Facebook Considers Facial Recognition for Upcoming Smart Glasses

Instagram and WhatsApp are as popular as ever.

Their acquisition of Oculus (and its FB account requirement) isn't hurting either. I also hear their groups/classifieds product is doing very well.

Unfortunately, Facebook isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I've been wondering this for a while. So few people I know use it now in contrast to just a couple of years ago. I think part of it has to do with how they now shove a bunch of generic viral video crap into your feed now. The other day I made a post in a small group of people I know personally(~20 people), and only 2 people even saw the post even a week later. I know that sounds trivial, but it's a stark difference from the recent past where I'd expect at least half the group to see posts.

On the other hand, tons of people use Instagram now, which is undoubtedly why Facebook is trying to further integrate it with Facebook.

As others have mentioned, there are products of Facebook that are doing really well. I think that the use of Facebook as a generic social media feed is dwindling, but it's still good for niche groups, classifieds, and probably other things I'm not as privy to. However, I believe this is because there isn't a sufficient replacement for what Facebook provides. Are there any alternatives to Facebook that provide similar features but aren't considered distasteful by the mainstream?

People walking around with facial recognition reporting everyone else's whereabouts to FB, probably won't get what they deserve, at least in places with civil restraint.

Just another argument for how most problems have been solved and everyday technology has been feature-complete for years.

> What a fucking joke. There is clearly no practical upside to this for the wearer, or the rest of society.

Yea, not for the average person. The most creative thing I could come up with was to play a game with your eyes closed and then let your glasses tell you who's who. So, not really worthwhile.

But then I thought, what if you're an old person that has issues with recognizing people. I think some of them could benefit from it. It points to a theme which is: AI could help certain senior citizens to augment their cognition, and recognizing someone via glasses is a small example of that.

I can see people suffering from memory loss or weak eyesight benefiting from such technology, but of course that's not what Facebook has in mind.

There are new algorithms that can recognize even masked faces. For example, Moscow (and presumably other "smart cities") has a vast urban security-camera system that automatically recognizes people on the basis of one's eyes and gait; this is how the authorities were able to later arrest demonstrators at their homes, even though they had been masked at the unauthorized protests.