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Comment by petargyurov | Hacker News Reader

This, like Google Glass, is one of those ideas that has been popularised by science-fiction with the promise that it will make our lives better, but when you get down it's actual real world usage I don't see the benefit it provides.

Sure, it _looks_ cool, but none of the examples shown in FB's promo video are actually meaningful: the red light example, the restaurant... The real world already has UI for that!

Navigation is probably the only good example I can think of.

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In the AR circles, what they are building is called the AR Cloud - basically a digital representation of the physical world.

A “complete state” of this digital world has a number of practical benefits for autonomous vehicles/drones, but you’re right that in the path to get there is mostly going to be filled with gaming and advertising, and the occasional niceties. I wrote about some applications here:

https://paul.copplest.one/blog/augmented-reality.html

Glass actually had a really good use case, but it's the one thing they explicitly called out in the terms of service as banned:

Facial Recognition

The killer app for Glass would have been the thing that put a little nametag over the head of the person you were looking at, provided you'd met them before. So that you could say "Hey Steve!" to your kid's classmate's dad that you'd met 3 times before and still couldn't remember his name.

Way better than today's tech of saying "Hey!..." then introducing him to your friend Bill and hoping Bill asks his name or he volunteers it. Then hoping you're remember to memorize it this time.

Glass woulda fixed that. But it would have made everything else worse.

> Glass woulda fixed that. But it would have made everything else worse.

Kinda like using x-ray machines in shoe shops. But now that I think about it, that could be said even about many uses of social media. Yes, it achieves something, no, it's not always an essential or even very good thing, and the price is rather gigantic compared to the convenience.

Well, if a social anxiety about asking a second time for someone's name is the only use case for a device, it's bound to fail.

I actually just say: Sorry, I forgot your name, what was it again? In most cases they forgot my name as well and are happy that I asked. Problem solved. Can I have my 500€s now?

Using your mouth and ears to collect private data... Kind of radical. Do you have funding yet?

Glass put a tiny display in the upper corner of your vision; it can't put a nametag on top of someone's head.

It can’t yet, but the goal is almost certainly to move past that restriction.

Besides, exactly the same functionality can be achieved by putting the name in the tiny display.

translations with subtitles in real time is one I thought of.

But that doesn't require this level of Facebook intrusion.

there are a lot of things that need translating e.g. signs are an easy one, but what about pieces of paper or forms you need to register for car rentals. Translations would need a kind of "always on" intrusive capability to see at the moment needed.

Note. I'm neutral if this would really benefit us all or not. I guess we will see?

No it doesn't, it can also be on-demand. They don't need people to record the inside of my house for that.

Nothing Facebook has done has brought benefits to the world, so I am sceptical that they will do anything positive with this. You are more likely to get a partial translation with links to facist groups on why this language shouldn't need to be translated. Then banning you for life from translations because they believe you didn't use a valid name.

when you're visiting another country, your on demand need to translate things becomes almost constant. I also would turn it off going into my hotel room/house...

I think this is more accurate:

> But that doesn't require this Facebook-level of intrusion.

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