurrent
               | conflicting requirements. :/
        
         | Ygor wrote:
         | As someone who wears glasses, my argument was always that most
         | people don't want to wear glasses all the time, even if they
         | were adding no extra friction vs your regular sunglasses
         | (weight, looks, cost).
         | 
         | But, I had the same argument for Apple watch - no one in my
         | circle was wearing watches any more. However, that didn't
         | prevent people to start wearing an Apple watch.
         | 
         | So, I can definitely see a future where people who don't wear
         | glasses choose to wear smart glasses.
        
           | Mekulpa wrote:
           | It's still a question of benefit and effort.
           | 
           | That watch can do a lot. Like paying etc.
           | 
           | I do agree that I wouldn't have assumed that the watch is
           | used that much but after it got its own esim and can be used
           | instead of a phone, it can replace a device.
           | 
           | And for sports it's actually practical.
           | 
           | Glasses? I still think nope. It's still not a beauty thing
        
         | codexb wrote:
         | Eyewear isn't ubiquitous.
        
         | Eji1700 wrote:
         | Cost and interface mostly. Also to some extent privacy issues.
         | 
         | Phones being $1000 is already an issue, and they're by default
         | more robust. Glasses, assuming we can get them to a similar
         | cost, are probably even more likely to be lost or broken. For
         | comparison think of foldable smart phones, which exist, but are
         | mostly seen as a trendy luxury item due to their durability
         | issues.
         | 
         | The interface, I think is huge. Smart phones took off because
         | apple figured out a good interface. People like to rip on them
         | for just copying an idea that already existed and hadn't taken
         | off, but they ignore that apple nailed the hell out of getting
         | it so the average person could use it.
         | 
         | You need it to be clear, obvious, and responsive.
         | 
         | All the examples i've seen of these smart glasses (website
         | isn't loading for me so I can't check this) are the sorts of
         | things that nerdy people like me (typing on a cornish zen)
         | would find fine, and will never be smooth enough for the
         | average user, ESPECIALLY at current costs.
         | 
         | While things like the air pods pro have changed my opinion on
         | the average user adopting tactile controls, I still think that
         | voice activation and mostly reference-less tactile controls is
         | NOT mass adoptable. And this is before we get into just the
         | hassle of glasses (smudges and the like).
         | 
         | From what I can tell, these are basically just "headphones +
         | camera" on your face. So it's not displaying anything, at which
         | point this is like airpods with a camera. Is there a group of
         | people who want that? Sure, this looks tailor made for luxury
         | influences. Is that a use case for the average person? I don't
         | think so.
        
           | dredmorbius wrote:
           | Phones costing $1,000 is a feature.
           | 
           | Not a feature _I_ like or endorse, but one that 's clearly in
           | the interest of both device vendors _and_ much of the online
           | advertising and commercial sector.
           | 
           | In a world in which credible attestations of interest and
           | potential commercial value are difficult to assess without
           | the manifest signals of a high street address and the visual
           | assessments made possible by physical presence, owning a < 2
           | y.o. piece of $1,000 kit is a highly reliable market
           | segmentation signal.
           | 
           | This is a key reason why websites (especially commercial
           | ones, but also anything advertising-related) are on such a
           | relentless treadmill of ever-escallating resource demand. Got
           | to keep those undesireable old-cheap-Android and 15-year-old
           | desktop plebes out _somehow_.
           | 
           | Previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27410503>
           | <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29612296>
           | <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16959819>
           | <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21530274>
        
         | quitit wrote:
         | In my opinion barriers are:
         | 
         | 1. Outward appearance. People don't like wearing glasses if
         | they don't have to.
         | 
         | 2. Tech issues: e.g. short battery life, weight, need for
         | charging, UX.
         | 
         | 3. Compelling features that make them worthwhile to use. This
         | point is harder to explain, but a device needs to provide
         | features to the wearer as they wear them and not indirect
         | benefits. These features need to be particular to the device's
         | unique position on the face. It needs to solve the question:
         | what can a device on the face do, that one in the hand can't.
         | 
         | 4. Recording content must be a secondary feature of such
         | devices. We let smartphones into private places, such as change
         | rooms, because they provide an enormous set of features, and
         | only bad actors would use the recording features in an indecent
         | way. If the main purpose of smart eyewear is to record others,
         | then they'll not only be banned from such locations, but those
         | around the wearer will become unnerved by them. People need
         | privacy and downtime.
         | 
         | I feel meta's smart glasses partly answer point 1, but fail at
         | the rest. They are a lop sided product in their efforts: the
         | main feature is to produce recordings, this means there's no
         | compelling reason to always take them out and their primary
         | purpose is bested by the smartphone they need to be paired
         | with. The smartphone has better cameras, better battery life,
         | the ability to easily review and retake photos, and doesn't
         | need to be worn on the face.
         | 
         | I can't understate how wearable tech needs to deliver features
         | to the user as they're wearing them, and in a way that only
         | that position on the body enables. Meta's product here doesn't
         | really offer anything that they can't get in a better form from
         | other products, products that the market already owns:
         | 
         | Recording content: The phone is infinitely better.
         | 
         | Shortcuts/listening to music: BT headphones/Airpods are
         | simpler, have longer battery, more private and provide all of
         | the same features such as handling calls, volume and playback
         | control.
         | 
         | With al of these obvious shortcomings, the only rationale I can
         | imagine is that Meta are just doing their fast-follow strategy.
         | They couldn't acquire Snap, so they copied Snap's stories and
         | now these are a copy of Snap Spectacles.
        
           | yieldcrv wrote:
           | people like wearing glasses that say ray ban
        
             | quitit wrote:
             | to quote my own comment:
             | 
             | > I feel meta's smart glasses partly answer point 1, but
             | fail at the rest.
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | Some do, sure. But not most.
        
         | LeifCarrotson wrote:
         | Eyeballs are pretty optimal for getting data out of a computer
         | and into a brain. I think professionals will continue to use a
         | high-resolution large-format desktop monitor, but a high-
         | resolution large-format display on a pair of glasses is
         | unambiguously superior to a phone screen, no matter how much
         | resolution they pack in or how much larger than a pocket they
         | get.
         | 
         | What I wonder is where the keyboard is going. I have an
         | imagination that can draw and abstract things with (I think?)
         | about as much fidelity as my eyes can take in, but there's
         | nothing that even comes close to that for getting that data out
         | of my brain and into the computer. Not keyboards, not mice, not
         | touchscreens or pen/tablet, not game controllers, not voice-to-
         | text. Not my Leap Motion gesture sensor or Spacemouse, though
         | those are interesting products. With lots and lots of training,
         | I can get hundreds of WPM of text into a computer, with exotic,
         | high-information-density syntax if required (text entry speed
         | doesn't really seem to be the bottleneck for productive work,
         | but that's beside the point IMO).
         | 
         | The optimal input mechanism is definitely not blinking, though
         | I can imagine that eyeglasses with gaze tracking tech (and some
         | training for "wink to click" or similar) may someday be of
         | comparable or greater utility to a mouse pointer. But how close
         | can we get to "think to text" or "think to image"?
        
           | DoctorOetker wrote:
           | our ears can speak.
           | 
           | the inner ear is a _mechanical_ amplifier.
           | 
           | a device comparing the incoming acoustic spectrum with the
           | otoacoustically emitted spectrum can see the mixer settings
           | (controlled by the brain).
           | 
           | we could learn to type and communicate with our cochleas
           | (assuming they weren't destroyed by wearing big headphones
           | while cycling...)
        
           | valine wrote:
           | I've been imagining the future will be smart glasses paired
           | with mini pocket keyboards, like the bottom half of a
           | blackberry. Or who knows maybe everyone will lean heavily
           | into dictation.
           | 
           | I think there's also a future where hand tracking gets so
           | good you just type on a full sized floating keyboard. That's
           | seems to be apples approach with the Vision Pro.
        
             | arp242 wrote:
             | > Or who knows maybe everyone will lean heavily into
             | dictation.
             | 
             | Impractical, as lots of input is hard or even impossible to
             | do with dictation; saying "next" or "go back" every time
             | quickly becomes tiresome, and never mind things like games.
             | 
             | For pure text messages and the like there are loads of
             | scenarios where you don't want to be talking out loud, for
             | reasons of convenience, privacy, and not being a nuisance
             | to others.
             | 
             | It's looks cool on Star Trek and all, but voice control
             | will never be the main interface to computers. Absolutely
             | great accessibility tool and like many accessibility tools
             | useful for everyone from time to time. But the default for
             | regular people? I'm not seeing that happening.
        
         | smolder wrote:
         | I can't imagine willingly introducing any more "smart" devices
         | into my life given the baggage "smart" comes with. We have to
         | cede a little autonomy and privacy to unaccountable central
         | authorities for every new "smart", cloud-enabled gimmick we buy
         | into. I'd be happy to invest in tech that treats me like I own
         | it, but that way of doing things is on its way out, at least
         | for the average person.
        
         | jehb wrote:
         | I mean, sure, there are plenty: regulation, battery life,
         | ruggedness, the creep factor, the fact that this does not
         | provide me with anything similar to the value of a smartphone.
         | 
         | Not all of us spend our days walking down urban streets, having
         | a desire to have the things around us augmented. My smart phone
         | spends 98% of its life in my pocket _because_ I don 't want or
         | need any application most of the time. I've tried adopting a
         | smartwatch on multiple occasions and never found it offered me
         | any value. All it did was convince me to turn off a bunch of
         | notifications I didn't need to be getting to begin with.
        
         | braislan wrote:
         | The argument is that many people go through the hassle of
         | contact lenses as to not have to wear things on their face.
         | 
         | The bigger problem is that most of reality is just not that
         | interesting. We are already well passed the marginal utility of
         | additional photos/video.
         | 
         | Augmented reality has been right around the corner for many
         | years now. There is obviously all kinds of fundamental flaws
         | with these ideas that those with vested interest pretend do not
         | exist.
        
         | liveoneggs wrote:
         | Everyone wearing them will eventually die in terrible car
         | crashes because Eye-Sta-Gram Videos are more entertaining than
         | stop lights
        
           | euroderf wrote:
           | "He died doing what he loved most: watching cat videos."
        
         | ClarityJones wrote:
         | I don't think it will be _as_ ubiquitous as smart phones for
         | the same reason smart watches are not as ubiquitous as smart
         | phones.
         | 
         | The reason I do not wear a smart watch is not because they're
         | not useful, but because it's simply not comfortable for me to
         | be wearing something on my wrist. It's not a big deal, but I
         | prefer to not wear rings, watches, bracelets, etc.
         | 
         | Similarly, I prefer contacts over glasses because of a 1)
         | glasses reduce your field of view / quality of vision, 2) the
         | touch / feel of having something on my face, and 3) them
         | inevitably falling off or being grabbed by my baby.
         | 
         | Smart watches got as ubiquitous as normal watches, and
         | smartphones got as ubiquitous as wallets (and other things you
         | might keep in a pocket or purse). I expect smart glasses will
         | become about as ubiquitous as regular glasses.
        
         | PlunderBunny wrote:
         | David Brin's 'Earth' novel (which feels very prescient in some
         | ways) has elderly people wearing sunglasses that continuously
         | capture live video which is monitored by (private?) security
         | companies. If I recall correctly, in the novel this effectively
         | eliminates street-crime.
        
           | stickfigure wrote:
           | We already do this with dashcams; when the form factor
           | allows, I expect it'll be just as common for walking. For
           | mostly the same reasons. It might actually improve city
           | street life.
        
         | majormajor wrote:
         | People spend thousands to _avoid_ having to wear glasses or
         | contacts all the time.
         | 
         | Now you can wear them all the time again, but now with more
         | ads?
         | 
         | EDIT to add something less snarky: phones were a "here's
         | another thing to carry in your purse or pocket" additive thing
         | to lifestyles, which wasn't too big a burden, and then
         | gradually got more and more useful. Glasses and contacts, on
         | the other hand, have _decades_ of evidences of people actively
         | avoiding them except for situational stuff. So them getting as
         | pervasive as phones would need a lot more behavioral change.
        
         | some_random wrote:
         | Is there a good way to text someone with smart glasses yet? How
         | about cropping a photo before posting to instagram? What's the
         | experience of doomscrolling twitter/x/whatever? I really don't
         | think they're going to be as ubiquitous, as smartphones without
         | being as good or better than them in at least some of these
        
           | troupe wrote:
           | > Is there a good way to text someone with smart glasses yet?
           | 
           | You could stream video from the glasses and then video
           | yourself writing them a note and hope someone else tags them
           | to let them know it was for them.
        
         | majikandy wrote:
         | I'd say "comfort". Glasses aren't comfortable for many people
         | and neither are contact lenses. I have a mild prescription but
         | the discomfort of the glasses (arms, nose bridge, turning head
         | more) is greater than the discomfort of my vision not being
         | ultra sharp (for me). So a future of putting on glasses for the
         | tech really isn't for me.
        
           | throwaway689236 wrote:
           | Same could be said about headphones, yet here we are.
        
             | majikandy wrote:
             | Yep, I don't use headphones that much either.
        
         | ArekDymalski wrote:
         | > Any good argument that anyone can think of for a scenario
         | where smart eyewear will not be as ubiquitous as smart phones
         | eventually?
         | 
         | I see 2 potential scenarios:
         | 
         | 1. Some series of safety/privacy mishaps will lead to
         | social/media hysteria which will push politicians towards a ban
         | for such devices.
         | 
         | 2. Initial price set too high will cause vicious circle of: low
         | userbase -> lack of interest from developers -> lack of
         | valuable features -> low userbase.
         | 
         | I won't argue that these are very probable scenarios, but quite
         | possible imho.
        
           | sgjohnson wrote:
           | > 2. Initial price set too high will cause vicious circle of:
           | 
           | These are listed at $299. Hardly expensive, compared to how
           | much ray bans cost.
        
             | HDThoreaun wrote:
             | But these aren't good enough to see mass adoption. It's
             | possible that the tech needed to create an affordable smart
             | glasses product that is actually usefully is for whatever
             | reason just physically impossible to create.
        
         | gumballindie wrote:
         | > augmented reality that is coming.
         | 
         | If delivered, augmented reality will be the single biggest
         | technical breakthrough since the smartphone.
        
         | gorjusborg wrote:
         | The tendency for people to be creeped out by your surveillance
         | glasses.
         | 
         | If anyone around me wore these, I'd promptly tease them
         | playfully about it, making it clear it's creepy.
         | 
         | I understand that there are folks like yourself that are
         | comfortable with it, but most people are against others walking
         | around and recording.
         | 
         | I hate that they are trying to hide the fact that the glasses
         | are modified. Clearly they understand that the camera must be
         | hidden for it to be socially acceptable.
        
           | seanmcdirmid wrote:
           | Cops have to wear body cams that are recording continuously
           | (or at least we hope they are). Dash cams are popular...even
           | standard...in places where insurance fraud is rife. How long
           | the hold out will be until wearing a headset recording device
           | is considered normal rather than creepy?
        
             | gorjusborg wrote:
             | I see your point, but dash cams are recording the road,
             | which is not a place that most people consider private.
             | 
             | An always-present personal recording device is different.
             | People enter and leave areas that others feel are private.
             | In some cases, there are even laws protecting what can be
             | recorded (two-party states in the U.S. for example).
             | 
             | If something like these glasses started to take off, I
             | would expect public backlash and legislation that
             | restricted or prevented its use in certain contexts, which
             | would essentially make them useless (the point is that you
             | wear them all the time).
        
             | eertami wrote:
             | Depends on the culture, really. Dash cams (& ring
             | doorbells/private security cameras) are illegal in quite a
             | few countries with strong privacy protections.
             | 
             | Even on a public street people have a right to privacy in
             | my country, I couldn't just start taking pictures or video
             | of someone without consent.
        
           | ActorNightly wrote:
           | If everyone being able to record anyone in public is the way
           | we get people to stop acting like assholes to each other, Im
           | all for it.
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | I'm not. It would make me avoid being in public places.
        
               | ActorNightly wrote:
               | And if more people had the same mentality, it would be
               | great.
        
             | ryandrake wrote:
             | I think a single trip down Reddit's r/PublicFreakout should
             | be enough to convince you that the ubiquity of cameras
             | doesn't stop people from acting like assholes.
        
               | ActorNightly wrote:
               | Thats a small minority of incidents. There are a lot more
               | day to day behaviors that people do that are
               | inconsiderate, and if there is a chance of you getting on
               | video, being identified and losing your job, Im all for
               | it. There is no immediate reward for acting good, and
               | very little to no punishment for acting like an asshole.
        
         | diffeomorphism wrote:
         | Comfort and looks: In recent years I have seen lots of people
         | move from glasses to contacts or even to laser surgery. And
         | smart glasses will necessarily be even heavier.
         | 
         | Battery life: The announcement says 4 hours. That puts it at
         | "gaming laptop" levels of inconvenience. It will have to be at
         | least day long to be that ubiquitous and improvements of that
         | scale will take many years.
         | 
         | Usability: touch gestures on the frame or a smartphone app make
         | this very non-effortless. The "think or blink in a certain way"
         | is definitely not there yet and I doubt it will be in the next
         | 20 years. Also, that UX would be the innovation, not the
         | glasses it is affixed to.
         | 
         | Banal reason: Look at VR, 3D, google glass,... . Much hype and
         | then nothing. Why should this be any different?
        
       | ge96 wrote:
       | Boo it's not AR.
       | 
       | I wish RayBan would make oled-infused corrected lenses.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | nrki wrote:
       | _The Circle_ 's "completely transparent" vibes.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ConcernedCoder wrote:
       | so where's the virtual HUD ?
        
       | idopmstuff wrote:
       | I had the original version of these (Ray-Ban stories), and I had
       | to return them three times because they kept dropping the
       | Bluetooth connection. I more or less only wore them while
       | running, so my best guess is moisture from my sweating got into
       | them. Given that they were advertised heavily for sports stuff,
       | that was disappointing.
       | 
       | The return process was also complicated and annoying. Overall,
       | I'd recommend against buying the first generation of these new
       | glasses.
        
       | zip1234 wrote:
       | I see a lot of people complaining about display. These are not
       | meant for that use case. Maybe someday the tech will be available
       | to have a display. That said, I have v1 Rayban Stories and use
       | them as my daily driver sunglasses. I use them mainly for
       | answering calls or listening to music but take occasional photos.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | jejeyyy77 wrote:
       | finally, smart glasses that look good.
        
         | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
         | Have you seen or worn them in real life? The previous gen
         | looked normal online but absolutely craptastic in person.
        
           | zip1234 wrote:
           | They are slightly bigger but not everyone has the same face
           | shape. Looks like they made them even slimmer in this gen and
           | have more options.
        
       | geephroh wrote:
       | What company would I trust less than Google to deploy wearable
       | technology with potentially staggering privacy issues?
       | 
       | OK, it's probably Twitter; but still, I'm sure as hell not buying
       | anything tied to Meta, either.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | I like it. It's a pity about this stuff, though, because it's the
       | equivalent of holding your phone camera up to everyone you're
       | talking to. The form factor is so useful but the camera lens just
       | makes everything weird.
        
       | lnxg33k1 wrote:
       | How is privacy dealt with? I am not sure, but we are already
       | tracked by meta without even being signed up, are we going to be
       | tracked even offline for taking a walk? Is this piece of disgrace
       | company and the piece of shit that work for it just so
       | uninterested of what their products to do people? Is it possible
       | to inject some common sense in big tech?
        
       | DiabloD3 wrote:
       | Can dang do something about the corporate spam that keeps popping
       | up on HN? I don't think meta, or Apple, or the rest of these
       | companies need help advertising products.
        
         | gruturo wrote:
         | I dislike Facebook as much as the next guy, probably more, but
         | this stuff _is_ news for hackers. And it 's not even
         | particularly beneficial for them to be featured on HN, we're a
         | rather critical audience.
        
         | toyg wrote:
         | Because YCombinator is not "corporate"...? Dude.
        
         | mometsi wrote:
         | A tech giant is using luxury branding to encourage people to
         | put networked cameras on their faces.
         | 
         | I think that's worth my attention even if I'm not the intended
         | customer.
        
         | Philpax wrote:
         | Well, I don't think you can really stop people from talking
         | about new technology on a forum for hackers...
        
         | dredmorbius wrote:
         | You can:
         | 
         | 1. Flag content you feel isn't appropriate for HN.
         | 
         | 2. Email mods at hn@ycombinator.com requesting that specific
         | sites be deprecated and/or penalised.
         | 
         | As for the latter, I'm aware that general news and ideological
         | sites _are_ deprecated. I 'm not aware that any mainstream
         | corporate sites _which have not engaged in vote-juicing
         | practices_ are penalised.
         | 
         | There are those who share your weariness of promotional
         | material from ... a certain commercial toothed segment, let's
         | say.
        
       | forgotusername6 wrote:
       | Does anyone else get stuck with it just refreshing the page if
       | you decline optional cookies?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ziziyO wrote:
       | I don't understand how putting a camera on a pair of glasses is
       | what meta/rayban wanted to spend time on.
        
         | cush wrote:
         | Yeah it's their looooong term bet.
        
           | ProllyInfamous wrote:
           | "For sunglass creeps to capture more long-term memories."
           | 
           | --Some Rayban Executive, probably.
        
             | standardUser wrote:
             | I wonder how much the acknowledged the creep factor
             | internally, or if they just kind of danced around it. But
             | it must be their target demographic.
        
               | ProllyInfamous wrote:
               | Meanwhile: Apple's internal teams already acknowledge
               | this... by showing [digitally, with outward-facing LCDs]
               | the wearer's "eyes" whenever they are able to see [and
               | where they're looking, approximately?].
        
         | mike10921 wrote:
         | I'm no fan of either company but the general concept is that
         | Meta specializes in software not fashion, so partnering with
         | Rayban will allow people to feel fashionable while using Meta's
         | device (and of course allowing meta to follow their every
         | move).
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | romusha wrote:
       | Thing that will die out 2 years from now:
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | tapvt wrote:
       | > Imagine if you could take a picture of anything, add a little
       | note, have it filed away.
       | 
       | I'd use that regularly while working on my truck. It'd be a lot
       | easier than stopping during every disassembly step to snap a
       | picture with my phone.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | api_or_ipa wrote:
       | Pricing is interesting. $299 for the Wayfarer model when the base
       | Wayfarer goes for $171 on the Rayban website. If (and this is a
       | big if) you assume Luxottica takes the same cut on both models,
       | then Meta is selling a camera, headphones, etc, conveniently
       | packaged into a very small form-factor for $128. If I were in the
       | market for a new pair of sunglasses, it isn't hard to seem me
       | splurging another $128 for something that could potentially
       | replace my airpods for taking calls while I'm away from home.
       | 
       | Personally, not a fan of sticking a camera everywhere I look
       | though. I get why companies want to push that feature (more
       | data!) but I just don't see a reason why consumers need a camera
       | pointing at everything they're doing.
       | 
       | Kinda cool nonetheless.
        
         | MrMetlHed wrote:
         | Yeah, I go hiking several times a week and I'd wear these all
         | the time. I like listening to podcasts or music, but want to be
         | able to hear any rattlesnakes or interesting birds, so the
         | speakers seem like a plus. And being able to snap a photo
         | without pulling my phone out would also be great. I probably
         | wouldn't use them in a lot of situations, but hiking seems like
         | a good one. If these end up being decent I'd consider them over
         | a normal pair of sunglasses next time I need a pair.
        
           | gascoigne wrote:
           | > And being able to snap a photo without pulling my phone out
           | would also be great
           | 
           | The camera is only 720p. There are probably a couple more
           | iterations before this becomes good enough to not pull your
           | phone out.
        
             | flockonus wrote:
             | Where did you get 720p from? On the website it says 12MP,
             | which i believe is equivalent to 4k resolution.
        
               | mbreese wrote:
               | From: https://www.meta.com/smart-glasses/wayfarer-shiny-
               | black-plan...
               | 
               |  _Camera 12 MP ultra-wide
               | 
               | Image framing / resolution - Portrait default / 3024 X
               | 4032 pixels
               | 
               | Video - Vertical default / 1440 x 1920 pixels at 30 fps_
               | 
               | So, the video is a mix of 1440 and 1080p. (1920x1440, but
               | tall rather than wide).
        
           | bigbluesax wrote:
           | When I tried bone conducting headphones a couple years back,
           | the audio quality wasn't good enough to really enjoy music,
           | podcasts worked well through.
        
           | bpye wrote:
           | Bose had sunglasses with bone conduction audio for a while -
           | but I think they got discontinued. I like the idea but these
           | are, to me, worse. I get why some people would like having a
           | camera, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with it.
        
             | beebeepka wrote:
             | There are countless bone conducting headphones on the
             | market. And they are very affordable. No need for brand
             | names.
        
               | bpye wrote:
               | Oh sure - but as someone that wears glasses the idea of
               | them being a combined device is interesting.
        
           | koube wrote:
           | Bone conducting headphones are great, I use them all of the
           | time on walks, and you can hear everything as long as you
           | don't play anything too loud. If they get loud enough then
           | you don't hear certain things but that goes for any kind of
           | headphones.
        
             | dontlaugh wrote:
             | The ones I tried for a few days made me nauseous enough
             | that I had to return them. But I think that's a rare
             | reaction.
        
         | seabass-labrax wrote:
         | Luxottica is probably doing very nicely on this partnership,
         | and may well be offering Apple a substantial price cut to
         | compensate. I had never heard of 'Rayban' before this Apple
         | announcement! (Not that I am the target market for sunglasses
         | anyway, in dark and wet Great Britain)
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | gnicholas wrote:
           | > _I had never heard of 'Rayban' before this Apple
           | announcement!_
           | 
           | Apple? Or do you mean Meta? It would be understandable if you
           | had never heard of them, given the recent rebrand!
        
             | seabass-labrax wrote:
             | Oh, right - sorry for any confusion. I find it difficult to
             | work out who owns who nowadays :D
        
           | geon wrote:
           | Apple?
        
             | jondwillis wrote:
             | No, Facebook.
        
           | bobobob420 wrote:
           | Have you seriously never heard of Rayban but know what
           | Luxottica is? I dont want you to dox yourself but I assume
           | non US...?
        
             | seabass-labrax wrote:
             | Indeed, I'm from Britain. I really hadn't ever heard of
             | Rayban - and I only know what Luxottica is because I looked
             | it up after reading this thread :)
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | baby wrote:
             | Rayban is famous worldwide tho
        
               | herbst wrote:
               | To be fair they are barely relevant in my circle and more
               | a fashion piece for the older generation. It's not like
               | teenager or young people around here think it's cool to
               | have expensive cheaply made glasses
        
               | baby wrote:
               | I guess I'm part of the older generation being in my 30s,
               | what are teenagers wearing these days?
        
               | ChristianGeek wrote:
               | Not if you've never heard of them!
        
           | presentation wrote:
           | It's only probably the most famous sunglasses brand in human
           | history
        
             | seabass-labrax wrote:
             | Sunglasses aren't a particularly good investment when there
             | will only be a couple of weeks bright enough to want them
             | :) But awareness of raincoat brands in Britain, now you're
             | talking!
        
               | djtango wrote:
               | Yes... I remember when Hunter wellies were a UK fashion
               | export amongst some circles I moved in haha
        
               | Spare_account wrote:
               | I wear sunglasses for driving every day of the year in
               | the UK.
               | 
               | Your optician will also encourage you to wear sunglasses
               | year-round, UV damage can occur even in overcast
               | conditions.
        
               | seabass-labrax wrote:
               | That's a good point; roads can certainly have a strong
               | glare.
               | 
               | I see an independent optician who is fairly old. Although
               | they sell sunglasses, the optician has never suggested
               | that I should wear them. Do you think this is perhaps
               | newer guidance that is shared by more recently-graduated
               | opticians, or maybe something promoted by a major chain
               | of opticians?
        
             | fomine3 wrote:
             | As a worst fashionable and no glass person, I knew Ray-Ban
             | from counterfeit spams by hacked account. It's one of the
             | worst encounter.
        
           | Snoddas wrote:
           | I learned about Ray-Bans in the early 80s because that was
           | what Jake and Elwood Blues wore.
        
         | lm28469 wrote:
         | For me, and probably a lot of people, it's the opposite, I'd
         | pay more if needed to get the non tech version
        
           | dwighttk wrote:
           | if facebook were business smart, they'd sell these for less
           | like the TV screen people...
        
             | quickthrower2 wrote:
             | they are business smart!
        
               | dwighttk wrote:
               | Business smarter then I guess
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | dmix wrote:
         | Maybe there's some app store type arrangement.
        
         | tamimio wrote:
         | > $299 for the Wayfarer model when the base Wayfarer goes for
         | $171 on the Rayban website.
         | 
         | With the amount of data collected, it should be provided free
         | of charge, heck, you are getting paid too!
        
         | seventytwo wrote:
         | I bet these smart glasses have basically zero profit margin, or
         | even negative.
         | 
         | The real value to be made here is to get facebook's data vacuum
         | into a new aspect of our lives.
        
           | pharmakom wrote:
           | First company to crack this will have Apple like market
           | dominance.
        
             | scrum-treats wrote:
             | If I recall correctly, Google already did. I also remember
             | people largely pushing back against hyper-surveillance tech
             | such as this.
        
               | dvngnt_ wrote:
               | google is an innovator but they don't really stick with
               | things if they're not immediate hits.
               | 
               | meta has privacy concerns but they've made a name for
               | themselves in XR so this move isn't out of nowhere and
               | with apple joining soon it's more normalized. apple wants
               | us to strap a hmd to watch our kid blow out the candles
        
           | CodeWriter23 wrote:
           | Not zero, negative margin.
        
         | bbor wrote:
         | Omnipresent video input is going to be essential for Artificial
         | Self-Instantiation AGIs early next year. Your personal
         | assistant can't help you if you need to tell it what you're
         | doing all the time!
        
           | mgrund wrote:
           | Sounds interesting, any reading material you could point to
           | about this?
        
           | jondwillis wrote:
           | Why do you say early next year?
           | 
           | Agents barely work as of now. OpenAI's plugins that ~do~
           | things like browse are still quite slow.
        
           | autoexec wrote:
           | > Your personal assistant can't help you if you need to tell
           | it what you're doing all the time!
           | 
           | I assume "help" in this case will mean shoving endless ads
           | your face and feeding manipulative lies to you on behalf of
           | anyone willing to pay for it.
        
         | mikelward wrote:
         | Yeah, I would take no cameras, less creepy, and longer battery
         | life, if I had the option.
         | 
         | Edit: I do love that they have a transition lens version,
         | though. I haven't seen that elsewhere.
         | 
         | Bose had some Bluetooth glasses, but their website currently
         | says "We'll be back soon". I also can't find them on Amazon, so
         | I'm wondering if they were discontinued.
        
         | surfingdino wrote:
         | Yes, it's to gather even more data. Ad agencies have figured
         | out how to glorify this. Dell in the UK is running an ad
         | telling the viewer that the tourists photographing and filming
         | coral reefs are helping the scientists help preserve nature.
        
         | wyclif wrote:
         | The base, regular Wayfarers were cannibalized and cheapened out
         | by Luxottica a long time ago. I'm fortunate enough to have a
         | vintage pair from the mid-1980's that still look brand new.
         | They have higher quality zyl frames, polarized glass Bausch &
         | Lomb lenses, and, crucially, five barrel bolted hinges. They're
         | built like a tank.
         | 
         | The new ones are so cheap I won't even wear them. Cheap
         | plastic, plastic lenses, spring hinges that break quickly, and
         | obnoxious branding on _both_ the temples and the lenses.
         | Terrible.
        
           | bamboozled wrote:
           | Agree they're complete trash now.
           | 
           | I once had a pair I found under a house from I'd guess the
           | 60s, the builder must have misplaced them. They felt like
           | something from another universe compared to today's garbage.
        
           | throwaway837367 wrote:
           | I work in the optical industry. I do R&D/quality control for
           | a lens manufacturer and agree Luxottica is an awful company,
           | but your comment is way off base. It's actually quite wrong.
           | 
           | Your "zyl" acetate frames aren't higher quality. Modern
           | acetate is stronger, lighter, less brittle, less subject to
           | warping from temperature change, and more resistant to UV
           | damage which impacts brittleness and color. 40 years of
           | material science progress. No one in the industry would say
           | older acetate is better. It's worse in every way especially
           | because yours are old. They're breaking down.
           | 
           | People don't wear glass lenses anymore for a reason. They are
           | heavy and the only advantage over plastic is less chromatic
           | aberration which is a non issue unless you are comparing to
           | an extreme prescription using high-index plastic. They are
           | also fairly dangerous compared to plastic due to the way they
           | shatter. They fog up more easily. Again, 40 years of material
           | science.
           | 
           | Additionally, there are no low optical-quality plastic lens
           | blanks. This is a solved problem. The only defects you'll get
           | in lens blanks are bubbles and these won't make it through
           | production. What happens after a manufacturer grinds the lens
           | out is a different story but I can also tell you that their
           | lens surfacing is not low quality by any means.
           | 
           | Your hinges aren't any better and get loose over time. You
           | can't actually use these for 40 years, they will wear out too
           | and are harder to replace. Spring loaded hinges are lighter
           | and reduce strain on both the frames and the wearer. I know
           | what they use, they aren't cheap, and are high quality.
           | 
           | I do agree with your point on the branding.
           | 
           | The optimization for optics is all about weight. Your old
           | frames and lenses aren't better because they're heavier,
           | they're worse. As well as being more brittle and shatterable.
           | It's like pining for the old heavy golf clubs made of wood
           | and iron or all steel cars with V8 engines. Yeah, they're
           | heavier! But they're worse in every way.
           | 
           | I will also say that you should buy frames because you like
           | the frames. If you want great lenses, you just get them made.
           | You shouldn't expect high-quality prescription lenses from a
           | frame manufacturer, that's what your optometrist is for. I
           | buy cheap frames all the time and pop in whatever I want.
           | 
           | You may have a bit of a point if you are talking moderate to
           | high prescription ordered from Ray-Ban, but if you are
           | talking about their non-prescriptive sunglasses, you're just
           | yelling about all the wrong things.
           | 
           | Edit: typo and swapped in "surfacing" rather than
           | "production" for clarity.
        
             | MichaelZuo wrote:
             | > They are heavy and the only advantage over plastic is
             | less chromatic aberration which is a non issue unless you
             | are comparing to an extreme prescription using high-index
             | plastic.
             | 
             | This isn't true, even the best plastic lenses of 2023 are
             | nowhere near as scratch resistant as the best glass lenses
             | of 1993.
        
             | pulpfictional wrote:
             | Where do I go to for quality sunglasses?
        
               | csmiller wrote:
               | Jacques Marie Mage are very nice, I'm also a fan of
               | Matsuda.
        
               | gnicholas wrote:
               | I used to have Ray-Bans, but only buy Maui Jims these
               | days. I tried Revos, which I had always thought of as
               | very high-quality, but they were not good (lenses
               | reflected lots of light from behind me, as if they lacked
               | an anti-reflective coating).
               | 
               | But even some MJs are not as good as the price would
               | suggest. I have tried $300 MJs that didn't have spring
               | hinges. They were just like regular lousy hinges.
               | 
               | Costco has a selection of Maui Jim sunglasses for ~$100,
               | which is far below retail.
        
             | froh wrote:
             | thank you for this very down to the facts excursion on 40y
             | of progress in non-prescription glasses :-) this is what I
             | come for on HN
        
             | wyclif wrote:
             | First of all, nobody (certainly not me) is "yelling." I
             | find the way you wrote this response a bit telling, and
             | that sort of thing actually detracts from your ability to
             | persuade.
             | 
             | I'd freely grant your point about the zyl. But the rest of
             | your response is somewhat motte-and-bailey fallacy to me.
             | For instance, I never maintained that there are "low
             | quality plastic lens blanks." What I was getting at is that
             | for a lot of consumers, the polarized Bausch & Lomb glass
             | lenses are superior in quality and a better experience than
             | the cheap plastic lenses. I also never, at any point,
             | maintained that I'd "expect high-quality prescription
             | lenses from a frame manufacturer." My comment was framed
             | (pun intended) in terms of off-the-rack, non-Rx sunglasses
             | which was absolutely clear from what I said above.
             | 
             | And your claim about the hinges is simply laughable. I'd
             | dare you to stress-test (in the R&D sense) the old five-
             | barrel bolted hinges against these cheap spring hinges.
             | That's a Pepsi challenge I'd be willing to take any day.
             | Incidentally, as I mentioned above, I have a pair of 1984
             | Ray-Ban Wayfarer IIs that are a few months away from being
             | exactly 40 years old, and as I said they look and function
             | like new even though they've been worn constantly for
             | decades. Trying to maintain that the spring hinges
             | Luxottica uses on today's Ray-Ban branded sunglasses are
             | "high quality" completely destroys the force of your
             | argument.
        
               | sirsinsalot wrote:
               | Assuming both commenters are honest, I'm going to listen
               | to the person who works in QA in the industry.
               | 
               | The parent just sounds like someone who loves a specific
               | item and is a bit miffed they changed it.
               | 
               | Lots of "cheap plastic lenses" and "cheap spring hinges"
               | type complaints without much backup.
               | 
               | Is carbon fiber cheap and rubbish because it isn't steel?
               | Why does the parent think plastic means inferior?
               | 
               | "Mine are 40 years old and fine!!" Is a bit useless, and
               | a sample of one.
               | 
               | I own a wide range of old and new sunglasses, and in my
               | eyes, the new ones are mostly superior if you buy right.
               | Granted Luxottica are a bad actor in many ways.
               | 
               | "... destroys the force of your argument ..." really?
               | Does it? Does it tho? No.
               | 
               | I think the GP was bang on.
        
               | hattmall wrote:
               | This is just industry entrenchment. Owning a pair of old
               | vs new raybans just doesn't compare, it's not just the
               | weight. The springs and material are simply stronger,
               | they don't break or get scuffed as easily. The new lenses
               | may have some better technical properties in the lab or
               | extreme settings but the biggest difference is just
               | keeping them smudge free. Old lenses just stay clean and
               | are so much easier to simply wipe down. The new ones are
               | nearly impossible to clean without chemicals and seem to
               | get dirty almost immediately.
               | 
               | The bit about cars is telling too. Yes new cars are
               | better in everyway on paper and in extreme cases. But
               | from an actual consumer usage standpoint it's not the
               | always better... $3500 repair because I bumped a
               | guardrail on the highway one night vs some touchup paint
               | in an older car. High speed collision, sure new car is
               | preferred.
               | 
               | No one at a marina is going to try and sell you on a
               | 1980s Yamaha 2-Stroke vs the new EFI 4 Strokes, but
               | anyone that owns both would tell you they just wish they
               | made a few improvements to the old style instead of going
               | completely modern. Of course the new motor makes 30 more
               | HP and uses less fuel but it needs vastly more
               | maintenance and you need an entire parts store to have a
               | reasonable chance of avoiding being stranded.
               | 
               | The improvements are great, but for most things, for most
               | people, they just want them to work well for their
               | intended typical usage.
               | 
               | It's wonderful the new F225s can operate in 9ft swells at
               | 0F but I would really just like it to have a greater than
               | 50% chance of starting up in calm 75 degree weather which
               | is like 90% of the time I'm boating.
               | 
               | You know the dealers recommendations though, and I'm not
               | joking, is just buy two (or more) motors!
        
               | hellomyguys wrote:
               | You can touch up an old car because they were not made to
               | crumple when hit, which makes them pretty unsafe.
        
               | rconti wrote:
               | I find both comments pretty insightful and have a hard
               | time disagreeing with either. It's nice that the poster
               | you're replying to has deep knowledge about these
               | glasses, but it doesn't actually change the way you
               | _feel_ about a sturdier-feeling product. And, sure, maybe
               | you treat them really carefully, but the fact that they
               | 're 40 years old at least proves SOMETHING about them.
               | 
               | Sometimes things that "feel" high-quality are actually
               | less robust, but longevity is not always more important
               | than aesthetics.
        
               | Xenoamorphous wrote:
               | Oh man those Volvos from the 80s and 90s... I swear until
               | a few years ago I heard people saying how they were the
               | safest cars.
               | 
               | Or even my mum, I remember how she didn't like how the
               | doors in the Sierra (an European Ford model) that my dad
               | bought to replace an old Taunus (also an old European
               | Ford model) were lighter, she felt less safe.
        
               | ToucanLoucan wrote:
               | > It's nice that the poster you're replying to has deep
               | knowledge about these glasses, but it doesn't actually
               | change the way you feel about a sturdier-feeling product.
               | 
               | This is the entire basis of Beats putting chunks of
               | shitty iron in their headphones. It does absolutely
               | nothing for the audio quality, but it makes them _feel_
               | heavier and therefore people will swear up and down they
               | are of better quality.
               | 
               | Part of being an intelligent person I feel is recognizing
               | your own limitations, biases and failings. I am a very
               | smart person, and I feel most people who know me would
               | agree. But I am smart about _particular things._ I know a
               | lot about my field of programming and I 'm well educated
               | in the software I make, and I know a lot about web
               | development in a bit of an old school way (was educated
               | formally awhile back, and while I can still sling PHP and
               | use SQL with the best, I don't know nearly as much about
               | newer frameworks and ways of doing things.) And while I'm
               | proud of all that, it doesn't mean I know shitfuck about
               | anything else.
               | 
               | I think a good part of what makes people intelligent is
               | knowing what they know, knowing what they _don 't know,_
               | and being open to finding out if they need or want to
               | from people who _do know._
        
               | ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
               | Listening to some of these arguments you'd believe we
               | need to get an expert's opinion and a literature review
               | to gauge the quality of the things we use in our daily
               | lives.
               | 
               | I don't need an expert showing me a frequency curve to
               | gauge the quality of earphones, I don't need an expert on
               | manufacturing to tell me whether my current pair of
               | glasses are more or less solid than the previous pair.
               | 
               | Part of being an intelligent person is also accepting
               | that other people are just as intelligent as you, and not
               | complete fools. People can see what's right in front of
               | their eyes.
        
               | pulpfictional wrote:
               | It would be nice to have, I look for that when planning
               | to acquire items I don't understand. Inference is good,
               | certainty is better.
        
               | Anon_Admirer wrote:
               | There maybe survivorship bias in this persons feelings
               | and beliefs.
        
             | oooyay wrote:
             | ++ I wear prescription Ray-Ban Wayfarers and they're highly
             | durable and the lenses are pretty good quality. I use them
             | out gardening and when working in the yard. In general I
             | only wear Ray Bans because they're a pretty consistent
             | quality, durable, very lightweight, and never pinch my
             | nose.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | wombat-man wrote:
           | No way, I have a couple real pairs and they are solid. One
           | I've had for like 13 years
        
         | KarlKode wrote:
         | In my local sunglass store iI can buy genuine Wayfarers for a
         | bit more than 100$ so I guess Luxotica's margin is even higher
         | than expected...
        
           | emodendroket wrote:
           | They sell them for like 20 times what they cost to make,
           | according to https://seekingalpha.com/article/4472420-essilor
           | luxotticas-m...
        
           | wyclif wrote:
           | Luxottica cannibalized and cheapened Ray-Bans a long time
           | ago; see my comment above.
        
             | sbilstein wrote:
             | You can definitely go to a mall and get ray bans with solid
             | barrel hinges
        
               | wyclif wrote:
               | You can't. They were only available on the original Ray-
               | Bans before they sold out to Luxottica.
        
               | cromulent wrote:
               | Aren't these what you mean?
               | 
               | https://www.ray-
               | ban.com/eu/sunglasses/RB2140%20UNISEX%20orig...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | demarq wrote:
       | Finally someone understands. The glasses are the main point not
       | the tech.
       | 
       | A lot of previous product design in this area, has emphasised on
       | shouting the tech and making it super loud that these are "tech"
       | glasses.
       | 
       | Here the tech is "inside" and the form and fit of the glasses
       | takes priority.
       | 
       | This is a big Win for meta
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | 5041us wrote:
       | For those who enjoy reading sf short stories and wonder about the
       | implications of recording one's entire life, I can recommend the
       | remarkable short story 'The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling'
       | by Ted Chiang.
        
         | jeffreyq wrote:
         | Thank you so much for sharing that short story. I've found my
         | new favorite author.
        
         | tomduncalf wrote:
         | Great recommendation, I feel like most people on this site
         | would enjoy his two short story compendiums. I'm not even a big
         | SF reader but they're among my favourite books I've read.
        
           | simon1573 wrote:
           | One of them is what Arrival (2016) is based on.
        
       | e4e5 wrote:
       | Why when I press accept cookies it just reloads the website and
       | shows me the same banner? Not even Facebook can get this to work?
        
         | galbar wrote:
         | After three tries it loaded the right page. Disgusting pattern,
         | IMHO
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | KaiserPro wrote:
       | I have a set of original rayban stories. They are excellent
       | hardware hampered by shite, shortsighted software, both on the
       | glasses and on the app.
       | 
       | 1) The killer feature is not the camera, but the sound. Having
       | bluetooth audio with you, without stuff in/over your ears is
       | really really great.
       | 
       | 2) The physical button action is swapped. single press is video,
       | long press picture.
       | 
       | 3) the touch pad is hard to find and there is no texture
       | difference. Not only that but its really easy to trigger music
       | playing by holding them in your hand.
       | 
       | Over all the hardware is great.
       | 
       | Firmware, however, is utterly shite.
       | 
       | For the first year, the maximum time you could get them to play
       | music was about 15 minutes. They'd just stop, disconnect from
       | Bluetooth and need a power cycle to get back again.
       | 
       | They would randomly disconnect for shits and giggles. worse than
       | cheap bluetooth headphones. Whom everlet them out the door in
       | such a poor state, then compounding it by not actually fixing the
       | problems, just shitting out half backed features, should be told
       | off (I'm looking at you Boz).
       | 
       | Then there is the assistant. Functionally limited, I don't use
       | them because you have to say "hey facebook" as the wake word. I'm
       | not saying that in fucking public. who though that was a good
       | idea clearly has been with the company too long.
       | 
       | The app is called "view" its now only just been integrated into
       | the ios photoroll. for the longest while it had its own photo
       | gallery, and you needed to manually sync the photos you wanted.
       | 
       | Whats even more odd is there is no integration with either
       | instagram or facebook, so getting the photos and videos into
       | either of them is a multi-app multi-stage faff.
       | 
       | TLDR:
       | 
       | Great hardware, shit firmware, lots of promise squandered by a
       | total lack of QA or attention to quality or detail in basic flow.
        
       | hacful-tonteg wrote:
       | i'd love a pair of jf rey smart glasses
        
       | expertentipp wrote:
       | Cannot wait for having to charge yet another thing, which haven't
       | needed charging by now.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | itomato wrote:
       | When I see something like this the first thing I think is "what
       | sinister thing is disguised as harmless accessory?"
       | 
       | The proven benefit for meta outweighs any potential I might be
       | sold.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | danShumway wrote:
       | It is absolutely incredible to me that Facebook thinks it still
       | has the social capital to pull a product like this off. To me the
       | question of whether smart glasses are a good idea in general
       | either socially or commercially is somewhat secondary to the
       | elephant in the room: "would I wear glasses made by Facebook?"
       | And... no, of course not, of course I wouldn't do that.
       | 
       | I guess people buy Oculus still so it's not like Facebook has
       | zero success with its hardware, but I think a big part of that is
       | that it's the lowest-priced option on the market and is aiming at
       | a product category where consumers are not particularly privacy-
       | conscious: ie, games. And from my perspective I look at Oculus
       | with its required account links and all of the privacy and TOS
       | drama that has come out of that hardware, and I just can't
       | imagine buying a hardware product from Facebook at all, let alone
       | a hardware product that has a camera attached to it and requires
       | me to install an app on my phone to use it (which is likely a
       | bigger data-trove for Facebook than the camera is).
       | 
       | It feels like almost any other company would be better equipped
       | to try and build a market around this.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | >> It is absolutely incredible to me that Facebook thinks it
         | still has the social capital to pull a product like this off.
         | 
         | Maybe not Facebook, but surely Instagram.
        
           | danShumway wrote:
           | Fair, that's a really good point. I don't distinguish between
           | the companies and I don't think they're tangibly different in
           | regards to privacy, but definitely agreed that Instagram has
           | a better public image than Facebook does and I could see that
           | making a pretty big difference.
           | 
           | I guess they're launching this under "Meta", they're not
           | using either Facebook or Instagram as the branding. I don't
           | have any data to know whether people are more likely to see
           | Meta and think of Instagram or Facebook.
        
         | TheHappyOddish wrote:
         | > It is absolutely incredible to me that Facebook thinks it
         | still has the social capital to pull a product like this off.
         | 
         | I'm surprised you think they don't. Average people don't know
         | who Meta are and that they own WhatsApp, Instagram and
         | Facebook. Their properties have billions of daily active users
         | and WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are _seperately_ two of the
         | biggest messaging platforms in the world.
         | 
         | Most Quest users have never heard of Oculus. Remember the Quest
         | 2 sold 10s of millions of units.
         | 
         | Sorry to tell you, but most people don't have the same concerns
         | that you (and I) have, and even then many people will still put
         | their trust in anyway.
        
           | danShumway wrote:
           | Is the Quest's success more about ignorance of its
           | relationship to Facebook or is it more about it being a low-
           | priced entry VR set for a market segment where privacy
           | doesn't really matter at all to most people? I don't mean
           | that to be dismissive, I'm genuinely not sure if I can make a
           | strong case in either direction. But if the success boils
           | down to "my kid wants a VRChat headset, who cares who makes
           | it", I'm not sure that attitude will carry over to a product
           | category with more social implications.
           | 
           | I don't personally think that the Meta branding is distinct
           | enough from Facebook to pull that trick off in the way that
           | WhatsApp or Instagram does, but I'll admit I could be out of
           | touch. And I think Facebook's continued success has a lot
           | more to do with inertia and lock-in than a lack of general
           | consumer privacy concerns, but I could be projecting there.
           | 
           | I just think my instinct is that any of the social backlash
           | that Google got over Glass is going to be hugely amplified
           | for a Facebook product regardless of whether or not they hide
           | behind the name Meta and that backlash seems likely to shape
           | the narrative and how people find out about the product. But
           | :shrug: maybe I'm wrong.
        
             | TheHappyOddish wrote:
             | I actually agree on all points, but still think Meta has
             | the social capital needed to do this.
             | 
             | Price point for VR is for sure a factor for VR uptake and
             | would make a decision more difficult for a privacy concious
             | parent. However critical mass is the key - same as
             | Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. If all of your 13 years
             | friends are on the Quest, that's what they want. Just like
             | many of us retain these awful messaging platforms as that's
             | where our friends communicate.
             | 
             | Glass did have a massive backlash. But 2013 was a long time
             | ago. Big single ear bluetooth headphones were mocked, COVID
             | hadn't happened, Netflix wasn't even around (or at least,
             | not in any form recognisable).
             | 
             | I think the Google Glass was a victim of being too early.
             | We have adjusted rapidly to ubiquitous technology around
             | us, people are embracing AR daily. Hindsight will tell, but
             | now or very soon is the time for AR to be embraced by
             | general users.
        
       | will5421 wrote:
       | Hopefully these will be banned
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | vagab0nd wrote:
         | At the very least it should flash a red light when recording.
        
           | bluescrn wrote:
           | There's cameras literally everywhere already. If you leave
           | your home, you get recorded. That's just the world we're in
           | now.
           | 
           | If somebody wants to record anything covertly, there's surely
           | better options out there already - there's crazy stuff like
           | cameras concealed in screw heads.
        
           | Aditya_Garg wrote:
           | It does flash a light when recording. If you cover the light
           | then the camera functionality is disabled.
        
             | joemi wrote:
             | > If you cover the light then the camera functionality is
             | disabled.
             | 
             | Is this confirmed yet? The website just says "If the LED is
             | covered, you'll be notified to clear it." Note that it does
             | not say the camera won't work.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | danskeren wrote:
       | They look amazing but it feels like a huge mistake to even
       | include a camera (unless it's only inward-facing).. they should
       | focus on Audio + AR + AI.
       | 
       | The camera quality will be terrible compared to what you can get
       | from the phone that's already in your pocket, and it just going
       | make a huge portion of the population feel creeped out by it..
       | whereas there would be no real pushback against a HUD that
       | provided real-time transcript (big win for deaf people) and
       | translations powered by Llama.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | bjnewman85 wrote:
       | if you cover the LED notification light you will get a
       | notification to uncover it. Surely that will stop anyone from
       | covering it.
        
         | its_ethan wrote:
         | It could notify you and then disable any recording until it's
         | uncovered again..
        
           | pseudalopex wrote:
           | It could. But why would they not say it will?
        
             | CapsAdmin wrote:
             | Surely that would be a PR disaster so I must assume they
             | don't allow recording when covered.
        
               | pseudalopex wrote:
               | Cameras designed for covert recording are sold without
               | public outcry.
        
         | netsharc wrote:
         | I wonder if the easy mod would be to replace the LED with
         | invisible IR LED (then again the makers have probably
         | considered this).
        
           | RockRobotRock wrote:
           | at that point make your own glasses with a much tinier and
           | less obvious camera.
        
       | menshiki wrote:
       | I would rather shoot myself than say "Hey Meta" in public.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | tastyfreeze wrote:
       | Feeding Meta more video and audio is the least interesting use
       | case for smart glasses. The hardware looks like a nice start for
       | smart glasses but the lack of AR display and required tethering
       | to Meta makes these undesirable to me.
        
       | zmmmmm wrote:
       | Just struggle to be interested in glasses that have no display at
       | all. That is really the future I'm waiting for.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | pianoben wrote:
       | What do I need to use these?       ...       - a valid Meta
       | account
       | 
       | Well, I'm out then. Glasses look cool but I couldn't be happier
       | with my choice to ditch Facebook, et al.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | wetpaws wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | mvkel wrote:
       | I got a pair of the original Stories and they are my most
       | favorite device released in the past decade except for the
       | AirPods.
       | 
       | Countless times I've wanted to capture something with my kids, or
       | on a drive, or on a bike ride. I can just tap the button on my
       | glasses and that's it. I'm not taken out of the moment at all.
       | It's great.
       | 
       | as for the other stuff, Bluetooth speaker included, I wish they
       | would rip it all out.
        
         | AlecSchueler wrote:
         | Is there anything that makes it clear to the people around you
         | that they are being recorded?
        
         | trollied wrote:
         | Thanks for your review, Zuck :)
        
       | aubanel wrote:
       | This page has an original way to force the user to accept cookies
       | : present the cookie banner in a way that blocks the content. If
       | the user clicks "Refuse optional cookies", just reload the page
       | and present them the same choice again. That is illegal in the EU
       | now.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | unsated wrote:
       | Smart glasses + Video + AI => What's the social score of the
       | person I am looking at?
        
         | quickthrower2 wrote:
         | You missed + Global Social Database, which is of course
         | Facebook.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | smcleod wrote:
       | As someone else here said - I don't care about a camera, I want a
       | display, and I certainly wouldn't want a camera from Facebook.
        
         | expertentipp wrote:
         | It's not about what you want, it's about what ad industry
         | wants.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _it 's about what ad industry wants_
           | 
           | On what planet would an ad exec choose this over a pair of
           | sunglasses with a screen?
           | 
           | We don't currently have the technology and/or industry to
           | sell a decent $300 screen on your face. _That_ is why we
           | don't have it.
        
           | smcleod wrote:
           | exactly
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kstrauser wrote:
       | I don't hate them. I just wish it were almost any other giant
       | company that was making them. If someone showed up at my house
       | wearing them, I think I'd make them take their glasses off before
       | they came inside, in much the same way (and for the same reasons)
       | that some people don't allow shoes in the house. I don't want
       | someone tracking Facebook into my living room.
       | 
       | Maybe the only worse maker would be Twitter. If a friend came
       | over wearing Musk glasses, I'd probably rip them off their head
       | and stamp on them for their own good. I definitely would not
       | allow them into my house.
        
         | danw1979 wrote:
         | _chef kiss_ at the analogy of Facebook with dog shit.
        
         | samtheprogram wrote:
         | > Maybe the only worse maker would be Twitter. If a friend came
         | over wearing Musk glasses, I'd probably rip them off their head
         | and stamp on them for their own good. I definitely would not
         | allow them into my house.
         | 
         | You might have gotten caught up in an ideology. I make fun of
         | Elon and what he's doing to Twitter as much as the next guy,
         | but... What do you imagine would be so harmful about them?
         | Tracking, like with your Meta/Facebook example, or "omg those
         | are Musk glasses, they must be destroyed!"
        
           | callalex wrote:
           | Musk companies have a proven track record of handling private
           | data inappropriately. For example Tesla employees were caught
           | sharing footage from vehicles on private property with their
           | friends. https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-
           | shared-sens...
        
             | kstrauser wrote:
             | That was exactly it. It's not a matter of animosity, but of
             | privacy. I wouldn't want Twitter hardware in my house or on
             | my Wi-Fi, even less than I'd want Facebook gear.
        
             | samtheprogram wrote:
             | Great point. I was more opposing their discourse and lack
             | of any examples.
        
       | CamelCaseName wrote:
       | If these can be made prescription, and as a result, purchased
       | with insurance, sales will be through the roof.
        
       | crashingintoyou wrote:
       | Am I the only one who saw almost-exclusively-vertical-format
       | video and thought "I'll pass"?
        
         | Bellend wrote:
         | The headline was enough for me personally
        
         | hotnfresh wrote:
         | No but also all of us are rapidly approaching "old man yells at
         | cloud" on this issue.
         | 
         | Major video social media has settled on vertical. That's what
         | folks in that world expect.
         | 
         | I don't think that trajectory has a chance of changing until
         | something replaces the cell phone (which'll probably me some
         | kind of glasses, assuming it turns out to be possible to build
         | a version of them that're any good as a replacement for a cell
         | phone interface)
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | artursapek wrote:
       | Ok guys you know what to do. Mercilessly ridicule and degrade
       | anyone who wears these to continue the very justified stigma
       | against wearing a discrete camera on your face.
        
       | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | bragr wrote:
       | I'm not interested in this particular device, but after almost
       | being hit by cars several times this month while walking my dog,
       | I am starting to warm to the idea of some form of "dash cam" for
       | walking.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | maxwell wrote:
         | What are you going to do, bring footage to your local police
         | station and get laughed out?
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | colpabar wrote:
         | To play devil's advocate: be careful what you wish for. With
         | the way that things are going, police will probably have zero
         | issue getting whatever video from your "dash cam" they deem
         | necessary to do their jobs.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | Per bragr's comment, they are not doing their jobs now. What
           | makes you think they will do their jobs in the future?
        
       | yodon wrote:
       | > The Capture LED lets others know when you're capturing content
       | or going live. If the LED is covered, you'll be notified to clear
       | it.
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | Agents Smith walking all around
        
       | bajsejohannes wrote:
       | > Designed for living in the moment
       | 
       | > Capture life's best moments and live-stream to Instagram and
       | Facebook. Now with a 12 MP camera and 5-mic system. Stay
       | connected with hands-free calls and messages and listen to your
       | favourite tracks through built-in speakers.
       | 
       | I have a very different idea of what "living in the moment"
       | means.
        
       | possiblydrunk wrote:
       | So when Google Glass came out, people using them were
       | "Glassholes" because of the ability to record surreptitiously,
       | albeit for a very short period. And there was no mistaking Glass.
       | Meta's look normal and I doubt the LED indicator will draw enough
       | attention this time around. Plus as others have noted, by the
       | time you notice it's already too late and anyway the onus is on
       | you to ask the wearer to stop. And this is worse, as it streams
       | directly to social media. There should be some (legal) way to jam
       | these devices within a certain proximity radius.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tjpnz wrote:
         | A punch in the face would work.
        
       | tempsy wrote:
       | the only people who will buy these are creeps who want to
       | secretly record other people in public
        
         | nickthegreek wrote:
         | Or people who want to capture precious moments with their kid
         | but don't want to have a camera in their face. There are plenty
         | of legitimate use cases.
        
         | function_seven wrote:
         | This isn't true. For one, it'll not be secret. The LED will be
         | on. Also, these glasses do not match the appearance of their
         | "analog" namesakes. I just compared the Wayfarers on that page
         | to the pair I have right here, and the thickness is quite
         | noticeable. These things are chunky!
         | 
         | I think having it to record snippets of my golf game would be
         | neat. Every par 3 I tee off is a hole-in-one opportunity, and
         | how cool would that be to have that moment captured? Or
         | grabbing some footage of a concert without holding my phone up
         | like a dick. A lot of uses cases for chest-strapped GoPros will
         | switch to these for sure.
        
           | dredmorbius wrote:
           | Black tape and paint both exist.
           | 
           | Requiring The Rest of The World have 100% situational
           | awareness to look for the glowing specs is also frankly
           | ridiculous.
        
             | function_seven wrote:
             | I guess. Meta claims these will know when the LED is
             | blocked, but that's probably circumventable as well. And
             | little hidden cameras also already exist, and people
             | filming in public is already a thing, so I don't really see
             | how this specific product will change things in any
             | significant way.
        
               | dredmorbius wrote:
               | This specific product is backed by one of the largest
               | corporations on the planet led by an absolute ruler who
               | is at best amoral if not absolutely immoral, and has a
               | long, long, long, long, long history of violating
               | privacy, breaking promises regarding privacy,[1] and of
               | refusing to accept responsibility of the consequences
               | arising from doing so.
               | 
               | There are other amoral and immoral players out there,
               | certainly. Few have Facebook's resources, however.
               | 
               | "The trust me, dumb fucks" still seems to be his guiding
               | compass.
               | 
               | As for hidden cameras and unauthorised video: regulation
               | is required. I'd suggest attacking the trade, transfer,
               | and publishing of such video, as well as a strong right-
               | to-privacy legislation. I'm not holding my breath,
               | however.
               | 
               | ________________________________
               | 
               | Notes:
               | 
               | 1. "Why Zuckerberg's 14-Year Apology Tour Hasn't Fixed
               | Facebook", Zeynep Tufekci,
               | <https://www.wired.com/story/why-zuckerberg-15-year-
               | apology-t...>
               | 
               | 2. <https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-
               | news/a19490586/mark-zucker...>
        
       | bparsons wrote:
       | I don't know anyone who would want this.
       | 
       | Nobody wants to be around someone in social situations who might
       | be surreptitiously filming them. Wearing glasses with a camera on
       | them is a great way to be labelled a creep by everyone around
       | you.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | pcdoodle wrote:
       | Looks like e-waste in the dump in about 3...2....1
       | 
       | Don't wear these around me.
        
       | happytiger wrote:
       | I wonder how much of wearables is going to evolve to be just a
       | mechanism to collect training data for AI (without having to pay
       | for it)?
       | 
       | Pretty valuable data.
        
       | itissid wrote:
       | I am wondering how they will build out Wifi-Index for
       | positioning(GPS sucks in cities) assuming they want to do
       | location based targetting for any number of purposes(ads,
       | recommendations, location based geo-fencing etc). The critical
       | piece for attribution is linking Wifi based position to a PoI(for
       | location based anything). This takes a few years to build. Google
       | has a great map blue dot has good fidelity with location because
       | they have a phone collecting all that Wifi data for many years..
        
         | ianbicking wrote:
         | These glasses appear to be pretty closely tied to your phone
         | (like the previous revision), so they can just use whatever
         | positioning your phone has.
        
           | itissid wrote:
           | They can but remember, having location always on, collected
           | when the app is backgrounded, is a deeply buried permission,
           | once turned off it's hard to turn it back on(or in apples
           | case reminding user with a map to tell you "xyz app has
           | collected your location"); Google is poised to make it more
           | difficult to activate.
           | 
           | Now the Thing is even though background collection is bad in
           | principle because apps must indicate purpose of use for such
           | a sensitive permission and it's hard to think how apps can
           | make a case for it; Google and apple apps still do it for
           | their own apps by default!(Apple does not even have a wifi
           | scanning API)
           | 
           | The only way to get any location based notif while
           | backgrounded for 3p apps is Geofencing which is narrow and
           | not workable for location targeting.
        
       | pzmarzly wrote:
       | I really hope it'll be possible to use the cameras in voice
       | calls. First person PoV would be way better than phone camera
       | PoV, and it would free my hand from carrying the phone in front
       | of me.
        
       | loufe wrote:
       | In my industry, mining, I can see this sort of integration into a
       | miner's helmet working its way into sites as a sort of situation
       | analysis tool pretty easily. It would make a lot of things so
       | much easier for folks on the surface to be able to quickly see
       | 3-D scans (lidar would be amazin) of broken rock, or new tunnel,
       | or cracks, etc.
       | 
       | I am with others for the desire for more opennness. I would never
       | hop on this loaded with proprietary restrictions. 100% data
       | control for personal use would be a must.
        
         | p3rls wrote:
         | Eventually everyone in the trades is going to have to wear
         | these things.
        
           | euroderf wrote:
           | I foresee a new subgenre of reality shows.
        
             | krrrh wrote:
             | At least a year ago when I was playing around with TikTok
             | live it was amazing how much of it was machinists,
             | lumberjacks, or assembly line workers live-streaming their
             | entire shifts. Some of the most interesting content on the
             | platform.
        
               | euroderf wrote:
               | Hmm. The medium is the message.
        
         | giantrobot wrote:
         | For the livestream it seems you can do that right now with an
         | action camera attached to a miner's helmet and streamed via
         | their smartphone.
        
         | tsumnia wrote:
         | It will absolutely get integrated sooner rather than later. The
         | Microsoft Hololens is still bulky compared to these, but is
         | getting tested out right now by the US military to view the
         | insides of aircrafts [1]. After a few more size and cost
         | decreasing iterations, it will get quickly adopted.
         | 
         | Granted, I'm a tech luddite by modern standards, so as a retail
         | consumer I still fear ads all over my FOV. But for businesses
         | there's absolutely a need, use case, everything for it.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV4EQ1Ltujs
        
           | wolverine876 wrote:
           | A Microsoft product is also well along in testing for
           | infantry.
        
       | bilekas wrote:
       | If they made these without the camera and just kept the call
       | functionality I would definitely be interested! My only concern
       | is do they require a facebook account ?
        
         | amjnsx wrote:
         | That will probably come much later, once they have sold enough
         | units. It's what they did with Oculus
        
       | fbnbr wrote:
       | This is way better than google glasses and less nerdy as apples
       | vision
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jprd wrote:
       | The company that delivers an ability for me to just randomly
       | capture video/pictures "in the moment" has my VR/AR/Glass-hole
       | vote from Day One.
       | 
       | My kids will (and I approve, to be honest) REFUSE to repeat what
       | they just did for the camera, and if they see it out, will
       | sometimes shutdown whatever AMAZING thing they just re-invented.
       | 
       | The supercomputer taking "T3h B3st P1ctur3 Ev@R" in my pocket
       | cannot solve that problem, but some rando "glasses"/"contacts"
       | solution that could has been _just_ out-of-reach for this use
       | case for what feels like decades ;)
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | bentcorner wrote:
         | On one hand it's creepy, on the other being able to "DVR"
         | unique events is going to fill YouTube with some pretty wild
         | videos.
        
       | anyoneamous wrote:
       | Any other company and I might be excited, but Meta can get in the
       | bin.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | paganel wrote:
       | Bleak and creepy at the same time.
       | 
       | Fortunately, I feel that the vibe shift related to this bleakness
       | has already got going, and people seen wearing these abominations
       | will instantly get branded as not-cool and worse. Come to think
       | of it, Ray-Ban was also on its way down well before this.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | lucasyvas wrote:
       | I hate to bring Apple into this, but these are a lot less shitty
       | looking than I expected - I wonder what Apple could produce
       | without the Meta baggage.
        
       | bamboozled wrote:
       | Imagine the creepy stuff people will be doing with this and deep
       | fake tech? Taking a bunch of video of the cute girl who works at
       | the bar and converting that into whatever sick fantasy you like.
       | 
       | Imagine all the intimate footage you're sharing and will lose
       | when Facebook eventually gets hacked...
       | 
       | Kind of keen for someone to develop a portable EMP device...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | golemiprague wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | I'm curious, if we had a thick enough frame could we integrate
       | some kind of telephoto camera with a long optical zoom?
        
       | 4ndrewl wrote:
       | Good news for those who don't want to be caught on camera
       | 
       | "The Capture LED lets others know when you're capturing content
       | or going live. If the LED is covered, you'll be notified to clear
       | it."
       | 
       | So that's nice.
        
         | trey-jones wrote:
         | The jailbreak will be out tomorrow.
        
           | wilsonnb3 wrote:
           | Black nail polish is out today
        
             | knodi123 wrote:
             | "If the LED is covered, you will be required to uncover
             | it."
        
               | ladzoppelin wrote:
               | Can you post where it says that, all I can find is "you
               | will be notified"?
        
               | wildrhythms wrote:
               | It's right on the linked page, but you're right it
               | doesn't say anything about being 'required' to uncover
               | it.
               | 
               | >Bystander privacy
               | 
               | >The Capture LED lets others know when you're capturing
               | content or going live. If the LED is covered, you'll be
               | notified to clear it.
        
               | ladzoppelin wrote:
               | Wow, that is so dirty. They are doing the 2009 "get
               | people to share things privately and then do a settings
               | refactor that now makes the private things public until
               | you reset them to private" Wow, I am sure this ends well
               | for Rayband. :)
        
             | TheHappyOddish wrote:
             | It's also fairly trivial to disable an LED physically.
        
               | ParetoOptimal wrote:
               | On a site called "hacker news" how is this not mentioned
               | at the top-level to all of the "an led prevents people
               | from silently recording you"?
        
         | yosito wrote:
         | I had the original version of these, which didn't know if the
         | LED was covered, but it didn't matter because no one even
         | noticed when the LED was on, or if they did, they didn't seem
         | to realize that it was a camera. I tried it at a party to get
         | some candid shots with my friends. But in the end, the quality
         | wasn't good enough for the candid shots to actually be worth
         | keeping.
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | It's better than nothing, but it does put other people in the
         | uncomfortable position of having to ask the glasses wearer to
         | not record. And can you see the indication before you're
         | actually on camera?
        
           | 4ndrewl wrote:
           | Right, but only if you know what to look for, and are
           | actively looking.
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | The counter is to put on your own pair of glasses that have
           | mirrored lenses, a laser beam scanning back and forth and a
           | prominent shotgun microphone pointed at the other person.
        
         | luckluckgoosed wrote:
         | Makes me think of the power dynamic between smart glass wearers
         | and bystanders as a social problem and not a technical one:
         | https://spectrum.ieee.org/ar-glasses
        
         | pseudalopex wrote:
         | They didn't say it wouldn't record.
        
           | ladzoppelin wrote:
           | Wow you are right, does anyone know if this still records
           | with the light off or covered?
        
           | gffrd wrote:
           | You've read your fair share of T&C's ...
        
         | fillskills wrote:
         | Pretty inconspicuous. So no, not a great feature to stream/live
         | upload people who didnt want their privacy violated.
        
         | justinclift wrote:
         | By the time you've seen that led, it likely _far_ too late. :(
        
       | alex_young wrote:
       | The 4 hour battery life will probably save us for a bit, but do
       | you really want to walk around in a world where a bunch of
       | strangers are taking pictures of you just by looking in your
       | direction? I don't. Who cares about the LED.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | lannisterstark wrote:
         | You have 0 expectation of privacy in public anyhow.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | This is a USA doctrine, and fewer than 4% of people live
           | there.
           | 
           | Just because this is a fact of life in the USA doesn't mean I
           | want ALPR devices on every street corner telling Zuckerberg
           | et al every time I go out of my driveway and where.
        
         | mempko wrote:
         | Security cameras are everywhere. You are always being watched.
        
         | serf wrote:
         | >but do you really want to walk around in a world where a bunch
         | of strangers are taking pictures of you just by looking in your
         | direction?
         | 
         | given that the social stigma of phone photography and who it
         | targets has just about disappeared, I think the "I don't want
         | to be photographed' ship has sailed.
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | > the social stigma of phone photography and who it targets
           | has just about disappeared
           | 
           | It certainly hasn't disappeared in my neck of the woods.
        
       | ianbicking wrote:
       | These could be pretty incredible if the platform was more open.
       | You get highly available image and voice input, and good voice
       | output.
       | 
       | Imagine if you could take a picture of anything, add a little
       | note, have it filed away. Not necessarily an awesome Instagram
       | picture, but just a picture of some mail you got, a tool you are
       | putting away, any thing you want to record and save. Heck, why
       | not a picture of your computer screen? Pair that with quickly
       | available audio transcriptions and you can also dictate anything,
       | thoughts, small notes, information associated with the images.
       | 
       | That all could be great... if the library of things you made was
       | useful. It's pretty clear how it could be useful now; do some OCR
       | and other detection on images, use a vector store for both that
       | and transcripts, and hook it all up to an LLM assistant. It's a
       | bit complicated, and a bit expensive to run, but at least for a
       | prototype you could make something pretty incredible.
       | 
       | Meta might make something like that... but they aren't doing that
       | yet, and they might never do that. If the platform was open
       | people could explore these things right now. And it doesn't even
       | need to be radically open, you don't need to be able to hack the
       | firmware; but it has to be more open than the preview Ray-Ban
       | glasses, and I'm assuming more open than this revision.
        
         | sheepscreek wrote:
         | Have you heard of rewind.ai? It does exactly that but for your
         | computer screen. I find it incredibly useful. Combined with
         | this, the future looks very promising!
         | 
         | [1] https://www.rewind.ai/
        
           | darau1 wrote:
           | This seems seriously cool. I wonder if its constant recording
           | is going to fill up my HDD.
           | 
           | edit: found the storage option. It defaults to keeping _all_
           | data, but I 've changed that to one month retention -- they
           | say they use around 14GB a month.
           | 
           | It reminds me of having to use screen recording software for
           | a previous remote job. I wished I could use that recording to
           | do something exactly like this. Now, if only one could flip
           | the script, and make the employer request that recording,
           | instead of forcing one to share it.
        
         | Varqu wrote:
         | My biggest disappointment is that the product seems to be
         | centered around recording/taking pictures and no AR features
         | are advertised.
         | 
         | The big question is what kind of development platform will it
         | provide.
        
         | danielvaughn wrote:
         | Or imagine that you've got an AI taking in your video and
         | giving you instructions, like while you're cooking or
         | something.
        
           | bacon_waffle wrote:
           | At times in my life, I'd have paid good money to disable that
           | feature of some NIs.
        
             | danielvaughn wrote:
             | NIs?
        
               | bacon_waffle wrote:
               | Natural Intelligences, it was an attempt at humor.
        
         | autoexec wrote:
         | > Imagine if you could take a picture of anything, add a little
         | note, have it filed away.
         | 
         | that's the plan, but for facebook's benefit instead of yours.
         | We're not allowed to have cool new tech that doesn't exploit us
         | in some way for the benefit of some one else.
        
         | herbst wrote:
         | A good start to make the tech more approachable for real
         | hackers and nerds would be removing the Meta account
         | requirement.
         | 
         | But it's obvious they don't want that community.
        
         | toddmorey wrote:
         | I would be so uncomfortable having lunch with someone wearing
         | these. Am I alone in that?
        
           | hotnfresh wrote:
           | People used to feel all kinds of ways about what is now
           | normal smartphone use. There are probably a lot of remnants
           | of those attitudes in '00s media that can still be found.
           | 
           | Everyone either got over it or shut up about it because they
           | (ahem, we) had clearly lost.
           | 
           | I expect actually-useful smart glasses will eventually
           | overcome the same stigma. Actually-useful being the key part
           | of that.
        
             | herbst wrote:
             | If meta had their own mobile OS, taking into account how
             | they have little to zero care for European privacy laws or
             | any privacy really, I highly doubt most people would feel
             | comfortable having conversations with the device nearby.
        
             | hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
             | Strong disagree. I think there is still a fairly large
             | cohort of people who feel that e.g. looking at your phone
             | at dinner, or responding to every random ding from your
             | phone during a conversation, is rude and unacceptable
             | behavior.
        
               | dkonofalski wrote:
               | As someone in that cohort, the number of people that feel
               | the same way as me is nearly non-existent. The only
               | people that seem to share the sentiment are my parents
               | and my older colleagues. I have an Apple Watch primarily
               | to avoid having to take my phone out while still being
               | able to see important notifications (I love the focus
               | mode stuff) so I'm not some kind of anti-tech ideologue
               | either. Most other people are not only used to phones
               | being out and around but the vast majority have no qualms
               | about it.
        
               | phyrex wrote:
               | I got an Apple Watch for this reason when they first came
               | out and found out that people constantly thought I was
               | bored or had to leave because I kept glancing at my
               | watch. Looking at the phone never got a negative
               | response.
        
               | euroderf wrote:
               | As field anthropology, this is an interesting
               | observation.
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | The vast majority of people I know, of all ages, consider
               | this rude and unacceptable behavior.
        
           | notJim wrote:
           | It would be a rare thing that someone would actually be
           | streaming or recording on them, unless you agreed to make a
           | video. Technically someone could record your every
           | conversation with their phone in their pocket or on the
           | table, but no one worries about that, because it goes against
           | the social contract. If one of your friends did that
           | regularly, everyone understands it would likely be the end of
           | that friendship, and others they shared that with would shun
           | them. I think it's the same with these glasses.
           | 
           | Another similar example is reading your SOs text messages. In
           | the past this would be impossible because normal people
           | didn't have a "paper trail", but now most everyone does. But
           | it's not a huge concern for most people, because we know it's
           | socially unacceptable to look at someone's messages without a
           | very good reason.
        
             | ParetoOptimal wrote:
             | > It would be a rare thing that someone would actually be
             | streaming or recording on them, unless you agreed to make a
             | video.
             | 
             | I'm not sure how you believe this.
             | 
             | > Technically someone could record your every conversation
             | with their phone in their pocket or on the table, but no
             | one worries about that, because it goes against the social
             | contract.
             | 
             | Even if the social contract prevented this (I don't believe
             | it does), there's little to no risk of someone being caught
             | recording your conversations with them. No risk means no
             | worry about the social contract.
             | 
             | > But it's not a huge concern for most people, because we
             | know it's socially unacceptable to look at someone's
             | messages without a very good reason.
             | 
             | I'm assuming you truly believe this, but to me, this is
             | really starting to feel like parody.
        
           | ianbicking wrote:
           | As long as the activation is overt I don't think it's a big
           | issue. Overt as in taking a picture or recording requires the
           | user to do something that is noticeable to the people around
           | them. The wake word is quite obvious; the button on the stem
           | is a bit less, but together with the light I think it's
           | fairly clear something is happening.
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | You're far from alone in that.
        
           | Gh0stRAT wrote:
           | I mean, the light makes it VERY apparent when it's recording
           | or taking a picture.
           | 
           | Would you be just as uncomfortable eating lunch with someone
           | who had their phone in their hand? It'd be much easier to
           | surreptitiously record/photograph someone with a phone
           | because they have no status indicator when they're recording
           | and people inadvertently point phone lenses at each other all
           | the time.
        
             | ParetoOptimal wrote:
             | > I mean, the light makes it VERY apparent when it's
             | recording or taking a picture.
             | 
             | Surely no one will figure out how to disable that light,
             | right?
        
               | _flux wrote:
               | The page says it detects if the light is obscured and
               | notifies the user in thatacse. That's doesn't sound quite
               | the same as disabling camera in that case, but I imagine
               | this is also one bit of metadata they collect and that
               | could change in future versions..
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | Honestly, if someone is using their phone when I'm having
             | lunch (or any social activity) with them, I'd be unlikely
             | to have lunch with them again. They are clearly not
             | interested in being social with me in the first place.
        
             | yard2010 wrote:
             | Facebook doesn't have to record the data to process it does
             | it?
        
             | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
             | _> Would you be just as uncomfortable eating lunch with
             | someone who had their phone in their hand?_
             | 
             | the entire time?
             | 
             | of course - and I'd question my decision to invite them
             | 
             | unless they're sharing their screen with everyone (showing
             | pics, etc) or taking a group pic, having their phone out
             | and pointed at you for more than a few moments would be
             | both uncomfortable and rude
        
               | somsak2 wrote:
               | if you place a phone face-down and have the macro lens
               | recording, you could pretty easily see both people at a
               | table.
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | I am not aware of a commonly used phone with a 180 degree
               | FOV macro lens, but regardless of how a phone on the
               | table makes me feel, someone holding a phone up, pointing
               | at me for all of lunch, would be rude and discomforting.
        
               | Gh0stRAT wrote:
               | They could be pointing it mostly at the table (<45deg
               | angle) and you'd still be in frame without realizing.
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | I don't see how I could fail to notice that my fellow
               | diner was rudely and discomfortingly holding or using
               | their phone for the entire meal, or that they carefully
               | balanced one end of their phone on top of stuff on the
               | table at a 45 degree angle pointing towards me for no
               | apparent reason
        
               | saberience wrote:
               | What? No you can't at all. Unless you got some mythical
               | alien phone which doesn't exist.
        
             | PeterStuer wrote:
             | I'm sure this will be the first unhackable product in tech
             | history. /s
        
             | euroderf wrote:
             | I vote for a flip-cover that visibly shows that the camera
             | lens is covered. Like clip-ons, taken to the next level of
             | dork.
        
               | sentimentscan wrote:
               | In some techno clubs they put a sticker to your camera
               | lens, so you know that you aren't recorded
        
             | jacobsenscott wrote:
             | I've never had lunch with someone who was sitting there
             | pointing their phone camera at me.
        
               | amethyst wrote:
               | With modern wide angle lenses, it doesn't even need to be
               | pointed directly at you to get you completely in the
               | frame.
        
               | pests wrote:
               | I don't know. Its weird. Kind of like how people have the
               | "someone's staring at you" sense.
               | 
               | > The biological phenomenon is known as "gaze detection"
               | or "gaze perception." Neurological studies have found
               | that the brain cells that initiate this response are very
               | precise. If someone turns their gaze off of you by
               | turning just a few degrees to their left or right, that
               | eerie feeling quickly fades.
               | 
               | I 100% beleive we also do this with smartphones. You can
               | 100% detect when a smartphone is looking at you or just
               | being held in your direction. It might not be proven
               | scientifically yet but I know this in my soul.
               | 
               | Similar to our ability to determine what someone else is
               | looking at. We can watch someone's purpils move, and then
               | immediately look at the exact area they looked at.
        
               | huytersd wrote:
               | Nonsense. If someone is sitting in front of you and they
               | are texting, the camera is pointing at you.
        
               | jacobsenscott wrote:
               | They don't sit there and point the camera at you for the
               | _entire_ lunch. I don 't know what kind of people you
               | have lunch with, but nobody holds their phone vertically
               | and in your face when texting unless they have a serious
               | social skills deficit. They tend to hold it a few inches
               | above the table at a 45 degree angle, or even under the
               | table.
        
             | duxup wrote:
             | > someone who had their phone in their hand?
             | 
             | I feel like I have a good idea when someone is recording or
             | not. Phone orientation and behavior is different.
        
               | fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
               | With the macro lens mode on iPhones now, you can take a
               | video of what's directly in front of you while pointing
               | the camera at a downward angle. There's no way to tell a
               | person doing that apart from a person who's texting,
               | other than looking at their screen.
        
               | pests wrote:
               | I posted elsewhere in this thread but I think we can
               | still detect this. There is a framing/tracking motion
               | people do when recording that's not present when just
               | texting or using the phone.
               | 
               | > Brain imaging has shown that the brain cells which are
               | activated when a test subject can see that they are being
               | stared at are distinct from the cells activated when the
               | starer's eyes are averted away from the subject by just a
               | few degrees
               | 
               | From Wikipedia[1], but I admit the claim is needing a
               | citation but I feel strongly for the gaze detection
               | argument at least.
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_staring_effect
        
               | Gh0stRAT wrote:
               | Well in this hypothetical scenario, you are stationary
               | (sitting across from each other) so there would be no
               | tracking to notice.
        
           | baby wrote:
           | Just take them off when you have lunch? That's what I do with
           | my sunglasses
        
             | pmontra wrote:
             | People don't do that with their prescription glasses. They
             | also don't take off their sunglasses if they are having
             | lunch outside in a bright place.
        
               | baby wrote:
               | My sunglasses are prescription glasses and I do that.
        
           | zdragnar wrote:
           | Maybe I haven't gotten far enough in the thread, but it seems
           | like most people have forgotten that when Google came out
           | with these, the people who were wearing them were called
           | "glassholes".
        
             | specproc wrote:
             | Let's see how it runs with a decade's worth of water under
             | the bridge. A lot of norms have changed since then. Still
             | gives me the creeps.
        
           | hightrix wrote:
           | Not at all. In fact, I would ask someone wearing this to not
           | only remove them from their face but also place them in a
           | backpack/bag.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | yard2010 wrote:
         | Facebook loves to spy on other people and businesses without
         | their consent and target its opponents like that, I've worked
         | in a firm in which that happened. After a while the whole
         | Cambridge Analytica fuck up came out and it was an A Ha moment
         | for everyone involved.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | jperras wrote:
         | > Imagine if you could take a picture of anything, add a little
         | note, have it filed away. Not necessarily an awesome Instagram
         | picture, but just a picture of some mail you got, a tool you
         | are putting away, any thing you want to record and save. Heck,
         | why not a picture of your computer screen? Pair that with
         | quickly available audio transcriptions and you can also dictate
         | anything, thoughts, small notes, information associated with
         | the images.
         | 
         | I know HN already has too much cynicism for my own liking, so
         | it pains me to say: you can already do this with the phone you
         | have in your pocket. Have a shortcut that enables audio
         | dictation/photo mode/etc., and you're good to go.
         | 
         | The workflow for glasses (either these or some other
         | hypothetical ones) would involve hitting a button and then
         | having to either speak the command out loud or hit some other
         | button to capture video/audio/etc., which seems more cumbersome
         | than the phone approach that exists today.
        
           | rafaelmn wrote:
           | Handling a phone is cumbersome - I'm playing a guitar and
           | want to record to check what I'm doing wrong, I'm building
           | something in the garage, taking something apart, etc. Sure I
           | can setup some mobile stand but I usually won't bother, this
           | would change that.
           | 
           | But these are sunglasses and I doubt resolution/focus will be
           | good enough for those use cases.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _hitting a button and then having to either speak the
           | command out loud or hit some other button to capture video
           | /audio/etc., which seems more cumbersome than the phone
           | approach_
           | 
           | For the mass market, perhaps the right place to put the
           | camera is on headphones. (I'm already talking to my AirPods.)
           | This product doesn't appear to be positioned for the mass
           | market, however, but instead influencers.
        
             | paul7986 wrote:
             | Once battery life is solid and all bugs are worked out
             | smart glasses will be as ubiquitous as smart phones
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _smart glasses will be as ubiquitous as smart phones_
               | 
               | This reminds me of the difference between Apple and
               | Google: a sense of style. I have no doubt smart glasses
               | will find their niche in industry and among techies. But
               | what people put on their faces is deeply tied to
               | identity. Until the technology can exist virtually
               | unseen, it's not going to compete.
        
               | paul7986 wrote:
               | Once smart glasses run solidly and can run mind blowing
               | innovation / apps solidly too they are the next smart
               | phone. Such innovations will sell smart glasses like apps
               | drove smart phone sales.
               | 
               | I think my argument is helped by the billions both
               | Facebook and Apple are putting into smart glasses.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _my argument is helped by the billions both Facebook
               | and Apple are putting into smart glasses_
               | 
               | I accept the latter, though discard the former: they were
               | trend following VR. I also think Apple, savvily, doesn't
               | brand the Vision Pro as a pair of glasses. And it doesn't
               | look like that's the vision (no pun intended). It's
               | something that's put on and taken off. Not kept on
               | continuously.
               | 
               | By the way, I accept the vision. Just not the form factor
               | of a pair of glasses. Those are closer to another Apple
               | Watch than an iPhone killer.
        
               | paul7986 wrote:
               | In zuckerberg's speech he shows one of many innovations
               | that will drive all current sunglass wearers to switch to
               | smart sunglasses which is the glasses keeping score of
               | your tennis, ping pong ..card game ..whatever game and
               | displaying the score in your view.
               | 
               | Though His example really just shows the glasses telling
               | the player the tennis or pickle ball was out of bounds.
               | I've just expanded it to keeping score of whatever game
               | and or counting things in front of you to counting how
               | many in a room to etc etc etc ones imagination can think
               | of. The glasses will make life easier and in a magical
               | way that drives all sunglass wearers (about 75 to 90
               | percent of the entire global population) to switch to
               | smart glasses.
        
               | herbst wrote:
               | What about Google? They realised years ago that the
               | market doesn't really want their product and found other
               | niches to build their glasses for. If it's so obvious why
               | would Google not care and only meta (which has a bad
               | track record in finding trends) and apple follow that
               | 'trend'
        
               | paul7986 wrote:
               | Google isnt much of an innovator they will just copy or
               | steal from the market leader who finally gets it right
               | like they did with Android and like many of their other
               | products ..Siri first then Google assistant ...Alexa
               | smart speaker then Google home products and etc, etc, etc
        
           | phkahler wrote:
           | >> The workflow for glasses (either these or some other
           | hypothetical ones) would involve hitting a button and then
           | having to either speak the command out loud or hit some other
           | button to capture video/audio/etc
           | 
           | I was hoping to just say "Hey Meta, start recording". Totally
           | hands free, even while driving or carrying stuff. I thought
           | the whole point is to not have to mess with a phone.
        
             | Gh0stRAT wrote:
             | I'm sure you'll be able to use voice commands to take
             | pictures/videos hands-free with these. jperras just said
             | that THEIR ideal workflow would rely on a button.
        
             | SoftTalker wrote:
             | They still need the phone pairing to do all the tracking
             | and telemetry data feeds back to the mothership.
        
           | pj_mukh wrote:
           | I have the near opposite experience especially having
           | attempted to build the mobile based product you mentioned
           | [https://placenote.com/]
           | 
           | The seamlessness of glasses is really what makes this even
           | possible, especially now that voice is becoming a seamless
           | interface.
           | 
           | I largely like my phone to remain in my pocket (especially
           | when I'm with my impressionable kids) and bringing it out and
           | unlocking, getting my brain to ignore all the notifications,
           | going through whatever button routine is required, then doing
           | the camera localization dance, just doesn't compare to one
           | click + voice narration once it's built right.
        
             | theptip wrote:
             | Not teaching your kids to be glued to a phone is actually a
             | fairly compelling usecase here.
             | 
             | I also like the idea of being able to remain mostly in the
             | moment vs putting a phone in between me and the scene.
             | 
             | Still not sure these justify wearing this device,
             | particularly all the time. But perhaps it could be cool to
             | wear for family outings or whatever, when you expect to
             | want to take lots of photos?
        
             | makeitdouble wrote:
             | As a glass wearer I am slightly concerned about the weight:
             | that can't be comfortqble for full day wearing, day in day
             | out.
             | 
             | You probably would have a regular pair of glasses, or no
             | glasses for most of the time, and only wear those when you
             | specifically want the smart features, which makes the
             | seamlessness only occasional. Would you optimize a workflow
             | for something you only wear from times to times ?
        
               | pj_mukh wrote:
               | Absolutely not. The application in mind only works when
               | smart glasses and prescription/sunglasses are the same.
               | 
               | This is not today, but no doubt where Meta's (and
               | Apple's) major engineering effort is getting pushed into.
        
             | jperras wrote:
             | The cognitive load of the notifications is an interesting
             | point that I hadn't considered; I can see myself being
             | distracted by those in the workflow I proposed in my
             | previous comment.
             | 
             | I wonder if much of this could be solved by OS-level
             | functionality (or at least having it in a developer-
             | accessible SDK) that allows the new "always-on" lock
             | screens to immediately trigger an application on a single
             | tap.
        
               | Hextinium wrote:
               | This is on some android phones, double tapping power will
               | open the camera. I use it all the time to take pictures
               | of information that I don't want to write down, package
               | numbers, measurements, error logs, all just tap tap,
               | point, volume down.
        
               | Terr_ wrote:
               | > information that I don't want to write down
               | 
               | I occasionally use it that way for painted labels on
               | parking-spaces at the airport. (I have yet to _need_
               | them, but it seems a reasonable precaution given how even
               | a small amount of floor /zone/row forgetfulness could
               | leave me wandering the 10,000-spot complex.)
               | 
               | That said, I also find myself wishing I could mark those
               | photos as "temporary", so that they get auto-deleted
               | within a month or whatever.
        
               | dmd wrote:
               | Easy! At least on iphone, photos you delete are saved in
               | the trash for 30 days. So - take the photo, and
               | immediately delete it.
               | 
               | Assuming you're not parking for more than a month, your
               | photo will be in the trash if you need it, and will be
               | automatically deleted if you don't!
        
               | dave7 wrote:
               | > This is on some android phones, double tapping power
               | will open the camera.
               | 
               | Holy... wow, thank you!
        
             | Groxx wrote:
             | Glasses also free up _both_ hands, which is a pretty big
             | deal.
        
               | Terr_ wrote:
               | In addition, headgear is more-likely to be aimed at
               | whatever you're actually observing or manipulating,
               | instead of some direction related to a shirt-pocket or
               | chest-harness.
        
           | fragmede wrote:
           | Or a smartwatch or Bluetooth remote. with a giant button that
           | you can hit with gloves on. Like snowboarders use for music
           | on the slopes.
        
           | ianbicking wrote:
           | People already regularly use their phones for this kind of
           | image capture (taking a picture as documentation, not for
           | nostalgic memories or sharing). This seems like a positive
           | signal. Voice doesn't get used this way, but the voice
           | interactions are cumbersome on the phone mostly because the
           | platform is not open enough, not because of form factor
           | issues.
           | 
           | In regards to voice: there's no way to have access to the
           | easy start mechanisms of wake words or quick button access
           | and also control what happens before intent resolution and
           | endpointing (i.e., deciding when the voice interaction is
           | done). You can have your own app with its own "record"
           | button: hard to open but you have control of what happens. Or
           | you use the assistant infrastructure and have to compete with
           | every other Apple/Google product goal and parsing approach,
           | and at best you have a chance to do further recording only
           | after the initial intent has fully resolved, the mic has
           | closed, and you can reopen it.
           | 
           | So yes a phone can do all that, and it ALSO would be awesome,
           | but just like with these glasses you can't ACTUALLY implement
           | this.
        
             | SillyUsername wrote:
             | Android 10 allows it.
             | 
             | https://phoneia.com/en/android-10-allows-two-apps-
             | different-...
        
             | jperras wrote:
             | Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I'm not very well
             | versed in this domain, and it's nice to have a civil
             | discussion about wearable tech, especially when previous
             | implementations have instantly become vapourware.
             | 
             | > So yes a phone can do all that, and it ALSO would be
             | awesome, but just like with these glasses you can't
             | ACTUALLY implement this.
             | 
             | A perfect summary, I think!
        
           | scrumper wrote:
           | I am currently in the middle of rebuilding a pair of 6.2L
           | small block Chevrolet engines. By a factor of six these are
           | the largest engines I've ever worked on, and the rebuild is
           | far more extensive than anything I've attempted before too.
           | 
           | During the teardown, part of my process (let's not dignify it
           | with "workflow") has been photographing the incredible amount
           | of crap that's been bolted to the engines as I remove pieces
           | to help me with later reassembly. Sometimes I say a couple of
           | words because the Live Photo captures some context.
           | 
           | I have come to loathe my phone as a camera. Yes it works with
           | gloves on, but every day it ends up covered in oil and
           | grease. Holding it is awkward, you have to do a bunch of
           | swipey things to make the camera work, the 3D Touch (or
           | whatever it's called now) is somewhat random with gloves, and
           | I've lost count of the number of times it's got itself stuck
           | in portrait or panorama mode. Those of you with daughters
           | will understand this ultimate critique - it was worth it to
           | me to bribe my grumpy pre-teen to operate the camera rather
           | than fighting it myself.
           | 
           | All of this is to say, I could _really_ use a pair of camera
           | glasses. That little bit of friction taken out of the process
           | would make a massive difference to me. And if I could record
           | video, I'd be able to add another middle aged man's amateur
           | mechanics channel to YouTube - something that I am certain
           | the world is desperate for.
        
             | djtango wrote:
             | FYI at least on my Android power key can be configured such
             | that double press takes you straight to camera bypassing
             | lock screen and volume down takes a picture.
             | 
             | But I fully take your point that there is a need and use
             | case for hands free cameras. The market for GoPros and to
             | an extent drones highlights this
        
             | bombela wrote:
             | For what is worth, on my phone double click on the power
             | button located on the side jumps into camera mode (even if
             | locked). And pressing the volume down takes the photo. Then
             | one click on the power button to turn off.
             | 
             | click-click, click, click.
             | 
             | And assuming the Google software doesn't decide to lag too
             | much, it's quite quick to, and it reduces how much you
             | touch the phone with dirty gloves.
             | 
             | edit: I should add that you still need one hand free to do
             | so of course.
        
               | qup wrote:
               | FWIW it sounds like you have a pixel. Other androids
               | aren't quite the same, but often have similar shortcuts.
               | 
               | The pixel is very quick to get the camera open, as you
               | say.
        
             | mildchalupa wrote:
             | What is there to remember about tearing down an LS motor
             | it's like Lego. It's also completely poka-yoked so it's
             | idiot proof.
        
               | scrumper wrote:
               | Not a lot, but the snake orgy of wiring harnesses and the
               | three or four plates of accessories bolted to each end of
               | the heads and block and the specific order they're
               | attached is a different story. Also, a monkey can tear
               | down; putting it back together takes a human.
               | 
               | I had to look up poka yoked. I thought it was some
               | regional colloquialism but no, it's Japanese.
        
             | elif wrote:
             | Do you really want to bloody your knuckles wrenching with
             | sunglasses on? I would last maybe 20 minutes before
             | frustratedly throwing them at a wall... unless of course
             | you are doing engine teardown out in the driveway.
        
               | jonasdegendt wrote:
               | There's models in the lineup with clear lenses.
        
             | ilyt wrote:
             | Gopro mount gonna be far cheaper than those
             | 
             | > I have come to loathe my phone as a camera. Yes it works
             | with gloves on, but every day it ends up covered in oil and
             | grease. Holding it is awkward, you have to do a bunch of
             | swipey things to make the camera work, the 3D Touch (or
             | whatever it's called now) is somewhat random with gloves,
             | and I've lost count of the number of times it's got itself
             | stuck in portrait or panorama mode. Those of you with
             | daughters will understand this ultimate critique - it was
             | worth it to me to bribe my grumpy pre-teen to operate the
             | camera rather than fighting it myself.
             | 
             | Yeah, I wish my phone was like 3x thicker and just had a
             | row of buttons on the side apps can use. Then just bind
             | them to few common camera features rather than fidding with
             | fucking touchscreen.
        
               | pests wrote:
               | What will the GoPro mount solve?
               | 
               | > and just had a row of buttons on the side apps can use.
               | Then just bind them to few common camera features rather
               | than fidding with fucking touchscreen.
               | 
               | That would be amazing.
        
               | maroonblazer wrote:
               | > What will the GoPro mount solve?
               | 
               | Hands-free video recording, ala J Kenji Lopez Alt.
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdFjuglEAds
        
               | pests wrote:
               | Totally different use case though. That's chest mounted
               | pointing down. Sure, useful for some. Perfect for
               | something like cooking.
               | 
               | The benefit here I think is a more literal WYSIWYG - what
               | you see is what you get. You see it, you get the photo of
               | it.
        
               | maroonblazer wrote:
               | Nope, head-mounted.
               | 
               | https://media.gq.com/photos/621e6cade2354d618c84380a/mast
               | er/...
        
               | pests wrote:
               | Its still offset. If I turn my head sideways to look
               | between something or under a car or anything close to the
               | face really is out of focus or not even in view.
        
               | bigbluesax wrote:
               | Just do this ;)
               | https://www.instagram.com/reel/BLO7_P_jIcR/
        
               | therein wrote:
               | Doing this especially while jumping around is an
               | excellent way to injure your teeth.
        
               | z2h-a6n wrote:
               | > Yeah, I wish my phone was like 3x thicker and just had
               | a row of buttons on the side apps can use. Then just bind
               | them to few common camera features rather than fidding
               | with fucking touchscreen.
               | 
               | Surely this part is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Digital
               | cameras still exist.
        
               | xarope wrote:
               | did you miss typing /s at the end
               | 
               | but in all seriousness, I do still bring an olympus tg5
               | "brick" for my climbing/mountaineering trips, because
               | phones are just too cumbersome to take pictures with,
               | when hanging off the side of a cliff, wearing gloves, at
               | below freezing temps etc.
        
               | rtkwe wrote:
               | Or a smaller action cam like the Insta360 Go. It even has
               | a water resistant body with a single somewhat
               | configurable body button you could hit to start recording
               | the clip. It's a third the size and weight of a GoPro
               | though the video is definitely inferior.
        
               | xp84 wrote:
               | I'm with you man. Touchscreen reliance is cancer.
        
             | eludwig wrote:
             | Sounds like a perfect use-case for a GoPro?
        
               | dharmab wrote:
               | Headband mounted GoPros are awkward. A helmet mounted
               | GoPro works better, but you're either not wearing a
               | helmet, or if you are you probably need to keep it clear
               | of protrusions for safety reasons.
        
             | Robdel12 wrote:
             | Take comfort in one thing: you're rebuilding one of the
             | most popular and prolific platforms for hot rodders in the
             | last 20 years. You can probably throw a rock and hit
             | someone who can legitimately help you, haha.
             | 
             | Rebuilding a junkyard ls (okay yours isn't a 5.3 ) is like
             | the rite of passage
        
               | qup wrote:
               | I used to know a robdel.
               | 
               | Does 312 mean anything to you?
               | 
               | Edit: it's you--I stalked your comments. Emacs? Christ, I
               | thought I showed you a better example.
        
               | scrumper wrote:
               | Yes it's been very easy to get advice, that's for sure,
               | and it's made me want to go find a junkyard core and see
               | if I can salvage it. Not that I have anything to put it
               | in. This is a marine application so not everything
               | applies (or applies differently) so the complexity is in
               | navigating what's legitimately different vs. what's
               | Mercruiser taking advantage of the ignorant.
               | 
               | For example. The engine has EV6 Bosch injectors, a
               | completely standard off-the-shelf part. A seal kit (i.e.
               | a bunch of o rings) for the injectors is maybe $20 from
               | Fel Pro. If you go by the Mercruiser part number for the
               | kit it's - get this - $297. Two hundred and ninety seven
               | dollars for sixteen tiny rubber o rings.
               | 
               | The photographs (just to keep it on topic) are basically
               | all around the accessories bolted to the heads and block.
               | A remote oil filter, the heat exchanger, the particular
               | fuel boost pump it uses, all with weird brackets and
               | spacers and eight different types of bolt.
        
             | gizajob wrote:
             | Now your glasses will be able to get covered in oil and
             | grease!
        
               | scrumper wrote:
               | Only if I touch them. And a single button I can cover
               | with a bit of painter's tape.
        
             | lsh123 wrote:
             | I have exactly the same problem with dirty hands when I
             | take boroscope photos of the engine on my plane. I would
             | love to just see it in my glasses and say blink twice to
             | take a photo.
        
             | AmericanChopper wrote:
             | I'm pretty sure industrial processes are one of the only
             | areas that smart glasses have achieved any real success,
             | and for pretty much the reasons you're describing here.
        
         | taf2 wrote:
         | "Damn it Siri where did I leave my hammer?"
         | 
         | "At 8:32, you were in the basement and left it on your work
         | bench, it was very close to the edge of the table and possibly
         | fell"
         | 
         | Ah the easy life...
        
           | baby wrote:
           | I was waiting for them to say "hey Meta, who is this person
           | again?" But that might have been too creepy for some people
           | :)
        
             | Snoddas wrote:
             | I'm terrible at remembering names. This would be so useful
             | on when attending workrelated functions.
             | 
             | Privatly I only hang out with the same 5 people or so, so
             | there I manage
        
         | aaronharnly wrote:
         | > Imagine if you could take a picture of anything, add a little
         | note, have it filed away.
         | 
         | This is more or less what Vanevar Bush imagined in his 1945
         | article "As We May Think", which many consider the origin of
         | hypertext [1].
         | 
         | "On a pair of ordinary glasses is a square of fine lines near
         | the top of one lens, where it is out of the way of ordinary
         | vision. When an object appears in that square, it is lined up
         | for its picture. As the scientist of the future moves about the
         | laboratory or the field, every time he looks at something
         | worthy of the record, he trips the shutter and in it goes,
         | without even an audible click. ...
         | 
         | And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the
         | memex is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand
         | notes, photographs, memoranda, all sorts of things. When one is
         | in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be
         | photographed onto the next blank space in a section of the
         | memex film..."
         | 
         | [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-
         | we-m...
        
         | solardev wrote:
         | That... takes like a double-click on a modern cell phone to
         | pull up the camera, with an all-day battery life and no silly
         | designer glasses needed. Also doesn't need to upload all your
         | crap to Meta.
        
       | xarope wrote:
       | The UX for the page is terrible, or else I'm too used to reading
       | reference manuals. I can't figure out if the glasses can be used
       | standalone, or need constant connection to a smart phone, nor
       | battery life.
       | 
       | Why? I actually think they might be quite useful for e.g. sports,
       | where the athlete doesn't have a hand free for camera/smartphone.
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | I get stuck in an infinite cookie popup loop so I can't even
         | see the page.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | xarope wrote:
         | OK I found it, not in Specifications, but in the FAQ section
         | (sigh).
         | 
         | So looks like you need a smart phone, WIFI, and a meta account.
         | 
         | So much for being useful for sports.
        
       | tamimio wrote:
       | What's needed?
       | 
       | >A valid Meta account
       | 
       | Pass.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | thomasfl wrote:
       | You may be a "glasshole" wearing this glasses. But you'll be a
       | "glasshole" in timeless RayBan style.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
       | I tried the previous ones. Those were chunky, cheap looking
       | plastic like a kids toy, inconvenient, and expensive. There's no
       | display, they're basically just worse than earbuds.
        
       | promiseofbeans wrote:
       | So... spy glasses?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | fillskills wrote:
         | Really shocked by the lack of controls around privacy. Its
         | absolutely crazy that someone can now be filming my family
         | members with a very inconspicuous device. On top of that it
         | could be streaming or uploading live! Where is the outrage?!?!
         | Am I missing something?
        
       | kome wrote:
       | > If the LED is covered, you'll be notified to clear it.
       | 
       | then i don't want it. what's the point of putting a led there
       | anyway?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | gffrd wrote:
       | Am I the only one who doesn't understand the obsession with
       | ramming tech in to existing accessories?
       | 
       | Why must sunglasses also be a camera? Or Alexa?
       | 
       | It's not for lack of knowing the answer. Because you're already
       | taking your sunglasses with you everywhere, anyway. Because
       | there's no way you're carrying around another thing. Because it's
       | the most convenient way of securing a more intimate relationship
       | with customers.
       | 
       | I'm with the others: I thought the future would be more exciting
       | than this.
        
         | phire wrote:
         | When I hear "smart glasses", I'm thinking either a display, or
         | some kind of active optics.
         | 
         | It's a total letdown to click on a product like this and it's
         | nothing more than a camera, a touchpad, and some crappy
         | speakers near my ear.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | itissid wrote:
         | Because there is no way meta can challenge Google and Apple's
         | dominance on the mobile platform(e.g. look at how the they have
         | monopolized location services and apple has dented their ad
         | market) and they are desperate to redefine what the next
         | generation of communication and mobility devices look like.
         | 
         | This is also the first generation of mobile wearables. Expect
         | more will come in the next two years paired with other devices.
        
           | adamrezich wrote:
           | > This is also the first generation of mobile wearables.
           | 
           | is it? Google Glass was like a decade ago, and Snap
           | Spectacles were released sometime after that. they keep
           | trying to make this happen every few years and it never seems
           | to stick.
        
             | itissid wrote:
             | I mean meta's first gen(they had glasses last year but they
             | were not that good and were more of a test run).
        
       | elif wrote:
       | As a google glass early adopter, I must say that these glasses
       | are 10x creepier because they are totally inconspicuous, higher
       | quality camera, directly configured for immediate and even live
       | internet upload, lets you cover the capture LED, has AI built
       | into it, and is built by Facebook,
       | 
       | Yet society will treat these as 10x less creepy because fashion.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ctippett wrote:
       | [*] Home surveillance cam -- Check
       | 
       | [*] Car dash cam -- Check
       | 
       | [*] Bike helmet cam -- Check
       | 
       | [*] Drone follow cam -- Check
       | 
       | [ ] Face cam
       | 
       | Those of us in the FreeCam community have been dreaming of
       | something like this for a long time.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | theodric wrote:
         | Google Glass offered customers a face-mounted camera in 2013.
         | Snapchat released their Spectacles in 2016. This is not a novel
         | concept, even in the consumer electronics space, to say nothing
         | of Steve Mann's work which stretches back decades.
        
         | xnx wrote:
         | What's the FreeCam community?
        
           | ctippett wrote:
           | It's entirely fictitious - it was an attempt on my part to
           | use satire to bring attention the various products in market
           | designed to passively capture and record video.
           | 
           | If such a community were to exist I'd imagine they'd fit
           | somewhere in the Venn diagram between smart-home enthusiasts
           | and the quantified-self movement. Apologies for misleading
           | you!
        
       | jcims wrote:
       | I just pre-ordered one. I like the concept. It'll probably suck
       | but it'll be fun to try.
        
         | zip1234 wrote:
         | Even gen 1 is great--replaces need for airpods for music/calls
         | if I am going out and they look nice.
        
           | jcims wrote:
           | Totally agree.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Lich wrote:
       | Hm, might be useful when capturing fishing videos. Instead of
       | strapping a gopro or insta 360 to your body, just wear these and
       | you get the added plus of polarized glasses. The video doesn't
       | seem to have any stabilization yet though, so maybe a few
       | generations later would be better.
        
         | fragmede wrote:
         | That's just a software thing though. Not sure why they didn't
         | run it through a stabilizer.
        
           | TaylorAlexander wrote:
           | Hardware stabilization is superior to pure software
           | stabilization. Software (aside from real fancy neural nets)
           | can't fix pixels which are blurred from the camera rapidly
           | moving while the shutter was open. My Panasonic GH5 has
           | optical stabilization in the lens as well as a five axis
           | linear motor system to move the camera sensor, and these
           | systems work together to keep the image pipeline frozen in
           | space even when the camera is physically moving. Makes a huge
           | difference in image quality and overall camera system
           | capabilities.
           | 
           | I was curious if this is in use in smartphones. This
           | reference [1] suggests that all iPhone 13 models have sensor
           | shift stabilization, and I assume they have continued with
           | this trend on newer releases.
           | 
           | So yeah, proper stabilization is a hardware thing.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.mysmartprice.com/gear/sensor-shift-
           | stabilization...
        
           | fomine3 wrote:
           | Hardware stabilization is better but it takes space. For pure
           | software stabilization, it can be done by PC or powerful
           | smartphone so it's better to not to have on glass frame for
           | saving battery.
        
       | PeterStuer wrote:
       | How is this any less creepy than a common shirt button spycam? If
       | you are going to mention the led, think how fast this will be
       | bypassed.
       | 
       | https://gadgetsspy.com/button-camera/
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mosselman wrote:
         | Because it is RayBan and your aren't spying for yourself, but
         | for Meta. /s
        
       | pdntspa wrote:
       | The relentless surveillance state marches ever onward...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Camera sunglasses are available from others, and the others are
       | better looking. How did Luxottica produce something so ugly?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | rafaelmn wrote:
         | Mention some ? I googled quickly and could only find cheap crap
         | stuff - nothing in this class ?
        
       | nerdjon wrote:
       | I can't help but feel like "smart glasses" is really pushing what
       | this is? I feel like the vast majority of people when they see
       | the words "smart glasses" they probably think some sort of AR
       | tech, or at the very least some sort of screen.
       | 
       | And yet this is really just glasses with something like AirPods
       | stuck in it with a camera connected to your phone. Super smart.
       | 
       | Society is far far from ready to answer the privacy questions of
       | something like this, but when has Meta ever cared about that so
       | why not just release it...
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
         | They're voice assistants with a button on the glasses. It's a
         | half-baked idea that lacks utility.
        
           | nerdjon wrote:
           | That is what I don't understand, I can do that with my
           | AirPods already.
           | 
           | The only "innovation" here is the camera. But while isn't
           | horrible is far from anything I could call "smart glasses".
           | 
           | I mean it isn't like it is even all self contained, it's
           | tethered to a phone. I just don't see what this is really
           | bringing to the table.
        
       | the_arun wrote:
       | How is this different from Google Glasses that were launched
       | earlier?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | jackbrookes wrote:
         | No display, 2 cameras, much thinner form factor
        
         | rockemsockem wrote:
         | The biggest difference is that they don't have a display. These
         | are oriented around sound for a lot of i/o with cameras for
         | pictures/videos.
        
         | tempestn wrote:
         | Aside from being glasses with tech and a camera, they're very
         | different. Google Glass had a screen, for one thing, so it was
         | an early attempt at AR. It didn't have lenses, and didn't look
         | anything like regular glasses. This is designed to look and
         | function like regular glasses or sunglasses, with the addition
         | of a camera and speakers.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | Did we not learn anything from the failure of "Google Glasses"
       | lol
        
         | clintfred wrote:
         | I feel like's it's inevitable that these types of devices will
         | eventually become _useful enough_ and _stylish enough_ to start
         | catching on. Companies have to start somewhere.
         | 
         | Google Glasses were a neat toy, but pretty far ahead of the
         | tech's capabilities. One could make a similar argument for
         | these new glasses as well, since they have no AR component.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | backtoyoujim wrote:
       | I can't believe that people think that they need to give META yet
       | even more access to human life.
       | 
       | I just don't believe in the upside being reality.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Sheeny96 wrote:
       | Anyone notice that these meta links open a new tab, then close
       | the tab you're on, not allowing you to use the back button to
       | navigate back to the previous page? Horrendously user hostile
       | behaviour.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | idlewan wrote:
         | That might be Firefox's Facebook container's fault. I don't
         | like this behavior either, you lose the tab history and the
         | ability to recover it, unfortunately.
        
       | no_wizard wrote:
       | Lack of HUD is why I wouldn't get these. I suppose if I was
       | taking more pictures / video I might be more interested, like at
       | the beach or something, but I don't find myself doing these
       | things as much. Maybe this would make it easier for me to capture
       | my life around me (my SO thinks i don't take enough pictures or
       | video of our life), could alleviate having to remember to pull
       | out the phone and such.
       | 
       | Add a HUD like google glass had and you may have a more
       | compelling use case.
        
         | pxmpxm wrote:
         | This - having an actual display that doesn't look gaudy would
         | be great. For pictures and video, Google already tried the
         | glasshole thing.
        
         | devmor wrote:
         | Yeah I don't really consider these "smart glasses" - they're a
         | sunglass frame with built in airpods and a go pro.
         | 
         | If someone could take the epson moverio and make it cordless,
         | that's more like what I want from smart glasses.
        
       | ineptech wrote:
       | I'm excited about the use cases, and leery-but-cautiously-
       | optimistic about tying the experience to meta, but am I the only
       | one worried about buying hardware from a company that's
       | synonymous with monopolistic price-gouging?
       | 
       | (Ray-Ban is owned by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica )
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | archontes wrote:
         | I'm sorry, but cautiously optimistic about tying the experience
         | to meta?
         | 
         | You must be the only one not worried about buying hardware from
         | a company that's synonymous with blatant privacy violations.
         | 
         | (Meta is owned by https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-
         | news/a19490586/mark-zucker...)
        
         | hoherd wrote:
         | Ray Ban Wayfarer's are $171 without the included tech.[1] The
         | included 12mp camera, 5 mic system, network connectivity,
         | battery, microelectronics small enough to be hidden in
         | fashionable eyewear all seem to add up to more than $128 worth
         | of value. It seems to me that these are subsidized by Meta.
         | I'll leave it to the reader to speculate on why Meta would do
         | such a thing.
         | 
         | 1. https://www.ray-
         | ban.com/usa/sunglasses/RB2140%20UNISEX%20ori...
        
       | BenFranklin100 wrote:
       | This technology creeps me out. I can't imagine interacting with
       | someone who's wearing a pair of these, much less have a
       | conversation. It would be like trying to talk with someone who's
       | sticking their smartphone in your face.
       | 
       | Better looking and more refined tech, but fundamentally Glasshole
       | 2.0. Zuck is the perfect ambassador after Brin.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | kbrannigan wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | zyang wrote:
         | I hate everything about this tech. It invades people's privacy
         | in-exchange for monetization and there's no way to opt-out.
         | People made this happen should take a long walk and think about
         | what they are doing with their lives.
        
         | pj_mukh wrote:
         | Just to clarify the cameras are very well fit into the profile
         | of the glasses, so it doesn't look like "camera" glasses in
         | person. Ray ban did a good job here.
         | 
         | But on the flip side it's _very_ obvious when you're filming
         | (bright white light comes on), so it's less creepy.
         | 
         | Oh and obviously unless you're an influencer and streaming the
         | camera aren't always active. I agree it's weird to hang out
         | with streaming influencers.
         | 
         | The way this + my Apple Watch has reduced my phone usage when
         | on the go I _truly_ appreciate. I wish Facebook sold it with
         | that point in mind but they won't for obvious business
         | cannibalization reasons.
        
       | dzonga wrote:
       | anyone remember "snapchat is a camera company" ?
        
       | andreyk wrote:
       | Incidentally, I just bought the Gen 1 of these before departing
       | on a trip to Japan a week ago. I gotta say, I'm very happy with
       | the purchase - being able to take photos/videos for memory-
       | capture type stuff (ie I don't care a lot about it being the best
       | quality) without taking out my phone and pointing it at stuff has
       | been great, and the speakers are surprisingly nice to use when I
       | don't want to block out the sounds of my surroundings. To me the
       | benefit is not being able to constantly or secretly record stuff,
       | it's just a nicer way to use a camera to record memories on a
       | trip that does not involve staring at a screen half the time.
        
         | tjpnz wrote:
         | Operating such a device in Japan puts you in a legal gray area,
         | and depending on your behaviour could result in unwanted police
         | attention. They will respond to reports of such devices being
         | used near spaces frequented by women or children. Act
         | responsibly.
        
           | gumballindie wrote:
           | As it should be. I am not comfortable with the idea that
           | creeps are just walking around taking photos of me or my
           | family.
        
             | amrocha wrote:
             | Don't worry nobody wants photos of you and your family
        
               | CursedUrn wrote:
               | Facebook does. They make billions of dollars a year from
               | that kind of data.
        
               | amrocha wrote:
               | Facebook aren't "creeps", which is what the original
               | comment was about
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | Facebook are absolutely "creeps".
        
               | gumballindie wrote:
               | They are, actually. It's a company that makes money off
               | of people's photos among other things. I get it that
               | _you_ have no issue with it, but why would I, having
               | never given consent to that company to store images of
               | me, be monitored by them? They don't have a right to
               | monetize people that don't give consent. That's creepy.
        
             | Draiken wrote:
             | Are we forgetting that we live in cities with cameras
             | literally everywhere?
             | 
             | Where arguably the real creeps (cops and random security
             | people) are actively watching you all the time.
             | 
             | I get it, if a person takes out his phone to do this it
             | feels more intrusive (if it is or not is up for debate),
             | but let's not kid ourselves here: we're already being
             | recorded at almost all times (at least in most cities).
        
               | barrysteve wrote:
               | Why would he be forgetting _that_? He 's allowed to be
               | aginst both glasses and city-wide survelliance.
               | 
               | This knee-jerk attempt to annul judgment has been so
               | heavily bred into online discussions, since roughly 2018.
               | 
               | Our current state of recording is not a counter argument
               | to the concept, it's a stating of the facts.
        
               | Draiken wrote:
               | I cannot tell you why, or if in this specific instance
               | they are forgetting or not.
               | 
               | My point is more of a general one. The hypocrisy of the
               | masses is real. Most only really care about the instances
               | they can perceive and accept all other ones as long as
               | they aren't inconvenient.
               | 
               | I'm not trying to annul any judgements, merely point out
               | that this is, in my view, no different than the already
               | existing surveillance we live under. At this point having
               | a camera in your glasses is merely a more convenient way
               | to take pictures.
               | 
               | And it's not like there aren't already glasses with
               | cameras, for example. If a creep wants to creep, they
               | will do it whether we want it or not. I simply don't
               | understand how this product changes anything in relation
               | to what already happens.
               | 
               | We are already surveilled and creeps already take
               | pictures.
        
               | M4v3R wrote:
               | This lowers the barrier to take unwanted photos/videos
               | significantly. Yes, surveillance cameras are everywhere
               | but your everyday person does not have access to their
               | feed (and the publicly accessible ones are not that
               | common and usually very far away). This is different from
               | possibly being recorded by anyone you pass by in high
               | resolution, for their own personal use.
               | 
               | Also, today when a person takes a photo of you it's
               | usually very apparent, hence most people hesitate just
               | pointing a camera at you to shoot a picture. Tomorrow,
               | when these become more and more popular, just a glance at
               | someone will be enough and no one will hesitate.
               | 
               | Finally, this argument is basically: "oh well, we live in
               | a crappy world already, so making it even more crappy is
               | not a problem".
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | > merely point out that this is, in my view, no different
               | than the already existing surveillance we live under.
               | 
               | Just because a Bad Thing is already foisted on us to the
               | point where it's impossible to avoid doesn't make it OK
               | to make that situation _even worse_.
        
             | boffinAudio wrote:
             | Well, don't go out into public then .. because others have
             | every right to record what you are doing in public.
        
               | gumballindie wrote:
               | Sorry - I am confused. Are you saying that we should
               | accept creeps lurking around taking photos of people?
        
               | boffinAudio wrote:
               | You should accept the fact that, while out and about in
               | public, you have no expectation of privacy.
               | 
               | In your own home - sure.
               | 
               | Such is the price of freedom.
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | > Such is the price of freedom.
               | 
               | No. This is an example of reducing the freedom of some in
               | order to increase the liberties of others.
        
               | gumballindie wrote:
               | > Such is the price of freedom.
               | 
               | I am confused again. How am I free if my own persona is
               | up for grabs by a business?
        
               | boffinAudio wrote:
               | You have the freedom to be outside and also record
               | everything you perceive.
               | 
               | You can't deny others that freedom and expect to attain
               | it yourself, too.
               | 
               | That you don't exercise that right is immaterial and has
               | no bearing on whether I should be able to freely exercise
               | that right as well.
        
               | gumballindie wrote:
               | But you are not a corporation?
        
               | blagie wrote:
               | .... somewhat ....
               | 
               | In the US specifically, there are protected first
               | amendment rights.
               | 
               | However, plenty of people have genuine reason to be
               | concerned. Stalkers. Witness protection. Etc. Having
               | managed large datasets, these things come up fairly
               | often. There's an incredible diversity of potential
               | problems.
               | 
               | It's not reasonable to tell everyone who has an issue
               | like this: "Well, don't go out into public then"
        
               | boffinAudio wrote:
               | >somewhat
               | 
               | Its a universal human right, actually, to be able to
               | record anything you can perceive in public ... without
               | that right we cannot exercise political freedom or our
               | rights as individuals for redress.
               | 
               | >It's not reasonable to tell everyone who has an issue
               | like this: "Well, don't go out into public then"
               | 
               | Of course it is. They have equal rights - and equal
               | opportunity, therefore, to express - or not express -
               | these rights.
               | 
               | It is entirely up to the individual to make the decision
               | to exercise those rights and to not deny them to others
               | for any reason, as it is a fundamental, universal human
               | right to record others in public.
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | > Its a universal human right, actually, to be able to
               | record anything you can perceive in public
               | 
               | I completely disagree that this is (or should be
               | considered) a universal human right at all.
        
               | barrysteve wrote:
               | Political freedom is exercized at the ballot box, not in
               | photos of my wife.
        
               | blagie wrote:
               | > Its a universal human right, actually, to be able to
               | record anything you can perceive in public ...
               | 
               | No. It's not. Here: https://www.un.org/en/about-
               | us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
               | 
               | If you believe something is a right, and most other
               | people don't, it's definitely not a universal right.
               | 
               | What is an established universal human right is: "No one
               | shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his
               | privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks
               | upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to
               | the protection of the law against such interference or
               | attacks."
               | 
               | > without that right we cannot exercise political freedom
               | or our rights as individuals for redress.
               | 
               | Yes. We can. We've done it since long before cameras
               | existed, even. Where I live is moving towards a balance
               | where, very grossly oversimplified:
               | 
               | - Government officials have very little privacy
               | protection, and first amendment trumps privacy
               | 
               | - Private individuals have a lot of privacy protection,
               | and privacy trumps first amendment
               | 
               | That seems reasonable.
               | 
               | I'd like corporations to have no privacy either, but
               | that's not where we're landing.
        
               | 34679 wrote:
               | The founding fathers didn't record any video, publicly or
               | privately. They were still able to "exercise political
               | freedom".
               | 
               | There's no such thing as a "fundamental, universal right"
               | that requires the possession and use of a product.
        
           | amrocha wrote:
           | There's nothing illegal about these as long as you're not
           | doing anything illegal. It's not illegal to take pictures of
           | people in places where there's no expectation of privacy.
        
             | graeme wrote:
             | Are you commenting based on knowledge of Japan? To my
             | knowledge they have laws against secret cameras in public
             | places.
             | 
             | From a quick search it is complicated and varied by
             | prefecture and type of place.
        
               | amrocha wrote:
               | I live in Japan and see Chinese livestreamers walking
               | around all the time. Stores are allowed to refuse their
               | business, but it's not illegal to record others in
               | public. Whether this counts as a hidden camera isn't up
               | to me, but since it has a glowing LED indicating when
               | it's recording I wouldn't think it would be a problem.
        
         | ahmedfromtunis wrote:
         | I'm curious about the quality of the footage -- not the video
         | itself, but in terms of stability and clear (re)watchability.
        
         | OrangeMusic wrote:
         | In the promo content, all videos and photos are in portrait
         | mode. Is it really the case? Can you do landscape?
        
       | napo wrote:
       | For me it says "unavailable" on all items. Is it the case for
       | everyone? I'm wondering if it's because I'm based in France or if
       | it's sold out.
        
         | chmod775 wrote:
         | Same in Germany. However since they're advertising it in both
         | French and German, likely not for long.
         | 
         | Not that I was going to buy that.
        
         | octatrack wrote:
         | Doesn't seem to be available in the EU.
        
         | neom wrote:
         | When you load the page it says right at the bottom in a banner
         | "Available now for pre-order in the United States, Canada and
         | the United Kingdom"
        
       | tchaffee wrote:
       | Seems like it could be fun to use these but no way am I trusting
       | Meta with more personal info.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | 14 wrote:
       | I have to give it to Meta on this one. These look stylish and
       | cool and they are at a price point that I could justify. About
       | $400 Canadian. That means a lot of people can adopt this
       | technology. I think Google was just a bit premature for peoples
       | comfort level but I really wanted to see it expand. The con I see
       | is pretty soon there will be no privacy. Facial recognition will
       | make a record of where you are and someone will have caught your
       | face on camera. But in a world heading towards deep fakes maybe
       | this will be a good thing. These are going to also be awesome for
       | Youtube videos I can not wait to get a set and start doing
       | motorcycle repair videos where what I see is what you see so you
       | can know exactly what I am looking at.
        
       | gruturo wrote:
       | These things lack a display.
       | 
       | I don't want cameras strapped to my head, I want a lightweight
       | display I can wear unobtrusively and doesn't make anyone near me
       | nervous (doubly so since this is from a company known for
       | invading privacy), even if it's a fairly low resolution one.
       | Version 1 could even be 4 lines of text and I'd still pay for it
       | - I already wear glasses every waking moment of my life anyway.
       | 
       | Pair it with my phone, give me driving directions which don't
       | require me to take eyes off the road. Remind me of things when I
       | arrive home or get in the car. Let me read texts. Overlay that
       | 9-minute pasta timer in a corner of my field of view until it
       | runs out. Blink in a corner to remind me that my lawn sprinklers
       | are still running, so I don't go to sleep forgetting to turn them
       | off (ahem).
       | 
       | I'll probably learn to use a swype-style keyboard while keeping
       | the phone in the pocket and looking ahead through the glasses.
       | 
       | Come on, I grew up awed at the HUDs of Robocop and Terminator,
       | give me a damn HUD, it's 2023.
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | > I don't want cameras strapped to my head
         | 
         | Not only is VR/AR hard, a camera is still very aligned with
         | their business model :)
        
         | jedberg wrote:
         | Have you seen this:
         | 
         | https://www.visor.com/shop
         | 
         | Disclosure, I'm an investor. But I share this as a fellow
         | technologist who just bought one.
         | 
         | It's meant for working in VR/AR so it only ties to computers,
         | but it might still work for you.
        
           | r0fl wrote:
           | Cool tech but those are hideous compared to a slightly
           | thicker pair of Ray Bans
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | singularity2001 wrote:
         | Yes, it's the creep factor of Google Glasses without the
         | utility display
        
         | jansan wrote:
         | It is impossible to have a good display with a transparent
         | lens, because you have to overlay the light that passes the
         | lens with an even brighter light. Unless they find a way to dim
         | shapes on the lenses, this will always be sub-optimal.
         | 
         | What will work is a camera on your VR device, that will give
         | you a quasi-AR device, but those are still clunky and as you
         | can see with the iGlasses they look a bit spooky from outside.
        
         | pj_mukh wrote:
         | Unpopular opinion (even wsj wrote this product off [1]) but as
         | a new dad these things have been an absolute game changer.
         | 
         | I continue to play with my toddler at all times but I can also
         | capture critical moments without my kid thinking I'm constantly
         | on my phone.
         | 
         | The grandparents have the footage on loop. This is just a win-
         | win-win all around tbh even without any displays.
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/metas-ray-ban-smart-glasses-
         | fai...
         | 
         | PS: added benefit that when I don't pick up my phone to get to
         | the camera constantly I conveniently miss the attention
         | destroying notifications _most times from other Meta products_
         | 
         | PPS: Caveat: I live in a sunny location so sunglasses make
         | sense most days.
        
           | kridsdale3 wrote:
           | Honestly this single HN comment may have turned my opinion of
           | the product category around.
        
             | Mekulpa wrote:
             | Wearing the same glasses constantly just in case your kid
             | makes a thing?
             | 
             | There is a reason why people get lasik.
             | 
             | But hey if people start wearing more sunglasses outside
             | good for them it's better for the eyes.
        
             | meowtimemania wrote:
             | Yeah this would be a great way to market them!
        
           | bsimpson wrote:
           | This was what made the original Glass interesting - being
           | able to live your life while also archiving memories for
           | Future You etc.
           | 
           | Still, Facebook isn't exactly a company that has earned trust
           | to fill that role.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | boarnoah wrote:
         | It is extremely bizarre to advertise with typical Mixed Reality
         | use cases (with display elements overlaid in your field of
         | vision).
         | 
         | Is this actually true or do the people here who say "it lacks a
         | display" mean something else? That it's not suitable for VR or
         | non overlay applications?
        
           | joemi wrote:
           | Look at the Product Tour part of the page. Zero mention of a
           | display = no display.
        
         | aqme28 wrote:
         | > Pair it with my phone, give me driving directions which don't
         | require me to take eyes off the road.
         | 
         | I already do this with mine using audio.
        
           | pzo wrote:
           | sometimes audio is not enough, e.g. when driving
           | motorbike/scooter in big city (Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur) audio
           | navigation is not enough to on time figure out which lane
           | ramp you have to use at some intersection.
        
             | freeflight wrote:
             | For motorbikes there are already options to get a HUD in
             | the helmet, i.e. a CrossHelmet or Argon Transform.
             | 
             | This is not an endorsement of these products, I have no
             | idea if they are actually any good.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | throw7 wrote:
         | This is more simstim a'la neuromancer than robocop.
        
         | kart23 wrote:
         | I mean, this is obviously where its going, but the tech isn't
         | there yet without seriously compromising on some axis (looks,
         | size/weight, etc) I think its a great way to get people used to
         | the paradigm of smart glasses and further develop the other
         | components that are already mature on phones (camera, compute,
         | speakers, etc.)
        
           | hcazz wrote:
           | Google Glass was released almost a decade ago, I'm not
           | convinced the tech isn't there. I also had a RECON Mod Live
           | HUD for my Snowboard Goggles which was released in 2011 which
           | had a unit size not that far off from the Google Glass.
           | 
           | It's disappointing that in 2023 there isn't something even
           | remotely close (or better) to tech that was available 10+
           | years ago in the case of the RECON Mod Live.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | anjel wrote:
           | ...which is why its available for the already chunky wayfarer
           | frames and not the svelte Aviators. Past camera spy glasses
           | were so chunky as to be obvious if you know to look what to
           | look for. Can't say how unobtrusive or obvious the lens is
           | for the Metas but the Temples are not discernably thicker or
           | different in appearance from non-enhanced Wayfarers. Wishing
           | they'd Add an inertial sensor making them quite useful for
           | tort / crim evidentiary purposes.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | majormajor wrote:
         | A readier-to-access camera means I could take pictures I can't
         | now, since by the time I get my phone out the moment has
         | passed.
         | 
         | To me an always-on display in my glasses, on the other hand,
         | seems like a ramp-up of screen-time-interruptions and very
         | diminished gains compared to a phone or watch.
        
           | vidarh wrote:
           | Cameras like this have been available for years. They're
           | typically sold as "spy cameras", because that's how they're
           | perceived. Amazon alone lists a few dozen models of various
           | degrees reasonable appearance and features, most of them in
           | the $40-$100 range.
           | 
           | This is old enough that at least one startup has already
           | failed to get traction for trying to establish a standard to
           | clip cameras onto glasses...
           | 
           | What you're paying for here is the Ray-Ban branding, not
           | innovation.
        
         | ajhurliman wrote:
         | Yeah, that's just not what the product is. It's not targeted at
         | helping people navigate roads, it's for giving creators a more
         | seamless way of getting footage in their everyday life.
         | 
         | Meta spent a crazy amount of money hosting a giant party at
         | VidCon (a YouTube/TikTok/Instagram focused convention) and I
         | haven't really seen them pushing these glasses anywhere else.
         | Casey Neistat did a review on the first-gen version in the
         | context of how it helped him film. This really seems like a
         | tool for creators at this point, even if it may morph into
         | something else later.
        
           | vidarh wrote:
           | "Spy cameras" like these have been available cheaply for
           | years. The only thing new here is the Ray-Ban brand
           | connection.
        
             | ajhurliman wrote:
             | Well, the integration into social media is novel too. When
             | I did a demo I signed into my account and when I filmed
             | something it went directly as a post to my IG.
             | 
             | If there were more ability to do more editing and get
             | access to the raw footage that would be helpful; I haven't
             | tested this version though so I don't know what it
             | does/doesn't offer.
        
               | vidarh wrote:
               | There are several glasses that allows live-streaming over
               | wifi to your phone, and that _will_ give you access to
               | the raw footage.
        
             | nickthegreek wrote:
             | These aren't even new. They have been available for years.
        
               | ajhurliman wrote:
               | True, but the first version was garbage, the resolution
               | was like 2007 Razr quality. I feel like the better image
               | quality, battery life, and form-factor this gets, it will
               | become a lot more compelling a product.
               | 
               | I would never have bought the last version, but with the
               | image quality on this one it may be worth it (plus the
               | call-related stuff, although I normally have AirPods with
               | me).
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | how many "spy cameras" allow you to live stream? "the only
             | thing" here is your lack of imagination. not that I'm a
             | proponent of these devices, as they are on the verge of
             | creepCentral, but i'm not going to make an outlandish
             | comment about them "only" being branded.
        
               | vidarh wrote:
               | The _very cheapest_ don 't, but there are several who do,
               | so again the only "new" thing is here is the branding.
        
           | somethoughts wrote:
           | Interesting - this is pretty insightful in terms of product
           | market fit.
           | 
           | It seems more of a convenient GoPro POV camera form factor
           | that allows more freedom from extra equipment (sunglasses
           | versus some sort of helmet strap/chest strap) and less pre-
           | planning.
           | 
           | I could also see some sort of application where the creator
           | is live-streaming a concert or event to Instagram reels and
           | getting feed back via the headphones from the internet
           | audience on where to go/what to do next.
           | 
           | Definitely can see how it fits directly with FB/Insta in that
           | it gets more people "creating" content for the rest of us
           | (ergo more content to monetize for ads).
        
             | dotancohen wrote:
             | > I could also see some sort of application where the
             | creator is live-streaming a concert or event
             | 
             | Or police encounter.
        
           | kart23 wrote:
           | It would probably be pretty awesome at navigating roads too.
           | I remember citibiking in nyc and basically having to memorize
           | directions and street names, or constantly pull out my phone
           | and figure out where i'm going. Having audio through the
           | glasses would work great and still be able to hear your
           | surroundings.
        
             | mathewsanders wrote:
             | I've been biking around nyc boroughs for over a decade now
             | and I still follow directions from mapping apps!
             | 
             | I've found Apple Watch to be okay (they give instructions
             | on directions via haptic feedback) and AirPods with spoken
             | directions to be even better.
             | 
             | I wear glasses too, but for directions I think I'd prefer
             | haptic and/or audio even if visual was an option just for
             | safety purposes.
             | 
             | The one pain point I have found with biking directions is
             | that sometimes the directions come way too late to be
             | useful (maybe I bike too fast haha).
        
         | whartung wrote:
         | > I want a lightweight display I can wear unobtrusively and
         | doesn't make anyone near me nervous
         | 
         | The BWM Connected Ride Glasses are close to this:
         | 
         | https://www.bmw-motorrad.ie/en/wear/Apparel/connectedride-sm...
         | 
         | They're specific for motorcycle riding (vs, you know, a pasta
         | timer), but that's a detail of application.
         | 
         | Other than that, it's a pair glasses with a built in HUD
         | for...HUD things.
        
         | CommitSyn wrote:
         | Imagine that while you're driving, a big line of text that you
         | can't see through appears on your windshield.
         | 
         | Worse yet the text is opaque but you have to concentrate on it
         | to read it.
         | 
         | All this would do is give drivers a false sense of security in
         | your directions example. You'll be concentrating on the text
         | regardless, meaning your concentration is off the road.
         | 
         | Even that autopilot sense where you drive your daily routine
         | for 30 minutes and don't remember minutes 20 of it still has
         | your subconscious aware of obstacles in the road, etc. This
         | would require your concentration to be on the text. Whether you
         | want it to or not.
        
           | sterlind wrote:
           | HUDs like this are already common on fighter jets, and even
           | some passenger aircraft, precisely so you don't have to look
           | away to check gauges. Are you saying riding a motorcycle
           | requires more concentration than flying an FA/18 Hornet?
        
             | CommitSyn wrote:
             | In the jets, are all parts of the HUD always visible and
             | they train to work around them as if it weren't part of the
             | window but rather a permanent obstruction, or does the text
             | pop up unexpectedly while they're flying?
             | 
             | > Are you saying riding a motorcycle requires more
             | concentration than flying an FA/18 Hornet?
             | 
             | Are you saying that building strawmen is more important
             | than the visibility of an FA/18 Hornet?
        
               | sterlind wrote:
               | the BMW motorcycle HUD doesn't have text that pops up
               | unexpectedly, as far as I can see from the demo video.
               | quite the opposite: the HUD stays in one place, and it
               | only displays speed and navigation info, and it doesn't
               | seem very obstructing.
               | 
               | maybe we're talking about different smart glasses?
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | rcpt wrote:
       | I think it'd be nice to blink and automatically post to Instagram
       | everytime some driver does something unhinged while I'm on my
       | bicycle.
       | 
       | Not sure I can think of any pro-social use cases though.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | manc_lad wrote:
       | I don't wear glasses. I don't live in a sunny country. Unless I'm
       | wearing flat and clear lenses I would infrequently wear these
       | casually.
       | 
       | I like the concept. Just not sure about market fit outside a
       | people who wear glasses, sunny locations and hardcore fans.
       | Although that's a lot of people!
        
       | Zaheer wrote:
       | Reminds me of Snapchat's Spectacles: https://www.spectacles.com/
       | 
       | Forgot those even existed.
        
         | euniceee3 wrote:
         | Used these for a year. Great content, but the stabilization is
         | trash. That and exporting without using the Snapchat app made
         | me question if it is really worth sharing the most intimate
         | moments.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cobertos wrote:
         | Didn't these fail[1]?
         | 
         | How are these glasses different? I can't imagine the market for
         | this sort or thing has gotten _that_ much bigger since
         | Snapchat's try at this.
         | 
         | [1]: https://mashable.com/article/snap-spectacles-warehouse-
         | deman...
        
           | Gh0stRAT wrote:
           | Did Snapchat's have really good audio quality that doesn't
           | disturb the people around you? Pair that with modern AI
           | assistant breakthroughs and it starts to seem pretty
           | compelling.
           | 
           | They also look way less dorky than Snapchat's attempt.
        
       | happytiger wrote:
       | Am I the only one that finds the idea of live streaming from a
       | pair of glasses utterly dystopian?
       | 
       | You don't control the platform, and *everything you generate
       | becomes irrevocable property of Meta forever*.
       | 
       | Seems so very, _very_ unwise to me.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | trey-jones wrote:
       | Probably the most convenient thing I can think of is just putting
       | my whole phone in my glasses. By my whole phone, let's say I'm
       | talking about my whole dumb phone. So calls, texts, camera - this
       | seems reasonable. And if I can ask for information and get quick
       | answers that's a bonus. Disregard privacy concerns for the moment
       | - that's obviously important and will be a bit sticking point. I
       | would replace my phone with these if it was standalone. Or maybe
       | this + watch in tandem would be neat.
       | 
       | If I didn't already need to wear glasses, that might change how I
       | feel about it as well.
        
         | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
         | Except they're not Quest or phones. They're glorified BT
         | speakers with a GoPro.
        
           | cheeze wrote:
           | Sounds awesome if I can get some additional features like
           | calling and SMS, etc.
        
       | mvdtnz wrote:
       | Could you please not record me while I'm eating a slice of pizza?
       | Fuck absolutely very far off with this.
        
         | jmoak3 wrote:
         | Relevant: https://www.socialcooling.com/
        
         | ActorNightly wrote:
         | Genuinely curious - what is the issue with someone doing this?
        
           | solardev wrote:
           | Sometimes people get self-conscious when they're chowing down
           | on something, especially a greasy floppy blob like a pizza.
        
         | howmayiannoyyou wrote:
         | This is the most insightful comment on this topic.
         | 
         | Ubiquitous visual and audio recording makes an already self-
         | absorbed, anxious and self-conscious youth (and adults for that
         | matter) MUCH worse.
         | 
         | You put body cameras on police, whose adherence to uniform
         | policies & procedures is in the public interest. You don't
         | equip the general population with 27/7 cameras where the many
         | mistakes of being human - mistakes we all make - are now fodder
         | for the voyeuristic consumption of the masses, and the
         | nefarious/political motivations of self-interested bureaucrats
         | and politicians.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | lopkeny12ko wrote:
       | > If the LED is covered, you'll be notified to clear it.
       | 
       | How does this work?
        
         | nadavami wrote:
         | I would guess there is photocell next to the LED and comparing
         | the amount of light to the ambient light the cameras get. They
         | might also be doing something clever and using the LED itself
         | as a photo diode.
        
           | Groxx wrote:
           | I wish I could find more things talking about this, but
           | there's this classic demo of the technique:
           | https://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ledtouch/index.html
           | 
           | It has always felt under-utilized to me. Maybe it needs
           | power-sensing hardware that's too sensitive / too fast for
           | most scenarios / costs?
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | It's actually not that hard to use LEDs in this way. I
             | think it's not done a lot because in applications that need
             | a light sensor, a purpose-built light sensor works a whole
             | lot better, and it's rare that space is such a premium that
             | having one is an issue.
             | 
             | Glasses may be a use case where space is at a premium,
             | though, so it could make sense there.
        
       | kart23 wrote:
       | The livestreaming usecase is honestly incredible. I really wonder
       | how they managed to pull it off given the insane battery and size
       | constraints and the technical details. I would be surprised if it
       | could do more than 20 minutes of continuous livestreaming at an
       | acceptable resolution.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | solardev wrote:
       | The animations on that page are misleading. They show some sort
       | of detached floating HUD next to each person using the glasses,
       | but I don't think the actual product has anything like that? At
       | first I thought it projects an image onto the actual lenses, but
       | that doesn't seem to be the case. It's just (deceptive) marketing
       | =/
       | 
       | These aren't really smart glasses, they're just spy glasses.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | docmars wrote:
       | Amazing, after scrolling 75% down the huge-a$$ page, they finally
       | show you what they look like after all the nearly useless
       | features were showcased. Neato!
        
       | throwaway2562 wrote:
       | Recording everything you see is _the very opposite_ of "living in
       | the moment" as they describe their product promise.
       | 
       | Not to mention, of course, the intrusion into the lives of the
       | people you're recording, whose "moment" is not your moment to
       | record.
       | 
       | Their language positively reeks of lies. I'm sure the glasses
       | will be popular, and there's nothing we can do about it.
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | Fuck Luxottica. One of the jerkiest and most abusive companies on
       | Earth. They bought Ray-Ban and every other glasses company, and
       | then enshittifyied each and every one. The worst.
       | 
       | It's unfortunate FB has chosen to bed together with such a trash.
        
         | expertentipp wrote:
         | Yeah I was wondering how come every sunglasses cost north of
         | EUR 150, and then learned about Luxottica.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | flax wrote:
       | These seem almost worth trying. I'd love to play with them if: 1.
       | It's completely open for me to write my own apps to interface
       | with it. 2. It had even the most rudimentary display (text only
       | would be fine!) 3. It had nothing to do with Meta.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | barrysteve wrote:
       | Smart glasses are obviously a massive security threat for
       | industrial espionage. You can ask people to keep their phones
       | with security. Getting people to switch to contacts out of the
       | blue, is much more difficult.
       | 
       | James Bond's job is trivial with these. Elon Musk would lose his
       | legs, if his nation-state competitors (whom probably build these
       | glasses) walked into SpaceX and copy pasted the billion dollar
       | plans to his rockets.
       | 
       | American tech is the leakiest abstraction.
       | 
       | If a President's daughter is caught doing something
       | diplomatically controversial with these (or caught because of
       | these)... they won't last long!
        
       | derangedHorse wrote:
       | It's kind of underwhelming as a product. I don't see the average
       | individual desiring this so they can take pictures or livestream
       | to Instagram and Facebook. It could've been a cool tool for
       | streamer if it allowed streaming to Twitch, Kick, etc, but Meta
       | technologies limits its viability for that.
        
         | whywhywhywhy wrote:
         | Think it's pretty clear that they're trying to make AR glasses
         | in this form factor, like Apple has been trying to both are
         | hitting up against technology very hard limits.
         | 
         | Apple's approach seems to be now, make a VR headset with
         | extremely high quality passthrough and hope they can solve it
         | down to glasses over the next decade.
         | 
         | Meta's approach seems to be make a really good stand alone VR
         | headset (already done) and now make a glasses form factor with
         | whats possible today and hope to make them meet in the middle
         | some how eventually.
         | 
         | Both these product roadmaps are from a pre-ChatGPT world and
         | seem strange now especially Vision Pro. I fully expect Meta to
         | move more into trying to retool the glasses into a AI assistant
         | led product and slowly move the full AR Glasses to the
         | backburner.
        
       | anotherevan wrote:
       | And here I just got my Vocalskull bluetooth audio glasses a few
       | weeks ago.
       | 
       | https://vocalskull.com/
        
       | pierat wrote:
       | Why should I care about any technology of a company that was
       | founded to nonconsenually rate the fuckability of Harvard
       | undergrads, and then a whole lot worse?
        
       | unsupp0rted wrote:
       | > designed for living in the moment while expressing yourself to
       | the max.
       | 
       | Why would they write copy like this? Surely it causes a visceral
       | cringe reaction in anybody over 35, say.
       | 
       | Is Generation Z a clean slate for 1980s vague hyperbolic ad-
       | speak?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ToDougie wrote:
       | I'm having very complicated feelings about this.
        
         | pstuart wrote:
         | Indeed. The tech is impressive but the the unintended
         | consequences make me very uneasy.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Snoddas wrote:
       | Besides any privacy issues, a someone that wears glasses full
       | time the 4hour battery limit makes this a no starter
        
       | arnonejoe wrote:
       | Didn't Google already try this with Google Glass?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | chrischen wrote:
         | No, but Snapchat did. Also Facebook did too.
        
       | asah wrote:
       | for prescription, visit the ray-ban website
       | 
       | ==> no way to order prescription glasses
        
       | nikolay wrote:
       | No Rx?
        
       | Taniwha wrote:
       | Gargoyles!
        
       | yayr wrote:
       | Video: Vertical default/1440 x 1920 pixels at 30 fps is
       | disappointing. Future VR headsets will have a much higher
       | resolution.
        
       | vinay_ys wrote:
       | I seriously hope this doesn't take off and fails spectacularly
       | like Google Glass. I don't want a society where the people I'm
       | interacting with are always recording everything around and
       | giving it to a private profit corporation who can change their
       | minds about what they will do all that private data any time they
       | like.
        
         | dmje wrote:
         | Agree. And the hilarity of selling this as "being in the
         | moment"...
         | 
         | Urgh.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | adityathakurxd wrote:
         | Privacy concerns would be paramount. Have they released
         | anything on how they would address this?
        
         | Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
         | Actually I find the idea of recording everything (or maybe not
         | everything, but seamlessly recording whenever I want) quite
         | attractive. I have a bad memory and would love to be able to
         | rewatch good moments of my life.
         | 
         | The part about all that data being in control of powerful
         | corporations, though... that's what makes me thing that I'd
         | prefer it to fail as well.
         | 
         | I wish we could have this sort of tech outside of the framework
         | of modern capitalism.
        
           | AlecSchueler wrote:
           | For personal use I kind of agree with you but I would be very
           | concerned about the stalking potentials. We're already seeing
           | huge issues of women being targeted by guys making and
           | distributing "creepshots" and now deepfake based harassment.
           | Constant recording is both a tool to increase access to women
           | in public places as well as to separate the user's feelings
           | from the world they're inhabiting.
           | 
           | Edit: I note that someone else is in the thread already
           | saying "It's going to be awesome for amateur porn" without
           | any caveats about the rampant consent issues of amateur
           | pornography, revenge porn or age verification.
        
           | cm2012 wrote:
           | It's going to be awesome for amateur porn
        
             | AlecSchueler wrote:
             | For some definitions of awesome.
             | 
             | Amateur pornography already has huge issues with consent
             | and age verification, and is also more and more being
             | weaponised against women as revenge pornography.
        
           | merlincorey wrote:
           | You should look into something called "Sousveillance".
        
             | repeekad wrote:
             | Also "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted
             | Chiang
             | 
             | Less about the panopticon of surveillance, but about the
             | ramifications of having perfect memory in your daily
             | personal interactions.
        
           | vinay_ys wrote:
           | I wonder if using less of memory-recall capabilities of the
           | brain will lead to loss of other important capabilities. So,
           | I worry if using too much tech crutches is going to be
           | detrimental.
        
             | Kiro wrote:
             | Shouldn't the first step be to find out if your speculation
             | has merit before you start worrying about it?
        
           | plugin-baby wrote:
           | All the bad moments would be recorded too, and many of the
           | recordings would be outside of your control.
        
             | Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
             | I would choose what to play, but of course, the "outside my
             | control" part is the problem.
        
               | plugin-baby wrote:
               | Many may be unable to resist the temptation to watch
               | things that won't make them happier.
        
         | alt227 wrote:
         | Apple have done all the hard work here by releasing the vision
         | pro and convincing all normal people that AR is 'cool' instead
         | of 'wierd' now.
        
       | hintymad wrote:
       | We should really give it to Meta for their tenacity. While Google
       | canceled its projects left and right, including Google Podcasts
       | to celebrate their 25-year birthday and Google Glass, Meta
       | perseveres and pushes the state-of-the-art.
        
         | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
         | There's no tenancy here. They're not AR. They're not even at
         | par with Glass.
        
           | theodric wrote:
           | This looks to me like a rehashing of 2016's Snapchat
           | Spectacles combined with the bone-conduction bluetooth
           | temples available on numerous cheap AliExpress sunglasses.
        
         | jansan wrote:
         | Meta is absolutely despearate. They bet their farm on the
         | Metaverse thing and are trying everything to make that thing
         | get some momentum.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | marsknight wrote:
       | There...
       | 
       | https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_99521193833...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Workaccount2 wrote:
       | Ooof, just in time for the death of the thick rimmed glasses
       | trend of the last decade. It's all wire frames now guys.
        
       | ladzoppelin wrote:
       | How are they allowed to legally do this?
       | https://www.meta.com/help/smart-glasses/articles/assistant/h...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | rockemsockem wrote:
       | It'd be great if I could get these and _not_ have to login to any
       | account.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | anonu wrote:
       | Wearing Google Glass made you a glasshole. Snapchat Spectacles
       | spectacularly never took off. I hope these Smart Glasses make you
       | look dumb and nobody buys them. I think the major issue is the
       | camera, for me ...
       | 
       | What i would pay for is minimalist eyewear with a heads-up
       | display. That would be useful
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | SebaSeba wrote:
       | Now if Meta would only get that website layout of theirs working
       | on this Chrome browser that runs on my two year old Samsung
       | Android phone, they would be a whole lot credible to me.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | standardly wrote:
       | The same selling points are reiterated over and over again
       | without much detail.
       | 
       | It has a camera. It has speakers. It integrates with social
       | media.
       | 
       | I guess there isn't a HUD or anything AR-related? It's just a
       | smart watch, except glasses? That is...marginally useful, but not
       | that interesting considering what google glass was doing like 10
       | years ago. I just don't see a use for these.
        
       | Justsignedup wrote:
       | Reminds me of google glasses and the "glasshole" mentality. But
       | because these are pretty stealth people won't realize it.
       | 
       | It does have strong surveillance state vibes, everything I look
       | at is recorded and replayable. Gonna take the cancel culture (in
       | both the positive and negative aspects) to overdrive.
       | 
       | In any case, let's see the price tag. When that tag goes sub-$100
       | we'll see some real stuff happening. Also would be interesting to
       | see the cultural shift as most people may end up wearing glasses
       | with AR built into them.
        
         | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
         | They're not stealth because they're unfashionable and chunky
         | obvious in real life.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ortusdux wrote:
         | "Bystander privacy - The Capture LED lets others know when
         | you're capturing content or going live. If the LED is covered,
         | you'll be notified to clear it."
         | 
         | So at least there is that.
        
           | Justsignedup wrote:
           | Eh its not about stealth, its about availability.
        
       | TwoFactor wrote:
       | Interesting that the price is only around $100 more than regular
       | Ray-Bans
        
         | PeterStuer wrote:
         | I'm sure you are paying meta more than enough by all the wealth
         | of data they will get on you from this.
        
         | stefan_ wrote:
         | Take into account that the regular Ray-Bans are about 99%
         | margin
        
           | polar8 wrote:
           | Source?
        
         | tpmx wrote:
         | Subsidized by Meta for getting them more data?
         | 
         | I would also imagine that Meta is paying them handsomely for
         | the obvious brand risk here - getting Ray-Bans associated with
         | glasshole behaviour.
         | 
         | The Ray-Ban brand is owned by the Italian-French
         | EssilorLuxottica conglomerate. Market cap 74B EUR.
         | 
         | (Meta market cap: 770B USD.)
        
           | KaiserPro wrote:
           | lol, facebook can barely get the glasses to play sound
           | reliably, they aren't spying on you with these glasses.
        
             | syndicatedjelly wrote:
             | Facebook/Meta isn't a member of FAANG for nothing
        
             | AlecSchueler wrote:
             | They're a surveillance company, not an audio company.
        
             | ParetoOptimal wrote:
             | > lol, facebook can barely get the glasses to play sound
             | reliably, they aren't spying on you with these glasses.
             | 
             | Based on what do you assume playing sound reliably is a
             | harder or more priority problem than spying on you?
        
               | KaiserPro wrote:
               | based on engineering a product that has a power capacity
               | of <2 watt hours, to work reliably and is able to play
               | and stream audio correctly.
               | 
               | To spy on someone using these glasses would mean decent
               | audio stack that can actually reconnect by its self,
               | rather than having to power cycle the entire device.
               | 
               | Not only that, but a level of attention to detail that
               | means that what ever spying it does can happen reliably
               | and inside a _tiny_ power envelope.
               | 
               | Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying _don 't_ be suspicious
               | of facebook, What I'm asking is to actually interrogate
               | their level of skill.
               | 
               | facebook are frankly shite at software, just use _any_ of
               | their supporting apps.
               | 
               | o Portal, great hardware, shame that it never connected
               | reliably.
               | 
               | o oculus: They have the power of
               | facebook/instagram/social graph, yet its _impossible_ to
               | join your mate in game. Something Steam nailed in the
               | days of dialup
               | 
               | o Rayban: cannot play audio reliably, pretty tricky to
               | download pictures.
               | 
               | o Advertising: fuck me, its like oracle had a baby with
               | SAP, and force fed it MS access forms.
               | 
               | Yes, yes its an advertising giant. But have you tried to
               | get any usable and accurate data out of it?
               | 
               | Stop building them up like they are an unstoppable genius
               | factory. Its basically a bunch of confused cats trapped
               | under a duvet. The difference being those cats can drive
               | advertising clicks.
        
             | tpmx wrote:
             | There's very often a large difference between the v1
             | capability and the long term aspiration, both in technical
             | capabilities and market capture.
             | 
             | Compare Windows 1.0
             | (https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-10/101) with
             | Windows 10/11.
        
               | capableweb wrote:
               | And also teams within the product pushing for different
               | things, like the recent Google Marketing Team vs Google
               | Chrome Team wanting different approaches.
        
               | KaiserPro wrote:
               | Windows 1.0 was release 38 years ago, microsoft has
               | changed persona at least three times since then.
               | 
               | Not that we _shouldnt_ be suspicious of facebook, but we
               | really must actually seek evidence rather than just decry
               | them as witches. It lets other companies get away with
               | loads simply because they are well liked.
        
       | dangerlibrary wrote:
       | The only lesson learned from google glass was "these look dorky,
       | but are otherwise perfect."
        
         | maxwell wrote:
         | Haha a guy wore them in a bar in downtown Vegas in 2013, and I
         | watched multiple people approach him and tell him to take them
         | off and stop recording everything. I never saw another pair IRL
         | again.
        
           | netsharc wrote:
           | If I were working for the Zuckborg, I wonder how I could make
           | these things socially acceptable. Host an event with A-list
           | beautiful people and pay them to wear these things and post
           | all over social media, to make the glasses be desirable for
           | the influencable?
           | 
           | Though not many celebs might want to be associated with the
           | Zuckborg, nowadays.
        
             | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
             | Like the college student at open mic night who can't sing
             | but has a gaggle of supportive friends and family who
             | applaud profusely, there's a cult of toxic positivity
             | surrounding him who refuse to be honest, adult supervision.
        
               | maxwell wrote:
               | Sounds a bit like Tony Hsieh, who got us all out to the
               | bars in downtown Vegas in 2013 in the first place. Does
               | seem like Zuck has healthier hobbies and a different sort
               | of discipline.
               | 
               | That said, yes, the first time I met Tony he was sitting
               | at a bar with a meat grinder, yes I spotted him swinging
               | around Slim Jims in a mariachi suit atop a mecha
               | grasshopper shooting flames out its mouth one time, but I
               | guess I don't image he ever killed a mammal for no reason
               | and served it cold to a vegetarian (he loved his llamas!
               | RIP)
        
       | MilStdJunkie wrote:
       | As a shooting enthusiast, my first thought is what this does in
       | pistol competitions.
       | 
       | Shooting a pistol is, perhaps unintuitively, more difficult than
       | a long arm, because the rear sight is effectively floating around
       | "out there", and you need practice to get your rear eye in the
       | right place (even if using a flip-up red dot reflex sight). When
       | moving around, re-acquiring always takes time, and it slows you
       | down.
       | 
       | With the smart glasses (and a teensy tiny accelerometer-thngy on
       | the barrel), your point of aim is _always_ in your field of view,
       | and you don 't need to slow down or even acquire. You could hip-
       | shoot accurately from a dead sprint. It's gonna be pretty rad.
       | They're gonna have to do eyeware examinations, or else it's going
       | to be dominated by smartglass shooters. Like, "dominated" as in
       | "someone is using a cheat code" dominated.
        
         | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
         | > You could hip-shoot accurately from a dead sprint. It's gonna
         | be pretty rad.
         | 
         | Sounds pretty terrifying to me. A real life aimbot, that any
         | human being can use for 1 shot 1 kill.
        
           | MilStdJunkie wrote:
           | Honestly the idea of some asshole dead-dropping an armed
           | sentrybot is far, far scarier to me. A couple of giggle-
           | switch Glocks with drum mags, hooked up to a "Blast Anything
           | That Moves" gimbal, would probably be deadlier than the same
           | weight/volume of high explosive. Bullets don't care about the
           | inverse square law.
        
         | meheleventyone wrote:
         | There's no screen so, not yet.
         | 
         | But it does sound pretty much like having a laser on the gun
         | no?
        
           | MilStdJunkie wrote:
           | Ah criminy, no screen? The hell is the point.
        
           | MilStdJunkie wrote:
           | Seeing a laser dot at any serious range is pretty much
           | impossible, at least in my experience. There's also a lot of
           | airborne material at shoots as multiple rounds impact the
           | target/ground/etc. They consistently time _slower_ than
           | reflex sights, and sometimes even iron sights.
           | 
           | That's not considering the problem that in fog/dust, the beam
           | is a "HERE I AM" arrow. Not a problem in competition though.
           | But it underlies the primary use of lasers: IR beams with
           | nightvision. THAT'S the golden ticket for lasers, and you can
           | see where your buddies are aiming too. Now, if you're
           | fighting someone _else_ with nightvision . . hey, good thing
           | we can choose who we fight, right guys? Guys?
        
       | marsknight wrote:
       | There...
       | 
       | https://nostrcheck.me/media/public/nostrcheck.me_99521193833...
       | 
       | Is my opinion about it.
        
       | Coryodaniel wrote:
       | Least cool thing I've ever seen.
        
       | washywashy wrote:
       | We need to invent something that does the opposite now where
       | individuals could wear something that prevents them from showing
       | up in someone else's content without explicit digital consent
       | (some sort of personal scrambler). I don't think the LED feature
       | listed on this product page will often be honored by most people
       | who will use these shades
        
         | world2vec wrote:
         | In the sci-fi novel "The Mountain in the Sea" (highly
         | recommended btw) there is a piece of tech called "abglanz"
         | which is an identity shield mask that flickers in iridescent
         | blurry patterns to protect a person's privacy from camera
         | surveillance.
        
           | joshstrange wrote:
           | I seem to recall a similar device in. "Fall; or, Dodge in
           | Hell". I think it was a collar-type device you wore but maybe
           | it was closer to a helmet.
        
           | FloayYerBoat wrote:
           | Similar necklace in Daemon / Freedom by Daniel Swarez.
        
           | washywashy wrote:
           | Also gevulot in Quantum Thief - mentioned in nested comment
           | above
        
           | dblangford wrote:
           | A similar device is central in Philip K Dick's "A Scanner
           | Darkly" too.
        
         | iammjm wrote:
         | I saw some such wearables during the Hong Kong demonstrations
         | couple of years back
        
           | sentimentscan wrote:
           | Do you have a link to that?
        
         | rollcat wrote:
         | > some sort of personal scrambler
         | 
         | We're nearly at the "Foundation" levels of surveillance tech,
         | but with no countermeasures in sight to oppose that. Even
         | resisting web browser fingerprinting is difficult.
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | A Halloween costume that changes the shape of the body and
           | face should suffice. Let's all dress up as "V" from V for
           | Vendetta. Some would say a persons _gait_ can give them away
           | so we can all walk or _sashay_ like a runway model. The
           | costume needs an RF blocking pocket for fondle slabs. I can
           | picture this happening. Low tech, affordable, concept can be
           | applied to any costume. Optional platform boots to balance
           | peoples height.
        
             | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
             | An old, low-tech way to change gait, is to put a small
             | pebble in your shoe.
        
           | barrysteve wrote:
           | Nobody with an effective countermeasure is going to share it,
           | or even let you know it exists.
           | 
           | The days of open communication about privacy (lol) are long
           | gone!
        
             | washywashy wrote:
             | It's not so much having a countermeasure but having
             | countermeasures be built in to the system. Similar to a
             | concept called gevulot in the book Quantum Thief.
        
             | rollcat wrote:
             | There are strong incentives for secrecy (military
             | applications), hence encryption which provides solid
             | foundations for private communication in civilian tech. I
             | wonder if counter-surveillance tech could take the same
             | route (e.g. ordinary soldiers can no longer afford to not
             | carry a smartphone -> strong incentive to protect them from
             | tracking; maybe I'm extrapolating too far).
        
               | autoexec wrote:
               | It's more likely that the military would provide soldiers
               | with phones using a special version of Android with less
               | tracking than it is that they'd mandate Google stop
               | snooping on everybody for national security reasons. They
               | take advantage of the data Google collects, the fact that
               | everyone is carrying a mobile wire (mic and camera)
               | filled with radios collecting and broadcasting location
               | info, and that for many people a single device they carry
               | acts as a treasure trove of information on them, who
               | they've been talking to, and what they've been doing.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | There are no "hard" countermeasures possible, not
           | technological ones - you're fighting _against_ the laws of
           | physics here, which mandate that everything constantly
           | radiates information about what it 's doing, in every
           | direction, at the speed of light. Advancement of surveillance
           | is advancement in being able to discern that information. You
           | can try and introduce noise, but you're still fighting
           | uphill, against the whole fields of signal processing and
           | information theory.
           | 
           | The only "countermeasures" we can have are "soft" ones -
           | social, political and legal. Convince people to treat privacy
           | as core value, and surveillance as repugnant. Make forms of
           | surveillance illegal. Mandate by law to have surveillance
           | capabilities in devices handicapped by design. But this, at
           | best, only solves the problem for regular people and some of
           | the time, while governments stay stable and sane - the
           | possibility of deeper surveillance is still there, just the
           | choice to perform it seems unattractive at a given moment.
        
         | curation wrote:
         | They Live! (1988) - we need to invent these glasses that lay
         | bare our unknown knowns.
        
         | anonymouse008 wrote:
         | Thinking out loud:
         | 
         | This sounds like legislation. Mandate (with stiff penalties for
         | violations) that any recording in the presence of a certain BLE
         | advertised value (that's anonymized) means that all people
         | should be removed from the scene with current image generation
         | AI tooling? Not sure what to do about in frame vs out of frame,
         | but perhaps this sparks something.
        
         | tiborsaas wrote:
         | Something like the scramble suit from A scanner darkly? It's
         | based on Philip K. Dick's novel published in 1977.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aS4xhTaIPc
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | _Algernon_ wrote:
         | Like that suit in A Scanner Darkly.
        
         | cypherpunks01 wrote:
         | Check out Adam Harvey's "CV Dazzle" and other related design
         | efforts. CV Dazzle is from 2010 but still very cool, the
         | concept is generally to design cyberpunk clothing and headware
         | that is adversarial to face detection algorithms. Algorithms
         | are always changing, but I'm sure there will always be attacks
         | of this nature. We could see them pop up in military
         | applications in addition to personal privacy.
         | 
         | https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle
         | 
         | https://yr.media/tech/guide-to-anti-surveillance-fashion/
        
         | rijoja wrote:
         | So that you can't use them to protect yourself against people
         | stalking you, or to collect evidence in the case of potential
         | crime?
        
       | mmaunder wrote:
       | Glassholes all over again?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jacobsenscott wrote:
       | Lol. These are just headphones with a creepy camera attached.
        
       | spaceprogrammer wrote:
       | no display? too bad
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | EMCymatics wrote:
       | Google hurt me before. Please dont hurt me meta.
        
       | cik wrote:
       | Adversarial clothing startups could very easily become more
       | important.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | leros wrote:
       | I looked at these at RayBan the other day. They're pretty cool
       | especially for the price, but requiring a Meta account and Meta
       | app ruined it for me.
        
         | baby wrote:
         | What's wrong with that?
        
         | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
         | Yup after what they forced us with oculus quest I'm never
         | buying a meta device again. Also they are very poor on repairs
         | and parts. I broke one of the quest controllers and never got a
         | replacement.
        
       | DueDilligence wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | TrueDuality wrote:
       | The only appealing thing for me with smart eye-wear is a personal
       | display. Doesn't need to be big or rich, enough for notification
       | filtering much like smart watches give me. A camera on these is
       | frankly still kind of in the creepy realm to me, but I do get it
       | and it'll probably be a necessary component for any kind of
       | proper AR.
       | 
       | The Meta AI integration is also a massive turn off to me. To each
       | their own, but I want to keep the smart bits mostly in the smart
       | phone. The assistants so far have been anything but assistive on
       | my devices and usually both get in the way (since for a while
       | everyone was really pushing you to use them, only Google seems to
       | have not gotten that particular message) and are privacy
       | nightmares in their own right.
        
       | monological wrote:
       | Am I the only one who doesn't want this dystopian future?
       | "Designed for living in the moment"?...no, this is definitely the
       | exact opposite of living in the moment.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | You can scroll through the thread to check.
        
       | surfingdino wrote:
       | Vloggers will love it.
        
       | bArray wrote:
       | > Live-stream*
       | 
       | > *Feature requires 5G Wi-Fi or mobile data and minimum ambient
       | temperature condition of at least 5degC. Performance varies based
       | on user location, device battery, temperature, Internet
       | connectivity and interference from other devices, and many other
       | factors.
       | 
       | Connection is understandable (although in some cases 4G will
       | actually be faster). But that temperature requirement for
       | operation is actually quite strict. Any idea why that might be?
        
         | Crosseye_Jack wrote:
         | Just thinking out loud. Battery damage at a guess. Video
         | streaming can be pretty power hungry (you're running the
         | camera, encoding the video, and flinging those bits over the
         | air) on a device that sits on your face.
         | 
         | Depending on the construction of the device you can rely on the
         | heat from doing that work to warm the battery up so not so bad
         | (think your smart phone, which also spends most of its time in
         | your pocket while outdoors so doesn't get "that cold" to begin
         | with), these glasses could have their battery further away from
         | the electronics (thinking out loud prob battery in one arm,
         | electronics in the other) and are probably more prone to be
         | uninsulated form the elements while out and about.
        
           | bArray wrote:
           | > Battery damage at a guess. Video streaming can be pretty
           | power hungry (you're running the camera, encoding the video,
           | and flinging those bits over the air) on a device that sits
           | on your face.
           | 
           | I thought about that, but surely internal battery resistance
           | would be lower at lower temperatures?
           | 
           | The other thing I thought about is some movable part of the
           | device, such as a lens that has some actuation. You might
           | just refuse to work at near freezing temperatures to prevent
           | damage to that?
        
             | Crosseye_Jack wrote:
             | Its been a while since I did any major research on the
             | matter (Thankfully I only deal with batteries indoors these
             | days) but iirc when I used to build homemade RC airplanes,
             | the internal resistance does start increasing the lower the
             | temp gets and that the anode starts getting damaged (at
             | least it wears quicker) discharging the battery at lower
             | temps.
             | 
             | My guess as to why they do it, is to maintain the "expected
             | battery life cycles".
             | 
             | >The other thing I thought about is some movable part of
             | the device, such as a lens that has some actuation. You
             | might just refuse to work at near freezing temperatures to
             | prevent damage to that?
             | 
             | Very possible.
             | 
             | EDIT: However, if it was mechanical, why doesn't there seem
             | to be such a restriction while taking photos?
        
               | bArray wrote:
               | Wasn't aware of the battery chemistry involved, thanks!
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | RagnarD wrote:
       | Did Facebook (er, Meta) completely overlook the extreme backlash
       | to the same concept 10 years ago with Google Glasses? Just look
       | up articles from that time, e.g.
       | https://nypost.com/2014/07/14/is-google-glass-cool-or-just-p...
       | What makes them think it's different this time?
       | 
       | From 2014:
       | 
       | ""Glasshole" has become the term du jour, and outrage has
       | spiraled so out of control that San Francisco has seen a series
       | of reported attacks on users.
       | 
       | New York City's not immune to the backlash, either.
       | 
       | Gottfried chased down a man who had stolen his Glass right off
       | his face. (He also had an incident at a San Francisco bar where
       | drunken patrons accused him of recording them. He insists he
       | wasn't.)
       | 
       | In April, a techie war erupted when East Village restaurant Feast
       | kicked out Glass-user Katy Kasmai after she refused to remove her
       | device. Kasmai vented online, and hundreds of Glass groupies
       | rallied against Feast on Google, accusing the eatery of
       | discriminating "against people who are into new technology."
       | 
       | Feast co-owner Brian Ghaw is unapologetic. He says Feast's no-
       | Glass policy is for guests' peace of mind. "They just felt
       | uncomfortable about having somebody who could potentially
       | videotape them," explains Ghaw. "If someone were sitting at a
       | table with their smartphone constantly pointing in a certain
       | direction and you didn't know what they were doing with it, you'd
       | feel pretty uncomfortable as well.""
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | atoav wrote:
       | I cannot view the contents of the page as declinging the optional
       | cookies sends me... back to the page where I need to decline
       | optional cookies.
       | 
       | True professionals at meta.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | WesternWind wrote:
       | I'm not personally in love with the idea of smart glasses that
       | don't have a display of some sort.
        
         | throwaway-blaze wrote:
         | The technology for displays (resolution, battery/power needs,
         | field of view issues) is so many years away that it makes sense
         | to try and go with basic touch/swipe and audio UI now. There
         | are great use cases for a device like this...no doubt with a
         | display ability it would be truly incredible but no reason not
         | to be working on this today.
        
       | 7moritz7 wrote:
       | They look way better than expected, almost exactly like the
       | regular models. Issue being that the cameras are clearly visible
       | and make the impression that you are either a voyeurist or a
       | secret agent
        
         | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
         | Have you bought and worn these in real life outside of a store?
         | 
         | They look good online but in person, they're absolutely ugly
         | and cheap looking.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | smath wrote:
       | Any word on whether they will let custom code/apps run on this,
       | or is it a walled garden? Whisper + LLM with these would be nice.
       | These glasses could also be great for vision impaired folks.
        
         | l33t7332273 wrote:
         | Can you explain what use case whisper and an LLM would have
         | here?
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | smath wrote:
           | I was thinking of an audio-based personal assistant running
           | on the sunglasses, a la
           | https://twitter.com/ggerganov/status/1640416314773700608
        
         | crakhamster01 wrote:
         | It sounds like they have that planned in the short-term, and
         | from the presentation, multi-modal AI "sometime next year"
         | (e.g. answering "What is this building that I'm looking at
         | right now?").
        
       | knodi123 wrote:
       | > The Capture LED lets others know when you're capturing content
       | or going live. If the LED is covered, you'll be notified to clear
       | it.
       | 
       | Wonder how that works. Maybe the capture LED has a light sensor
       | next to it that detects reflections? It solves an interesting
       | problem, although the prevalence of cheap spy camera glasses on
       | amazon make it an uphill battle.
        
         | didntcheck wrote:
         | I'd presume via the same type of proximity sensors that disable
         | your phone screen when it's held to your ear
        
           | Agentlien wrote:
           | For some reason this really doesn't work for me. I have also
           | enabled the extra feature of locking the touch screen when in
           | dark places, too. I still regularly get my pocket navigating
           | my browser and my ear starting songs on Spotify mid-call.
        
           | seabass-labrax wrote:
           | That wouldn't work with all materials that could be used to
           | cover the camera. The proximity sensors that you describe are
           | designed specifically to measure the change in capacitance
           | due to proximity _to a human_ ; they can't detect something
           | like a blob of glue that causes no change in capacitance.
        
         | farkanoid wrote:
         | LEDs can effectively be used as light sensors when wired in
         | reverse - About a decade ago there was a post where someone
         | turned an 8x8 LED matrix into a touch sensor.
         | 
         | Edit: Found the link, here it is:
         | https://mrl.cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ledtouch/index.html
         | 
         | Analog Devices has an excellent article about using LEDs as
         | sensors in this way:
         | https://wiki.analog.com/university/courses/electronics/elect...
        
         | Saris wrote:
         | They could pulse the LED quickly and while it's off use it as a
         | light sensor for ambient light.
        
           | schroeding wrote:
           | I wonder if one could just replace the LED with a UV one,
           | depending on the tolerances this kind of detection may still
           | work while being visibly "off". :/
        
           | DistractionRect wrote:
           | Probably this. Doing so would allow one to check for
           | agreement between the video feed and the light sensor.
        
         | baz00 wrote:
         | It's probably duty cycled on and off and compared to a
         | photodiode output on the reflection.
         | 
         | Either way the moment that light comes on you're getting
         | punched if you point it at the wrong person. I'd rather have my
         | phone hit out of my hand. Google Glass was not welcome and I
         | suspect the same will be true of this.
        
           | wilg wrote:
           | > Either way the moment that light comes on you're getting
           | punched if you point it at the wrong person.
           | 
           | Seems not worth worrying about.
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | How are people going to feel if people walk into a bathroom
       | wearing these?
        
         | artursapek wrote:
         | Violated and threatened, as they should
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | If you want to secretly record people in the bathroom there are
         | a hundred more discrete ways of doing so than these glasses.
         | Someone's shirt button could be doing it right now.
        
           | duxup wrote:
           | Glasses seem pretty good route. Normal things people wear...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | adbutterfield wrote:
       | Welcome to the era of true pov porn!
        
       | nidnogg wrote:
       | I much preferred Google Glass's futuristic but minimal look that
       | could fit into a bunch of different models.
       | 
       | Personally I've never liked Wayfarers/Headliners (they also fit
       | atrociously), so it's disappointing to see them take center stage
       | here. At least the pricing is ok I guess? Fingers crossed for
       | future models.
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | What I hope happens is that a few people with actual power are
       | caught on camera by one of these things, and feel their privacy
       | was violated, and then consent laws around recording in public
       | change as a result. The ones we have are pretty old, and not
       | ready for the future that is already here, let alone the one that
       | is coming. I'm not holding my breath for this, it's just what I
       | can imagine being the best outcome.
        
         | aemreunal wrote:
         | The issue with that is that it's a very slippery slope. Same
         | laws could be used against people recording police interactions
         | in public, for example, or other interactions where a private
         | citizen is harassing another private citizen. It really needs
         | to be carefully worded to avoid those pitfalls and I have a
         | feeling that a lot of lawmakers would want to keep it
         | intentionally vague.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | jejeyyy77 wrote:
         | lol
        
       | sschueller wrote:
       | Ignoring the fact that I don't like this kind of product due to
       | privacy implications especially in places like Switzerland and
       | Germany.
       | 
       | What I find sucks here is that meta is able to create such
       | products but no one else can because instagram and facebook live
       | are locked down. There is no way for me to live stream to either
       | platform without using meta's proprietary apps.
       | 
       | At least over at google and twitch I can send my live stream from
       | any device.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | jhugo wrote:
         | Both Instagram and Facebook Live support receiving your live
         | stream over RTMP.
        
           | sschueller wrote:
           | Thanks, last time I checked it was not possible but it
           | appears there is now something since Nov 2022.
           | 
           | https://about.instagram.com/blog/tips-and-
           | tricks/instagram-l...
        
       | operatingthetan wrote:
       | Is there a market for this? Stealth smart glasses that force you
       | to indicate you are recording? Are live-streamers going to use
       | this? Don't people want to be using their phone anyway?
       | 
       | >The Capture LED lets others know when you're capturing content
       | or going live. If the LED is covered, you'll be notified to clear
       | it.
        
         | jejeyyy77 wrote:
         | for sure - ppl are strapping go pros to their heads.
        
           | l33t7332273 wrote:
           | They do this generally while doing some kind of movement
           | based activity, the kind of activity where you need to strap
           | a camera on, not wear a set ofglasses.
        
             | function_seven wrote:
             | Can you list activities that you're thinking of? Because a
             | lot of active sports are compatible with "wearing glasses".
             | Surfing, snowboarding, rock climbing, water skiing,
             | mountain biking, etc.
             | 
             | Sure, scuba divers still need some specialized gear, but
             | there's tons of room in the sports segment for this kind of
             | product.
        
               | operatingthetan wrote:
               | > Because a lot of active sports are compatible with
               | "wearing glasses". Surfing, snowboarding, rock climbing,
               | water skiing, mountain biking, etc.
               | 
               | I would not say any of those are compatible with wearing
               | fashion-style sunglasses. I've lost pairs of glasses
               | paddleboarding and kayaking before. I'm a mountain biker
               | as well and crashes can be violent, I wouldn't trust
               | glasses to stay on your face. All of those sports require
               | firm attachment for a device worth more than say $100.
        
         | vineyardmike wrote:
         | Yea there's for sure a market. Beyond what others have said wrt
         | GoPros, many people photograph/stream shows/concerts/etc.
         | Studies have shown you remember events better when you take the
         | intentional act to photograph it, but fiddling with a phone in
         | the moment can be distracting. Why would people _want_ to be
         | focusing on a phone, or be seen with a phone, when they could
         | just watch the event AND get the recording?
         | 
         | I attend concerts a lot, and often post snippets to social
         | media. There's always a tension I see among myself and others
         | of trying to catch _those particular lines_ of a song, while
         | still not missing the show to mess with your phone.
         | 
         | Will I buy these? Meh, maybe. But the appeal is there.
        
         | robertlray wrote:
         | Why do you think people would prefer to use their phone over
         | something like this? I assume people use their phone because
         | that's what they have to use now. I could be wrong, I'm not
         | representative of the average person, but if I could use my
         | phone less and still engage with tech, I'd do it.
        
           | operatingthetan wrote:
           | My assumption is that people like to be seen recording and/or
           | recording themselves. I'm guessing 'terminally online phone'
           | people don't have the impulse to use their phones less and
           | keep it in their pocket?
        
             | toyg wrote:
             | _> people like to be seen recording_
             | 
             | I don't think so. Do people at a concert hold their phones
             | out to be seen recording? No, they just want to record and
             | that's the only way to do it. They'd love to be able to do
             | it hands free for sure.
        
               | operatingthetan wrote:
               | Soon we'll see people holding up sunglasses then!
        
               | coev wrote:
               | Short people will still be throwing phones up
        
         | toyg wrote:
         | They are not "stealth smart glasses", they are the first
         | iteration of AR glasses. Recording is one of the many things
         | they do. And I'd buy them in a second if it means I don't need
         | to take my phone out every few minutes (and if I had the money,
         | I expect them to be uber-expensive); or I don't need to look
         | away from the road to check directions as I drive; or I don't
         | need to reveal in-shop that I'm checking online prices for an
         | item. There are a lot of possibilities beyond capturing, if not
         | in this generation in the next one with displays.
        
           | cvccvroomvroom wrote:
           | They're at least 2nd gen and there's no HUD so there's no
           | feedback if or what they're capturing. They're disappointing
           | overall.
        
           | ooterness wrote:
           | These are not AR glasses. As far as I can tell, they do not
           | have a display at all.
        
           | operatingthetan wrote:
           | >they are the first iteration of AR glasses.
           | 
           | You seem to be forgetting a lot of previous products. If
           | anything these are a really late reply to Snap's Spectacles.
           | 
           | Also, these don't have a display. Many of your listed use
           | cases don't apply unless you count audio replies, which we
           | already have, all over the place. Please read about what a
           | product does before correcting someone in the future...
        
           | clintfred wrote:
           | Except these have nothing to do with AR (sadly)...
        
         | l33t7332273 wrote:
         | I agree. People who want to record their pov generally use a go
         | pro-like device or their phone. Why do we need this?
        
       | anonzzzies wrote:
       | Ugh that battery life. I am happy with my xreal glasses because
       | it has ton of battery via my phone and then can be charged on the
       | go even more.
        
       | Conscat wrote:
       | My favorite glasses right now have little cat ears above the
       | lenses. Meta stays behind state of the art as always.
        
       | Andi wrote:
       | The website is not usable. The cookie dialogue is shown again and
       | again.
        
       | ChicagoDave wrote:
       | Can't wait to see casinos banning these things.
        
         | coolandsmartrr wrote:
         | You remind me of Edward Thorp, who counted Blackjack cards and
         | later became even wealthier with his hedge fund. He has
         | envisioned of wearables making counting easier.
        
       | ginkgotree wrote:
       | No way would I keep a camera on my head that is directly
       | uploading image (and audio?) data to a Meta owned and operated
       | platform. No. F*&(king. Way.
        
         | expertentipp wrote:
         | If they'll figure out one "wow how convenient" killer feature
         | or killer app, everyone will be wearing it within 2 years.
        
           | mplewis wrote:
           | Absolutely not. People hate living in the panopticon.
        
             | yieldcrv wrote:
             | I've done pretty well not listening to Gen X'ers about
             | anything
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | Gen 1 had horrible picture quality. Casey Neistat made a review
       | and it wasn't nowhere near good as an iPhone 5 from 2012
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF3iysOyelg&t=280s
       | 
       | If this has a better picture quality, like up to the ~2023
       | smartphone camera standards then I'll buy one. I really like the
       | idea.
        
         | notJim wrote:
         | What would you use it for? I kind of like it conceptually, but
         | hard to imagine how I'd actually use it.
        
           | goodoldneon wrote:
           | Would be great while driving. Better than a dash cam
        
           | r0fl wrote:
           | Useful when travelling so you don't have a phone in your hand
           | at all times.
           | 
           | Few things are more enjoyable for me than looking at photo
           | albums from trips I took years ago with loved ones.
        
           | baby wrote:
           | When I was younger I would have totally bought that for
           | partying :D now perhaps for sightseeing and tourism or just
           | general fun
        
           | Lorenzo45 wrote:
           | I bought a pair last year and have taken it on a few trips.
           | It's been great for certain activities where I want to take
           | pictures/videos but don't want to have a phone in my hand
           | (like on a boat or parasailing).
           | 
           | Another thing I noticed is that it allows me to record videos
           | while staying in the moment. I took some videos with my wife
           | and captured some cute interactions and conversations that I
           | wouldn't have been able to record with my phone.
           | 
           | Most of the photos and videos don't turn out great because of
           | the camera/mic quality and because you can't see what's in
           | frame but I got some fun videos from them.
        
         | deanCommie wrote:
         | Honestly my biggest beef with this isn't the quality but the
         | field of vision.
         | 
         | It's so incredibly narrow and not at all how we imagine a
         | "first person perspective" looks like for a human. (I know we
         | lie to ourselves, and think that our peripheral vision is
         | better than it is, but it doesn't matter)
        
           | baby wrote:
           | I think they did this so that it's compatible with
           | instagram/phones. But I expect that you'll be able to take
           | normal videos too
        
           | parentheses wrote:
           | Yes. I think this was a conscious choice. The field of view
           | allows for a more compelling AR/VR projection.
        
       | rychco wrote:
       | I like the idea, as long as I can use it 100% independently of
       | Facebook/Meta services (which I don't use).
        
       | rado wrote:
       | That wonky carousel breaks the whole page:
       | https://i.imgur.com/TkTKE06.png I wonder how many more millions
       | of $ and megabytes of frameworks it would take to just make a
       | decent web page which isn't broken.
        
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