The Meta glassholes have arrived
The Meta glassholes have arrived
![[VERGE] The Meta glassholes have arrived](https://radiation.party/pictrs/image/de58dbac-6ae1-4fbb-93a6-c3e42cdc685a.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=256)
72 comments
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It's really not the same. One of the biggest issues with Glassholes was that it wasn't clear they were wearing something unusual at first sight, especially from certain angles. That you didn't know you were being recorded didn't help, and I'm guessing that the Quest 3 isn't secretive about that like Google Glass. But even if it is, I think everyone is going to do their best to avoid the guy walking around with that thing strapped to their head.
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There's no external indication when someone is recording the passthrough footage on the Quest 3.
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Although it's white LED on the front of the headset instead of the expected red. It's seems like a dumb choice by some design team going for aesthetics over functionality. And if you're trying to surreptitiously record people there are a million easier, less obtrusive ways to do it that don't involve strapping a giant and expensive headset to your face.
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From what I remember Google glass had an indicator when it was recording, people just assumed it doesn't and/or it's always recording
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That's correct. The indicator light was pretty obvious.
I always found it fascinating how upset people get about the idea of a novel device recording them without permission, but it is a complete non-issue that a familiar device (the common smart phone) could also record them without permission with less of a chance of them noticing.
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Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
-- Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson in 1992.
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It pleases me that Hiro becomes a Gargoyle.
But maybe because I totally was one, with a programmable HP calculator on my hip, I use reverse Polish notation to this day.
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At least the gargoyles in Snowcrash owned their data, selling it for profit to afford their tacky lifestyle. These new gargoyles give all their data to our surveillance megacorp overlords for free.
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On the one hand I'd love a HUD which could, for example, remind me of the names of people I'd met before, or notes like 'remember to talk to fred about his shrubbery'. Or tell me which shops I'm looking at are open, or give me directions to my destination... or random shit like the name of the plant I'm currently looking at. You can do some of this with a phone but in-vision is so much more useful IMO.
OTOH the people capable of creating such technology are meta, google.. and I don't trust them one bit.
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Yeah, this. And I don't need a fully immersive experience for that. Like, Glass had enough for that - a camera for facial recognition, a screen for info. You could do the same if you mounted a camera on an earbud and put the display on a smartwatch.
I don't want Augmented Reality, I just want a dashboard/status bar for real life. A little screen in the corner of my view would solve that.
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I, too, long for the future (a century from now, if the world weren't burning) of an actually useful augmented reality that didn't continuously advertise at me.
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Current industry analysts predict 2027 for AR glasses from Apple. They will be a game changer. Huge development is happening with miniature displays. I think the challenge will be processing on light frames, so I suspect it will be offloaded to one’s phone.
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Apple is likely going this way as well. And honestly? I’d be down. I’d be paying an arm and a leg, and I wouldn’t have as much access as I’d like, but I know my data would be safe*. You can fault Apple for a lot of things, but they don’t fuck around with privacy, going as far as to reject the demands of the FBI to open up the phone of a dead terrorist.
*: Assuming Apple doesn’t 180 on its stance for privacy.
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Meanwhile I still feel weird taking photos of inanimate objects in public spaces in case someone thinks I'm creeping on them.
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I'm like this too. Unless it's obvious I'm taking photos of my dog, I feel really weird about it. I like taking photos of random things I find interesting or pleasing to look at while we're out for walks. Like a random forgotten plushie, or a nice tree, or the lake, or a rock, or a stump. Anything really. If there's people around though, I tend to not pull my phone out because it feels invasive.
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I don't worry that people will think I'm creeping on them, but I worry that they'll find out what I'm taking a picture of and either be weirded out or laugh at me. I don't know why that bothers me because I wouldn't care if it actually happened.
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Anticipation is its own thing. Anticipation of travel is the main reason I never travel. I'm rarely bothered by the actual journey; I just don't want to have it hanging over me.
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Even worse if you want to take a photo of a nice public space, like a historical square, or a park or something!
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Nothing awkward at all about just randomly holding your arm out to watch TV while walking around the world. Sounds like a very relaxing experince having everyone stare at you while in an elevator.
And if someone doesn't want to be recorded, they have to explain "Don't worry, it's just Facebook that's watching."
Legit gross behavior.
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And if someone doesn't want to be recorded, they have to explain "Don't worry, it's just Facebook that's watching."
In America at least, anywhere in public is fair game for recording. You have no expectation of privacy (from being seen) out and about in the world anyway, and that applies to recordings as well.
Should it be this way? I’m honestly torn. But the long and the short of it is, if you’re somewhere that doesn’t expressly forbid video recording, assume you’re always on camera. Because you likely are.
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Yup, though that doesn't mean those recordings can necessarily be legally published or used for anything except private use. Clearly it's not the case in most of the US, or people just don't care to enforce it, but in many parts of the EU you can get in serious legal trouble if you do upload it in a way where people can be recognized, especially if what you release can count as defamation. Show someone freaking out or breaking the law in Finland, and you will be the one getting the fine.
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Yes, Facebook is disgusting, as is Google and other large tech companies; but that's just a bad take. You're already being recorded by CCTV pretty much everywhere you go in public. The issue isn't and shouldn't be about being recorded, but instead about what is being done with the recorded data. I know that security tapes are going to be overwritten after some period; tech wants to feed all their data into advertising profiles and AI.
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People being recorded by cameras 24/7 when in public: How dare these glassholes record me!
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Somehow I don't think the Quest 3 is going to be a problem. The battery only lasts a couple hours, and you look dumb as hell wearing it in public. Unless the point is to look dumb as hell in public, then mission accomplished.
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I already look dumb as hell in public, what's a little bit more dumbness anyways
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I like how they are called glassholes. It sounds like another word I like.
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Next life goal: get internship at Meta and “accidentally” remove word boundary checking in the profanity filter, so that if you type glasshole in a Facebook post, it will come out as glhole.
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Someone forgot to do their focus group testing, or, even better, forgot to use their common sense.
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Pretty sure the author is using it as a disparaging term for the jackoffs that were wearing the headsets for attention.
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It’s a known fact when wearing a mask people are able to experience less social anxiety and worry about how they’re perceived. I wouldn’t be surprised if wearing a big headset on your face has a similar effect for people’s social behaviour.
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Even sunglasses help.. so I expect it would do that, but then you'd have to offset it by realizing you looked like a complete idiot.
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It's impressively true. I build an interesting perspective shifting rig, for a festival. It let you see yourself in the 3rd person (think GTA follow cam). I was a lot more confident interacting with people I didn't know, while wearing it, despite looking like a complete weirdo. 😁
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That’s so cool though.
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Yeah just saw an ad for the Ray-Ban surveillance Wayfarer glasses. Ray-Ban has been dead to me ever since it was sold to Luxotica (the near-monopoly that explains why $40 glasses cost $180). It's kind of perfect now to see overpriced-for-no-good-reason branding being zombied yet further
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I was an Oakley fan until Luxotica bought them up...
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Oooh nice! A surveillance device that also functions as a gateway to endless ads AND a "please bully me!" sign.
I reckon a lotta these pricks are gonna get tripped and smash their expensive spywear and I ain't crying about that.
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GJ normalizing bullying as a method of social correction.
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Aww that's sweet of you to say! It's often such thankless work, so it's nice to be appreciated.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Over the weekend, as buyers got their first uninterrupted stretches of time with the new Meta Quest 3 headset, some started posting videos of themselves interacting with the real world instead of playing games.
Sure, it’s cool to blast low-poly baddies breaking through your walls, but isn’t it more technically impressive that Meta’s new headset lets you cook a meal or sweep your floors or enjoy a fancy coffee on a beautiful day without ever taking off the machine?
And, in the video you already saw atop this post, XR and AI booster Cix Liv went nearly full Glasshole by walking straight into a San Francisco coffee shop and placing an order, without bothering to hide the cafe’s address.
But that was a decade ago, and I argued last year that our definition of privacy, our tolerance for public photography, and our resistance to wearable technology have all changed considerably since Google first introduced its headset.
Smartphone cameras everywhere is now the norm, and small businesses often benefit from an influencer plug; Ng was fine with me naming Fiddle Fig Cafe in this story.
Then again, if I saw someone walking into a cafe with a bulbous white object atop their face with multiple camera slits, I’d just automatically assume they were recording absolutely everything.
The original article contains 639 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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Why wouldanyone want to do that?
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This stuff is really cool and I really hope it becomes a normal for people to be wearing headsets out and about.
So many amazing things we could do with genuine AR devices on our heads all day.
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Honestly, it sounds like a great way to further expand mass surveillance, advertising empires, compliance, and over reliance on technology that ultimately further removes us from our humanity.
I think I'm in the wrong place.
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Just imagine all the ads you can watch, while looking out at the sea with a morning coffee! Bliss!
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Wonder how long it takes for the first Tesla driver to total his car this way…
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I guess it’s time to invest in spraypaint …
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Right. Let's all get assault charges by destroying someone else's expensive technology.
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72 comments