36 comments

  • wolvoleo 33 minutes ago

    Wow really well done with the lenticular effect. I immediately recognised the reference to They Live too.

    That must have cost a lot. To get posters like that made.

    • dieselgate 21 minutes ago

      I agree it’s very well done. Not sure if they’re all from/by EHE but the political adverts like this I’ve seen from around the UK are so clever.

    • pillefitz 18 minutes ago

      Gemini estimated it to cost around 500€ per piece

  • zkmon 35 minutes ago

    Unfortunately, educating people against some technology is not going to help. It should be a state-level mandate to have any effect. Most people are discretion-less, sheep-minded money pockets. Meta and other businesses discovered this fact long ago and exploit it to maximum extent. Their products always target the "sheep-following" aspects, instead of individual usefulness.

    • beej71 20 minutes ago

      This is why the "put the sunglasses on" fight went on forever. :)

  • gdulli 33 minutes ago

    It's hard to believe that in the late smartphone era there are people who think they're not online enough already, and want smart glasses so they can be even more online.

    • wolvoleo 31 minutes ago

      Well, I kinda wouldn't mind glasses that could show important notifications or maps. It could be handy for lots of things, like a heads up display. Not to watch the social feeds but to find my way or read a message from a friend saying they're late. When I use my phone or watch to navigate it's a bit more dangerous. Thinking specifically of one time when I fell badly doing just that.

      I absolutely wouldn't want them to incorporate a camera though. They should not have one at all.

      And I would want them with open firmware from a respectable company or organisation. So these ones are a non starter obviously.

      • ElProlactin 20 minutes ago

        > Not to watch the social feeds but to find my way or read a message from a friend saying they're late.

        Do you really need this for that?

        • wolvoleo 16 minutes ago

          No but it would be handy. I don't really need my smartwatch to read notifications either but it's super handy when I'm out and I have my hands full.

      • Nursie 24 minutes ago

        The problem I see is you're going to want a camera built-in for vision reasons for your amazing reality-overlay, and at that point, well, you've got a camera built-in.

        • wolvoleo 21 minutes ago

          I'm sure you could do that without one. Gyro, accelerometer, compass, GPS, step counter, altimeter. Should be accurate enough for basic navigation. Especially with some smart dead reckoning algorithm that calibrates itself at known map points like when you turn a corner. Showing notifications shouldn't need any kind of AR awareness at all. You could just show them above the normal field of vision just like the Google glass did.

          Again there the problem was not the display, it was the camera. And Google glass didn't even use it for any tracking purpose.

          I don't think the issue is that it can't be done without the camera. I think the issue is that the whole product exists to get those cameras out there. Data is the new gold, those vision AIs need to be trained. So they've never even tried without one.

          • Nursie 18 minutes ago

            Yeah you could definitely have a go.

            Where is the exact line - i.e. can you use Lidar? Infrared depth-sensing? Or do these provide too much data such that the scene could be recreated?

            (I'm exploring this as a thought experiment, in general I agree that people shouldn't be carrying hidden cameras on their faces, and if those cameras are at all connected to Meta then it's much worse!)

            • wolvoleo 15 minutes ago

              Well lidar in that form factor would end up just being an 8x8 laser DoF sensor like some smartphones have. There's no space or power budget for a real lidar.

              That would be ok I guess. That's not enough to capture much of anything even with a continuous feed.

    • ge96 9 minutes ago

      The concept of constantly taking images and storing metadata so you can remember where your keys are seems nuts but at the same time I could see it being normal.

    • Gigachad 27 minutes ago

      What if I could watch Instagram reels at all moments all day. Streamed right in to my eyeballs.

      • ElProlactin 21 minutes ago

        > What if I could watch Instagram reels at all moments all day. Streamed right in to my eyeballs.

        You'd be Mark Zuckerberg's idea of an ideal person.

  • Quitschquat 12 minutes ago

    Has the be the product of an CEO's fever dream and a bunch of yes men.

  • charcircuit 15 minutes ago

    The UK police monitoring your social media posts is more of a risk than Meta monitoring your social media posts to their platforms.

    • collingreen 13 minutes ago

      We can (and should) try to avoid many bad things at once, not just whatever might be the worst bad thing.

    • Nursie 8 minutes ago

      > Meta monitoring your social media posts to their platforms.

      Monitoring everything around you, all the time.

      And what you've heard about the UK police is likely to have been comically exaggerated by people with an agenda. There are problems, yes, they do not arrest thousands of people a year for being mean on twitter, no.

  • downrightmike an hour ago

    glassholes never change

    • infinite_spin 32 minutes ago

      Help me understand this attitude, because I've mostly seen women wearing these types of products, and they stand to gain a lot in terms of security from wearing them. So why the ad hominems? What is your best argument against these devices? When I go to a coffee shop I do so with the understanding that the establishment is likely recording me, are we going to accept this same rhetoric for anyone that films others in public and/or commercial spaces?

      • dabinat 25 minutes ago

        Generally public places do not have cameras that record your interactions with others in detail (including sound) and the owners of the establishment generally do not interact with you for the sole purpose of generating footage they can monetize online.

        Additionally there are laws and expectations around cameras in places like bathrooms. Those laws still exist for smartglasses-wearers, but it can be hard to police if it is not obvious that the glasses have cameras and are recording.

      • smokedetector1 27 minutes ago

        you genuinely dont see a difference between

        (1) a single or handful of security-angled cameras controlled by a local business for security purposes

        (2) any individual possibly recording you at eye level at any second without you knowing, and having the ability to use and manipulate that footage and upload it to the internet

        • garciansmith 20 minutes ago

          Plus: (1) the security camera footage is constantly overwritten. (2) the video from the glasses is being uploaded to Meta.

      • sapphicsnail 16 minutes ago

        > Help me understand this attitude, because I've mostly seen women wearing these types of products, and they stand to gain a lot in terms of security from wearing them.

        How? This is just going to give a bunch of creepy men an easier way to film me. I'm dreading these getting mainstream adoption.

      • toofy 29 minutes ago

        > … are we going to accept this same rhetoric for anyone that films others in public and/or commercial spaces?

        yes, please.

        i think that is exactly the direction we should be pushing. this creepy compulsion to record random people is weird af.

        • lotsofpulp 26 minutes ago

          Is there a better way to modulate others’ behavior?

          Before, when it was he said, she said, it was always tenuous for the person with less power to pursue the issue. Now, they can finally access consequences for people violating their freedoms.

          • squibonpig 22 minutes ago

            Social expectations, upbringing, interpersonal ties that make social behaviors potentially costly on a personal level to do wrong, all things the same people making the glasses made all of their money degrading?

      • Nursie 27 minutes ago

        Easy - covert recording of other people in public is not OK.

        This ridiculous idea that "it's in public so you have no expectation of privacy" is a semantic retcon, the pervasiveness of cameras is new and fundamentally changes your level of exposure in the public sphere. Overtly recording people in public is not really OK. Face-mounted, covert recording is another step too far and offensive to most people.

        If you genuinely wish to understand the attitude, may I recommend doing a deep dive into the many fine articles written about this back in 2013-15, when Google failed to launch the original glasshole-wear.

      • photios 14 minutes ago

        It's okay to record everyone around you all the time because:

        1. Women do it. 2. The government does it. 3. Private businesses do it.

        What?!

  • arjie 16 minutes ago

    I wonder if these things will meet the same fate as bluetooth headsets. Once upon a time decried as the preserve of "Bluetooth Douches" who worse the Jabra while taking their banking phone calls, now they're everywhere. Everyone's got Airpods in.

    One day perhaps Meta Glasses will be the same. I really like them. They're a spectacular (haha) addition to a sightseeing trip. At the aquarium you can ask them what you're looking at and it'll tell you about the fish, at the playground you can record your kids running around, and you've got music where you go and so on. The problem, of course, is that they have short battery life and I don't want to switch from my smart glasses to my other glasses since the entire point is availability.

    Here's a video of my daughter running around the playground from the perspective of my wife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLAByw6ZYc

    • niwtsol 7 minutes ago

      That is an interesting perspective I hadn't thought about. I see relatives constantly throwing phone cameras in baby's faces "look here, look here" the kids are trained to look at the phone/camera. I think of the experience from your daughter here, just running up to her mom wearing glasses - I hear the mass surveillance concerns, I see the pervert/harassment angle, I saw a friend do the "recording a party" angle, but I am just surprised I didn't see something as wholesome as this - thanks for expanding my view.

    • sublinear 6 minutes ago

      I'm very confused by this take.

      It's been over 20 years since then and it's still just as awkward to take a call in public. People will instinctively prefer a quiet place away from the crowd. Otherwise others may eavesdrop, think you're talking to them, or are crazy.

      You'll find that most of those people with airpods are listening to something, not talking on a call. The most popular "smart glasses" that I see everywhere don't have cameras. They're "AR" HUDs for watching movies or playing games.

      It's not about social acceptance. These hardware designs still suck big time.

      • Nursie 2 minutes ago

        > think you're talking to them

        Yeah that's still weird. Last time it happened to me was in the City of London near Liverpool St (ironic as we're talking about banking phonecalls). Out of nowhere a guy walking towards me starts speaking, for all the world like he's trying to talk to me, so I stopped and said "Hey, can I help you?"

        Nope, strides on past, then I noticed the airpods.

  • deejaaymac 15 minutes ago

    People wearing cameras is going to increase over time, no matter what. Why would it slow down?

    Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely anti a lot of things, including people wearing cameras all the time, but I see no logical way to stop it without stomping on freedoms. In this case, defense will be your ally, whatever form that may take,eg wearing a mask.

    If I had to choose between flock cameras and meta glasses existing, I'd choose the glasses.