41–50 of 81 posts
More info about the underlying technology: https://ai.facebook.com/blog/smart-camera-portal-advances More info about the privacy settings: https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/ Disclosure: I work at FB, my team developed the underlying MaskR-CNN technology.
More info about the underlying technology: https://ai.facebook.com/blog/smart-camera-portal-advances More info about the privacy settings: https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/ Disclosure: I work at FB, my team developed the underlying MaskR-CNN technology.
What exactly is the benefit of this? The video says it uses neural networks and fast algorithms, but doesn't say what they're used for, or how it would benefit me as an end user.
Is anyone even buying the portal? Maybe it's the information bubble I travel in, but to me it seems Facebook has destroyed any trust that would make anyone ok with putting a video camera and listening device from them in your home.
I'm sure lots of smart people spent a lot of time and effort working on this, but unfortunately my answer is: Hell no!
> lots of smart people spent a lot of time and effort working on this That's unfortunately true of a lot of undesirable things. Ad tech, trackers, robocall software, nicotine, wacky inflatable tube guy, large swaths of law and politics... Wouldn't it be great if we all worked on good things? The whole hill climbing / gradient ascent algorithm this planet is running would work a lot faster.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they actually mean that 1984 shouldn’t be a business model.
I get that. But the fact remains that it is a business model, whether we like it or not, and as we've seen it can be very profitable. Until laws catch up, there will always be companies like Facebook that are devoid of ethics and will abuse surveillance technology to enrich themselves.
(Those who downvote parent, please don’t make an is-ought misinterpretation.)
The smart camera panning using facial recognition looks very useful. Right now I Facetime a lot with my iPad and will prop it up to chat with folks and often move around but then run back to come into the field of view. This solves that problem (for people who use Facebook and have a TV).
And Watch Party looks pretty great too. They've essentially taken a significant part of the "second screen" interaction and just embedded it in the primary screen. And it looks like they're doing it well. I can see this being a fun interaction.
More info about the underlying technology: https://ai.facebook.com/blog/smart-camera-portal-advances More info about the privacy settings: https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/ Disclosure: I work at FB, my team developed the underlying MaskR-CNN technology.
More info about the underlying technology: https://ai.facebook.com/blog/smart-camera-portal-advances More info about the privacy settings: https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/ Disclosure: I work at FB, my team developed the underlying MaskR-CNN technology.
I'm just saying, the privacy page doesn't address a lot of real concerns. It talks about being able to shut down the camera and microphone. That's cool. But if one were to enumerate all the ways in which a Facebook gadget might compromise your privacy, they'd go through many other items, and much more basic tech, before getting to covert surveillance by surreptitiously turning on cameras and microphones without indication.
How about:
- If I have "Hey Portal" enabled, so my voice does get recorded, what's the retention policy for that? After browsing through several sections and pages, I got to a page ( https://portal.facebook.com/privacy/ ) where it says I can "delete the history of voice commands in the Facebook portal".
That doesn't seem too convenient for intensive use of this device. I don't suppose it automatically gets deleted after, say, 30 days, or the perfectly reasonable timeout dictated by engineering common sense of, well, instantly, right? If so, why? Why not just delete it automatically after a while? If some users want to access their history for an indefinite period of time, why not provide an option for them? Surely it's easier to go to your Facebook settings page and check "Retain history indefinitely" than to manually delete things every day.
- When you say "Facebook doesn’t listen to, view or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. [...] Portal does, however, listen for the “Hey Portal” wake word, including during calls.", does this policy exclude processing and analyzing the transcripts of the command for advertising purposes?
- Is any non-video call data processed, such as noise levels from microphones that aren't shut?
- If there are instances where the wake word was incorrectly detected, and these instances can be identified as such (since you can find them in the activity log, but they don't have a transcript)... what happens with the transcript? I get that it's not available to me, but does Facebook store it? If so, can it be deleted?
- Is there any commitment to the terms of this privacy notice? If I purchase one now, can I reasonably expect that the terms of the privacy agreement won't change within the next two years -- so that I don't end up buying a good video phone that turns out to morph into a good ol' Facebook surveillance tool next year, after management finds out the program just isn't making enough money?
Before anyone asks -- the reason why I'm not as suspicious about (some) other companies is that, well, few other companies messed it up on the scale, and with the irresponsibility of Facebook. I don't doubt that Facebook has the engineering skill to deliver products that level good levels of privacy, I doubt that Facebook has the management interest, commitment and know-how involved in designing and maintaining them.
I'm sure lots of smart people spent a lot of time and effort working on this, but unfortunately my answer is: Hell no!