Code reviewed by WIRED uncovered an unreleased face-recognition system embedded in Meta’s smart glasses platform. It’s designed to identify people via biometric data stored on users’ phones.
I’ve heard those sorts of glasses can be handy if you’re visually impaired and, say, clothes shopping. You can ask the glasses “hey, do these items match?”
Still creepy in the wild, but there are some valid use cases.
The glasses seem like a better form factor than a hand-held phone, for the use case where you’re out and about and your hands are full, managing a service dog harness and/or cane, and trying to shop.
So, I guess you could mount your special phone for the blind on your chest or waist and have it talk to bone conductive headphones you’re wearing. And pick up whatever you’d like described and hold it in front of your chest/waist.
(There’s other options, the glasses just seem more convenient because they’re on your face.)
Ok that’s fair. I’ve just never heard of glasses referred to as prosthetics and assumed you meant some kind of artificial seeing device. Which is suppose is what glasses are but I was hoping for a more high tech answer.
TBH, I’m also not sure what they meant. The only visual prostheses I know of are things like glass eyes. Maybe “prosthesis” is their term for eyeglasses or contact lenses?
Or people with a bad memory for faces and names, who find one of the most harrowing social situations to be when someone walks up to them and says “hey, how you doing?” With no recollection of who this person is or how they know you.
You described me, and I still find those glasses creepy. It’s so much cheaper, easier, and less ethically fraught to just say “oh hey man how are you doing!” and fake it for a minute. Or tell them you’re having a brain fart and keep wanting to call them [random name] even though you KNOW that’s not it. Or, god forbid, just be upfront with people and tell them you’re face blind AF and struggle with placing faces to people outside context.
So one should just sacrifice everyone elses safety and privacy because you’re bad a recognizing faces? I get that it can be helpful, but you are literally uploading strangers faces and likeness to Meta’s servers without their consent. It’s creepy and predatory.
No, again, this is not what I was addressing. I responded to a comment saying these would only be of interest to “predators”. You yourself say that you get how they can be helpful, that’s all I was saying too. All the rest of this is arguments that are being imagined.
Oh yeah, that’s a good reason to aid the expansion of global surveillance. Let’s all be complicit with the police state because we can’t acknowledge our social anxieties with a bit of honesty.
that kind of motivation is a bit like “its winter and I’m very cold, lets set the city to fire”. I guess it won’t be cold anymore for you! It’s not for wanting to harm other people, it’s just an obvious alternative motivation.
I don’t think violating peoples’ privacy and paying big tech to extend their mass surveillance network so you can avoid looking awkward to them for a second carries the weight you seem to think it does
Though it gets difficult when its someone’s only available answer. I get why some people would choose it, but also agree as a whole its detrimental to society.
And as cameras get smaller, pretty soon any glasses will be suspect, meaning that those that need vision correction without being able to wear contacts for whatever reason will also end up lumped in with the creeps.
This sounds like a bigger underlying problem that can be addressed with a long term solution that does not leave you reliant on a second fragile, expensive battery-powered device with planned obsolescence and social stigma as likely risks.
Only predators buy those glasses.
I support smart glasses. Not from meta or Google or whatever the fuck.
The more cameras we point at cops and people in power, the better.
The moment an open-source privacy focused set of frames exist, I’m buying it.
why do you need the android, zuckerborg is one of epsteins clientele.
Then someone links those glasses and facial recognition to the tea app, and those predators start screeching about privacy.
I’ve heard those sorts of glasses can be handy if you’re visually impaired and, say, clothes shopping. You can ask the glasses “hey, do these items match?”
Still creepy in the wild, but there are some valid use cases.
edit to add examples:
If they could make these glasses more privacy invading by making them useless for the visually impaired, they would.
those are some fucking priorities. a little fashion over human rights
Yes, and anyone that buys these glasses to increase their independence is a predator, like the parent poster says. /s
You don’t need glasses for that, you could simply use an on-hand camera, maybe a special phone for those with vision problems
The glasses seem like a better form factor than a hand-held phone, for the use case where you’re out and about and your hands are full, managing a service dog harness and/or cane, and trying to shop.
So, I guess you could mount your special phone for the blind on your chest or waist and have it talk to bone conductive headphones you’re wearing. And pick up whatever you’d like described and hold it in front of your chest/waist.
(There’s other options, the glasses just seem more convenient because they’re on your face.)
Nah. My wife is legally blind without her prosthetics. She’s rather be blind than use these.
What do you mean she is blind without her prosthetics? Isn’t she still blind with the prosthetics or do they help with vision somehow?
Glasses to help see are prosthetics. People can be legally blind when not wearing their corrective lenses.
Ok that’s fair. I’ve just never heard of glasses referred to as prosthetics and assumed you meant some kind of artificial seeing device. Which is suppose is what glasses are but I was hoping for a more high tech answer.
I’m one of those people. Close to being legally blind if I have no glasses or contacts on. My dad is legally blind without corrective lenses.
TBH, I’m also not sure what they meant. The only visual prostheses I know of are things like glass eyes. Maybe “prosthesis” is their term for eyeglasses or contact lenses?
edit: or there are neat things that integrate into your brain to give you sight. So maybe one of those?
Like an automated version of the Be My Eyes app.
My wife helps people with this app on a regular basis.
Or people with a bad memory for faces and names, who find one of the most harrowing social situations to be when someone walks up to them and says “hey, how you doing?” With no recollection of who this person is or how they know you.
that’s a perfect argument for trying to justify total and complete invasion of privacy on the streets
You described me, and I still find those glasses creepy. It’s so much cheaper, easier, and less ethically fraught to just say “oh hey man how are you doing!” and fake it for a minute. Or tell them you’re having a brain fart and keep wanting to call them [random name] even though you KNOW that’s not it. Or, god forbid, just be upfront with people and tell them you’re face blind AF and struggle with placing faces to people outside context.
So one should just sacrifice everyone elses safety and privacy because you’re bad a recognizing faces? I get that it can be helpful, but you are literally uploading strangers faces and likeness to Meta’s servers without their consent. It’s creepy and predatory.
No, again, this is not what I was addressing. I responded to a comment saying these would only be of interest to “predators”. You yourself say that you get how they can be helpful, that’s all I was saying too. All the rest of this is arguments that are being imagined.
Oh yeah, that’s a good reason to aid the expansion of global surveillance. Let’s all be complicit with the police state because we can’t acknowledge our social anxieties with a bit of honesty.
Not what I was addressing. I was addressing a comment that said “only predators buy those glasses” by pointing out an obvious alternative motivation.
that kind of motivation is a bit like “its winter and I’m very cold, lets set the city to fire”. I guess it won’t be cold anymore for you! It’s not for wanting to harm other people, it’s just an obvious alternative motivation.
I don’t think violating peoples’ privacy and paying big tech to extend their mass surveillance network so you can avoid looking awkward to them for a second carries the weight you seem to think it does
What “weight”? I think you’re imagining an argument I’m not actually making.
As someone like that, the key is to be affable, apologize, and ask how you know each other. It’s not a big deal, most people aren’t offended
Man, some of ya really need to learn how to socialize
Normally I’d agree but that can just come with being on the autism (and other) spectrums sometimes.
Oh I’m quite aware, but state sponsored surveillance tools are not the answer to that
Oh yeah no arguments here.
Meta execs deserve the woodchopper and all.
Though it gets difficult when its someone’s only available answer. I get why some people would choose it, but also agree as a whole its detrimental to society.
Yep!
And as cameras get smaller, pretty soon any glasses will be suspect, meaning that those that need vision correction without being able to wear contacts for whatever reason will also end up lumped in with the creeps.
This is like Batesian mimickry but stupid.
Oh don’t worry. Google filed for a camera contact lens patent years ago. It’s coming as soon as they can figure out the tech.
All this cybertech looks cool as hell until your eyeball cooling drivers crash and your optic processing unit hits 100C like my GPU.
optic processing unit lol. it will run in the cloud “and you will be happy”
This sounds like a bigger underlying problem that can be addressed with a long term solution that does not leave you reliant on a second fragile, expensive battery-powered device with planned obsolescence and social stigma as likely risks.