Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

soundguys.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 431 posts

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#121

Post by renewiltord »

amelius wrote: post #33
unethical_ban wrote: post #21

Re: Personal fitness and menstruation history - Is that shocking? They're earbuds, but they're marketed as fitness buds that track personal data. It looks like Fitbit for your ears. Fitbit and Apple Health (or whatever it is called) does these kinds of things as well. Re: Bose collecting all that stuff I can see "why" they would want all that, in order to optimize their sound output of their buds to the kind of music…

> I can see "why" they would want all that, in order to optimize their sound output of their buds to the kind of music and environments for which they are used. I can't see why they would need so many samples. Wouldn't using the data from (say) 100 Bose employees be sufficient to cover most noisy environments these buds are used in?

There's a famous Bose bughunt article that proves this not to be the case. I can't find where they posted it on a blog or something but here's the forum link:

https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/Bose-...

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#122

Post by tdons »

acd wrote: post #115

I tend to use passive headphones with 3.5mm jack, they have no electronics in them except the small speakers. They do not collect data. They are also used by musicians when doing audio mixing so its should sounds neutral and good. That the headphones does not have electronics and batteries means they will last longer and thus be be better for the environment.

I (and many other engineers I know) do this too, and for a good reason. It's a simple system.

Same reason I don't use WiFi at home but ethernet: it's simple.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#123

Post by renewiltord »

patrick451 wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this comment or a variation on it a thousand times now and it is getting boring. Just like all the other times: please comment on the message rather than on the means of delivery, finding pages without social media embeds is becoming more and more rare and besides that the party writing the article content may not have control over that particular aspect. But that doesn't mean they don't have a point.

They author may not be able to control the social media embeds of this particular site, but they certainly have control over where the choose to publish. I see nothing wrong with taking them to task for this sort of hypocrisy.

There is no value in calling out hypocrisy. If a murderer outs another murderer now you know about two murderers. Saying "you're a murderer too, you hypocrite" has no epistemological value.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#125

Post by httgp »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #109
im3w1l wrote: post #105

Are these associated apps mandatory for getting the headphones working or are they just value adds?

Just value adds, you can listen just fine without them. You might lose (in the case of the headphones that lead to the article) some fitness tracking features, ANC or EQ fine-tuning, or other additional functionality but they'll work just fine for audio.

To add to this list, they also let us upgrade firmware.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#126

Post by qppo »

t0mmyb0y wrote: post #28

Why in the world would anyone need headphones that need personal info?

I don't know if this counts and I haven't seen it outside of research projects, but 3D spatialization (that's worth a damn) basically requires it be tuned for the user's particular head geometry.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#127

Post by Nextgrid »

baal80spam wrote: post #13

Imagine seeing such article title 10 years ago... What happened to the world?

Lack of regulation and non-existent enforcement of existing regulation.

People are used to the government being there to prevent companies from doing bad/dangerous stuff. It’s why you can buy any food at any supermarket and be reasonably confident it won’t poison you or be full of cyanide.

People expect the same when it comes to technology companies, and I once did too - I expected that big companies would’ve already got in trouble if they did something bad so it must be safe. The problem is that is far from the truth.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#128

Post by zelly »

heavyset_go wrote: post #64
t0mmyb0y wrote: post #28

Why in the world would anyone need headphones that need personal info?

Everyone, including headphone manufacturers, are trying to get in on the gold rush that is turning their customers into fonts of personal data that can be sold to the highest bidder.

I see this sentiment mentioned a lot, but who actually pays for this data? Is there a company I can call that will buy my amorphous "user data"? What are their names?

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#130

Post by JumpCrisscross »

acd wrote: post #115

I tend to use passive headphones with 3.5mm jack, they have no electronics in them except the small speakers. They do not collect data. They are also used by musicians when doing audio mixing so its should sounds neutral and good. That the headphones does not have electronics and batteries means they will last longer and thus be be better for the environment.

> they will last longer and thus be be better for the environment

This isn’t necessarily true.

My wireless headphones have been with me for years. My wired earbuds are cheap enough that I can lose or damage them without care. The former are far better for the environment.

Post reply on HN