'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#261

Post by soraminazuki » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 4:19 AM UTC

alickz wrote: post #211

soraminazuki wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of evidence to the contrary, considering that's the same old argument that NRA has been making for our entire lives.

I think there's a difference between brandishing a weapon and brandishing a recording device Unlike the sword, the camera itself does not incite deeds of violence My understanding at least is that cameras (or even signs) reducing/preventing crime by _some_ amount has been independently corroborated across multiple studies

Maybe I lost too much faith in society. But in a world where everyone is recording each other, I think people who are able to act with impunity wins, not necessarily those with higher moral standards.

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#262

Post by djhn » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 4:39 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #110

hn_submit wrote: post #58

Why is Meta insisting on forcing these "pervert" glasses on us? I can tell you why: advertising. I bet some "pervert" within Meta (may Zuck himself) has already thought up that whatever you look at will result in you getting an ad for that item. "I see you're looking at a car. How about this new Toyota RAV4?" "I see you're looking at a mobile phone. How about this new Samsung Galaxy Fold which is on sale." "I see you…

It's platform anxiety. Meta are still frustrated that they missed out on controlling the mobile platform and have to pay those 30% fees to Google and Apple. The metaverse was the same thing: they are willing to spend an inordinate amount of money on the chance that something new - in this case face-computers - will be the next big platform.

Meta makes money on advertising. They are not paying 30% fees on ad spend.

Meta does lose revenue when Apple and Google introduce privacy features and decrease ad tracking efficacy. They also hate that unlike the web, where their cookies and tracking pixels provided near 100% coverage of your behaviour, on your phone you might be doing something that they can’t log and analyse.

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#263

Post by peter_d_sherman » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 5:09 AM UTC

Atheros wrote: post #251

peter_d_sherman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"pre-existing recording devices available already..." Exactly! People could be "covertly recorded at the gym" (as the article states!) by other pre-existing recording devices (any other kind of video camera, mounted in the gym or on a gym member's smartphone or other electronic device) -- not just Meta's smart glasses! In other words, the central issue of the article seems to stem more from consent (more specificall…

The other devices do not feature plausible deniability when caught. The glasses do. That's the problem.

Well, I consider myself fairly stupid then!

Explain to me how recording device A "when caught" (i.e., the glasses) differ from recording device B (say, a smartphone) "when caught", with respect to "plausible deniability"?

In both cases, do you not have the person responsible for making the recording (because they've been "caught" as you say), regardless of the device used to make it?

If you do, then that person has, as you say, no plausible deniability at that point, do they not?

And if you don't, then isn't the device type used to make the recording in question, irrelevant?

Because you haven't "caught" them?

Also, why do you care so much about plausible deniability as relates to a specific type of device?

Are we talking about legal accountability, or are we talking about something else entirely?

What do the glasses enable that any other video camera does not?

I suppose that someone could argue that the glasses enable covert, non-consensual recording, and that this behavior might be abused by certain individuals, and that would be a valid argument, but I don't think it could be applied to only Meta's video glasses (i.e., Meta is not the culprit) -- it would have to be applied universally to all companies present and future (including all of the ones in China) who manufacture smart glasses...

If I may suggest...

If the central issue with these smart glasses (made by whatever manufacturer, present or future!) is that they enable covert non-consensual recording, then how would it be if the manufacturers put a big, red light on the front of the glasses, that would automatically turn on when the glasses are recording...

If these glasses were created with big red recording lights that turned on once the device started recording, then that might serve as adequate notification that the counterparty is being recorded, would it not? (You'd rather someone, if they were going to use video recording glasses have them with a big bright red light, then no such light, right?)

So, to recap, I don't understand.

You're looking for a way to prosecute unethical individuals who use covert (or at least, somewhat more covert than a cell phone, let's say, at least until large swaths of society accept the existence of video recording glasses like we already do with smartphones) video recording technologies, such as those found in smartglasses?

Or is there some other issue or issues?

I don't get it; help me out!

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#264

Post by Markoff » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 6:37 AM UTC

neko_ranger wrote: post #244

>ctrl-f "headphones" and "speaker" >0 results I have the meta glasses (never wear them outside because of the stigma), and the actual killer feature is the headphones, not the camera/ai stuff. Not the sound quality per se (though it's pretty good and someone else has to be really close to hear leakage on max volume), but it's nice just being able to have a pair of sunglasses on and be able to listen to music and your…

if it's not in/over your ear the sound quality will be bad anyway, you have plenty of earbuds/headphones options + your preferred sunglasses, any combo will be cheaper and better than these pervert glasses

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#265

Post by jayd16 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 7:47 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #233

jayd16 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, a phone gets you most of the way there. They're currently the apex predators of the mobile space. I think the one thing that a headset does bring to the table is the hands free nature of it. There are quite a few AR apps and use cases that phones can currently do that fall short because you need to hold your phone out and that's really invasive and fatiguing. In theory you could have things like a…

If they ever gave a shit about voice controls we could have had that 20 years ago with a desktop monitor in the garage. But sadly phones still screw up 50 and 15 with voice controls today. Scrubbing through video would be pretty frustrating on voice control.

The Vision Pro, for example, has enough fidelity that you can do that sort of thing with a hand gesture fairly easily.

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#266

Post by jyounker » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 8:50 AM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #143

jayd16 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because its cool. I mean, the real answer is that we have the technology to be tech wizards. You could conjure spatially anchored widgets and screens and gauges. You could put a cooking show screen above the stove, where a physical screen wouldn't work. You could put a synced calendar on the wall. Notes app on the fridge, weather reminders by the door. ...a million mundane conveniences in the house alone. But still,…

People always say this like having an actual board of notes on the fridge hasn't been trivially possible for a century. It's like people obsessing over window managers. 99% of the time, the amount of windows you have showing is not the problem, you can't really focus on more than one at a time anyway. Consider as a demonstrative example, race car drivers. They have had options to have extremely detailed Heads Up Disp…

> Consider as a demonstrative example, race car drivers. They have had options to have extremely detailed Heads Up Displays with all sorts of absurd data available at a glance for decades.

It's kind of a bad example, because there are other reasons that we don't have HUDsin cars.

A friend of mine designed car interiors. His explanation went like this:

With a HUD, you have to pick a focus point.

In an airplane, when you look forward, your eyes are always focused at infinity, so the HUD is focused there. It has the same focus point as your eyes.

In a car everything is slower and closer, so you have to constantly change your focus.

The HUD though has a single focus point though, and drivers' eyes tend to lock onto the HUD's focus. This focus lock interferes with normal scanning, and drivers stop seeing important things. They don't notice important things, so they get into accidents.

According to him, HUDs in cars lead to much higher accident rates.

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#267

Post by tuesdaynight » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC

arjie wrote: post #255

tuesdaynight wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with your point, but don't you think that the internet is a different thing? I mean, there's a reason for parents avoiding public pictures of their babies on Instagram. Specially nowadays, with AIs like Grok and such. You probably thought about that risk too, so I'm asking from a curiousity perspective

The Internet is real life, one way or the other. I think there is a lot of anti-family messaging in the world, and I think a lot of people end up not interacting with children as a consequence of us taking families outside of what is now one large public sphere. Our family is public in a few ways: * Our pregnancy log https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Pregnancy * Our IVF process https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/IVF * My…

Funnily enough, I agree with both your points individually, but not both together. Your second point came to my attention in the last few years by a friend that has children and I started to be aware of how they are treated as a different class of people (or as nuisance to some). And because of how much spending time with children made my life better, I started trying to bring awareness whenever I see something that tries to exclude children from public spaces. And I agree that internet is real life. But I would still suggest caution to friends about posting their kids pictures on public internet.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, you gave me something to think about

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#268

Post by hackeraccount » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

hn_submit wrote: post #58

Why is Meta insisting on forcing these "pervert" glasses on us? I can tell you why: advertising. I bet some "pervert" within Meta (may Zuck himself) has already thought up that whatever you look at will result in you getting an ad for that item. "I see you're looking at a car. How about this new Toyota RAV4?" "I see you're looking at a mobile phone. How about this new Samsung Galaxy Fold which is on sale." "I see you…

Meta can't literally force this on people.

The idea that looking around would instantiate ads sounds pretty bad. (though the devil's advocate position would be - compare that world to the one we live in today where the ads are viewable to everyone all the time). For that to happen Meta couldn't force people to buy it, the product would have to be so compelling that people wanted it despite that. Think about how good that product would need be?

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#269

Post by k310 » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 3:08 PM UTC

"Tech" has been commandeered by some mighty greedy, selfish and antisocial people.

I can't say that I developed anything to liberate people. To be blunt, almost all the ideas I have come up with over the years have had the purpose of combating or undoing the damage done by the above.

This concept is a panopticon. Especially given the now universal ability to disfigure, disrobe and generally destroy anyone, it's not that it violates YOUR privacy, nor MY privacy (what were you looking at? Sue Ellen Mischkie? [0] ) but that it violates EVERYONE'S privacy. Big Brother doesn't even need telescreens.

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697666/

Re: 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows

#270

Post by Windchaser » Tue, Aug 11, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #196

Windchaser wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is _your_ default assumption re: use case? I honestly can't think of any use cases (outside of very niche a11y uses) that are not in some way offensive, though perhaps not 'perverted'. Hmm, here's a few that could potentially be implemented in augmented glasses, though I have no idea if they're implemented yet: - Giving me directions via an overlay when I'm walking around without requiring me to pull out my ph…

> overlay of a recipe when I'm cooking something new I dont understand how this one comes up thay often. It just sounds like the most useless thing ever. These literally make me suspect I am only one who cooks here while others kind of imagine what it might be like or something. > price comparisons in grocery stores; the glasses read the prices and tell you how they compare to prices in other nearby stores Like you a…

> I dont understand how this one comes up thay often. It just sounds like the most useless thing ever. These literally make me suspect I am only one who cooks here while others kind of imagine what it might be like or something.

I cook all the time. I usually use my ipad for new recipes online, but it's a bit old and slow and I don't like having to scroll, and I wish there were better ways to record notes on the recipes.

> Like you are going to another store for milk and to yet another for butter?

I'll go to another store for milk and butter next time, if it's cheaper.

> Are you already doing that with phone and need to take it out is what prevents it?

No, I want another app to already to the price comparisons for me.

But yeah, this is probably the weakest of the ideas. I'm not writing a doctoral dissertation here; I'm just running with some things I'd want to try out. It's off the cuff.