Smart glasses equipped with cameras, microphones, and AI are a creeping privacy and security nightmare, prompting backlash.

And rightfully so.

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[–] 45 points 4 months ago (34 children)

The thing is, I'd love glasses with a private display. Imagine walking around a strange city with maps displayed in your vision, or giving a talk and having your notes in your view. Specs with screens! But why would I also want a camera? If I wanted to photograph something I can use my phone - perhaps using my SpecScreen as a viewfinder, sure, but the camera can happily live in my phone still. Basically, I'm worried the perverts are going to ruin glasses with HUDs for the rest of us. There must be dozens of us non-perverts, surely?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    Same. I even have a pair that I'm working on setting up as an accessibility device, but i worry that even with the camera looking thing taped, that it's going to cause issues, especially since I'll have a visible wire hooked up to a raspberry pi.

    EDIT: I forgot to specify that this is a viture luma and not the meta raybans, which i wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (25 children)

    There are plenty of legit use cases for a camera. Traveling in a foreign place the glasses could overlay text in your language. Looking at a transit table it could highlight the correct route and time. And anytime you meet someone new it could store their name and face in a database.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (19 children)

    does that utility outweigh the privacy of the public though?

    Shame it's meta because the answer will always skew towards invading privacy and shitting on the others.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    Exactly. Navigating a city isn't really that hard from a phone, even if you don't speak the language. You don't need to be staring at it the whole time if you learn how to just orient yourself on a street grid. Having a HUD for that purpose might be a neat trick, but not at the expense of being constantly recorded.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Maybe antlion already replied to you (because I see two replies below your post but one is removed/deleted) but I didn't take antlion's comment as if it outweigh the privacy invasion.

    Though, it is a shame that all the cool tech and legit use cases are for nothing because it's packaged with invasive spyware.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    There is no privacy in public, by definition of those two words. I’m less concerned about a camera on somebodies face, and more concerned about the legality of doing facial recognition, and identifying and tracking of people without their explicit consent. See one is about the personal utility of camera-interfaced computing, and the other is corporate espionage. But unless lawmakers can draw that line and enforce it, we will probably just end up with spyware.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (7 children)

    There is no privacy in public, by definition of those two words.

    creep. so quick to carve out the rules by which you and other can invade the privacy of individuals. you know there's a difference between general photography and this. you know this. I don't have to explain it to you.

    you're just a creep who wants to creep on women and kids.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    You caught me. I go around with my wife and daughter so I can get away with being a creep. Don’t tell the moms on the playground.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    if you cared about them you'd care about this. the fact that you immediately jump to legal definitions created in the age of film is absurd; there was never a minox that had 4k video, but that's what we're looking at these days. and you don't seem to care that there's a booming market to disable the recording lights.

    If I were your wife and daughter I'd be creeped out by you.

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  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    You don’t know shit about me bro. Creepers gonna creep. If they want to hide a camera they can do it in lapel pin or something. Being paranoid about it won’t stop anything. Making legislation to require a recording light will just de-tune the public’s vigilance when they don’t see a light. It won’t stop people from taking discrete photos. If you’re scared of having your photo taken, stay inside. There are a huge number of automatic license plate cameras owned by corporations logging your plates. They may also be capturing and analyzing your face. That is a lot more concerning to me than some dude wearing glasses.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Creepers gonna creep.

    and you want them to have better equipment to creep with.

    they want to hide a camera they can do it in lapel pin or something.

    lapel pin cameras are shitty resolution, and you can't point them at your target by moving your head.

    stop acting like it's not a problem. I'm not scared of having MY photo taken, it's the upskirts on escalators and creeps peering down blouses, you dolt.

    I despise license plate cameras, but that's an entirely different kind of invasion of privacy and you KNOW this.

    I know you're not concerned by some dude wearing glasses, and I can see you don't give two fucks about those who are.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    You have no expectation of privacy in public.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    WELL GOLLY GEE I GUESS THAT FUCKIN ENDS THE DISCUSSION HUH?

    No, it doesn't. https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9A.44.115

    See, there's actually laws about this shit that you "no expectation of privacy" creeps love to ignore. And these tools are making it easier.

    Why do you want to make it easier to creep on little girls?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    What the fuck is wrong with you? Now you're projecting pedophilia. Why are you thinking about fucking kids? What the fuck is your problem?

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  • [+] 1 point 4 months ago* (4 children)
  • [+] 0 points 4 months ago (4 children)
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  • [+] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    yeah it's so crazy to care about women and children being creeped upon.

    do you even think about what you write?

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  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    You have no expectation of privacy in public. It's not my fault you're too fucking stupid to understand that. You're the one that keeps mentioning women and children when literally all I said was that you have no expectation of privacy in public because you have no expectation of privacy in public you phenomenal fucking moron, I never said a fucking thing about any fucking thing else and you're losing your dumb fucking mind because you're a screeching twat that can't read. Go fuck yourself you psychotic shit.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    PRIVACY NO, PROTECTION FROM VOYERISM YES.

    https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9A.44.115

    STOP MAKING IT SEEM OK TO CREEP ON PEOPLE IT'S ACTUALLY FUCKING ILLEGAL.

    You phenomenal dolt, why are you advocating for women and children to be abused you dumb fucking shit

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Ok you preponderously ignorant fuckass, where did I ever mention voyeurism? Where did I ever make a value judgement about camera glasses. You miserable psychotic fucking creep, I literally only ever said you don't have an expectation of privacy in public and you lost your fucking mind. You dumb fucking piece of shit, learn to fucking read you fucking stupid fuck. Anybody that screams pedophile with no provocation shouldn't be participating in the public. Dumb twat, go fuck yourself.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    And anytime you meet someone new it could store their name and face in a database.

    Enough of this dystopian bullshit! Or was that satire?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    It was a bit self-satirical. But it would be really helpful for me, if it existed. I’m not about to buy a face camera but I can imagine some people in sales might like such a feature.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    If someone in sales is logging and recording my interactions with them, storing my name and face in a database and feeding it into facial recognition software, then I'm not buying anything from them.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    one of the leaked "test" features that everyone hated was the facial recognition...and i get it. lot's of opertunity for abuse. Shame though as that would be SO usfull to those with prosopagnosia or people like me who have an inability to remember names. It has hurt me profesionaly throughout my life. having the name and a few relivent facts about people pop up would just put me on the same playing field with those who can remember.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    How would a view like that work without a camera? It needs to see streets to display the map accurately since GOS could only be accurate within 5meters sometimes.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago

    A while ago I would have agreed with this whole heartedly.

    Now I'm old and grumpy and everything seems like a can / should question where the "should" part is only satisfied if a really significant problem is solved, because the "can" part always requires a trade off that is rarely worth the cost.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    You don’t have the cameras for taking picture but for augmented reality. For example maybe for your maps, it would place arrows in the right spots, or labels to identify landmarks on the landmarks themselves. It might highlight how far ahead the crosswalk is.

    Starting to get in the grey area but as someone horrible with names, I want it to tell me who I’m talking to

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  • [–] 30 points 4 months ago

    Do you truly believe that those who have sold you your mechanical eyes have resisted the temptation to peek through them? Cameras are all around us, even within us! Your joys, your worries, your life... for them it is all mere spectacle. - Garry the Prophet

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  • [–] 26 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Because that's what they are?

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Not true! You could be a freelance CIA agent/pizza delivery man and world's greatest swordsman (despite having never been in a real fight)

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Yeah, and won't someone think about those poor contractors over at Meta? How else are they going to meet their AI circlejerk quota and rank all of that increasingly disturbing novel content if they can't watch it through their glasses on their train rides to and from the office? Let's have some compassion here folks!

    //end bit

    Ugh, just typing that made me nauseous

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  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    I'd wear them if they didn't have a camera - the idea of a little screen and the music/phone call capabilities baked into something I have to wear every waking moment anyways actually sounds really nice. I'd probably turn off the display after the novelty wore off, but the audio alone is still worth it to me.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    yeah the camera is the troublesome part. Thing is it is useful for camera tracking.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    No way, microphone is much worse

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    microphone has many more basic uses. taking notes. voice command. I mean we all realize all the smartphones have both of these things right. I mean that is why I don't really like them but I would more like AR although realistically not in a corp is controlling everything way. If it was open source and local and under my control that would be super cool.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Eh. It's already pretty easy to conceal a microphone. Harder to conceal a camera.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Actually something I worry about ….. my glasses have tiny embedded magnets for “click-on” sunglasses. Maybe they could be mistaken for tiny cameras on pervert glasses

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  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago

    It's actually pretty easy to conceal. there's plenty of investigative reporting with hidden cameras and nobody's none the wiser. The fact that they have to add a light to the glasses proves that even if you hide it in plain sight, people will still miss it.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Then why don't you buy the Bose ones?

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  • [–] 22 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

    The prevalence of negative impacts is absolutely a reason to push back on these specific glasses.

    Due to aphantasia and ADHD, I would love to be able to manually record and store locally what I am seeing in a wide variety of situations. That guy I talked to about the thing? What was his name and what did he look like? All I remember is he had curly hair and he had a common name. Being able to play back the introduction would let me refresh myself to keep up with people who remember a large number of names and faces in a short period of time. If I do something like work on my PC being able to record as I go without needing to set up the phone on a stand and hope I don't block it would be great.

    Yeah, the negatives outweigh the positives and fuck meta for using what could be a great assistance device to collect everything they interact with instead of it being a locally stored thing that decent people could use.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago

    this is the problem with great tech, it can be used for valid purposes like yours, or for nefarious purposes, and the maker doesn't fuckin care.

    if this was a product made by a reputable company I'd say go for it, but considering their wretched history of invasive garbage, I'd hold out for a better take.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I'm setting up a viture luma to do something like this as well as have a HUD like interface for task tracking, like you'd have in video games. That said I'm taping the camera looking thing and I'm just going to use my phone when I need to take pictures or video. I'm setting it up where I could just transfer needed data directly whenever possible to avoid needing to use my phone camera. Most likely if i do use photos, it will be more of a photo journal than recording everything I see. This is mostly to try to keep others comfort and privacy in mind even though it would be stored locally on a raspberry pi.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Technically I could ask people if I could record them using my phone but it would be awkward to do so and worse for social interactions that my current methods of discreetly asking people who they are and hoping for a list of participants with photos.

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  • [–] 18 points 4 months ago (1 child)
    [–] 16 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Oh - I love this angle!!!

    Spread the word bros! I'll only call them pervert glasses from now on

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  • [–] 26 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I was calling them "stalker" glasses. Everything facebook (meta) does is about stalking humanity. Creepy, creepy weirdos.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Surveillance glasses.

    (If "pervert" is too much in a discussion)

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    It was the first thing I thought of when I saw these glasses: 100% perverts are going to buy them.

    Perverts and predators. I fully expect to hear about stalking and murder rates going up due to these-- and hopefully the makers will be sued out of fucking existence.

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