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Comment by bemusedthrow75 | Hacker News Reader

I know this won't be iFixit's answer but maybe we should converge on the idea that it's because faking someone's eyes on a screen when their real eyes are just behind it is a genuinely sick, actively dystopian idea that is intended to offset the sense that they've developed a piece of technology that allows people to selectively pay attention to a human in the same room, even though they are marketing it to people who spent all that energy amplifying the idea of the "glasshole"?

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> allows people to selectively pay attention to a human in the same room, even though they are marketing it to people who spent all that energy amplifying the idea of the "glasshole"?

Perhaps we could learn the lesson from Google's Glass that people didn't like the notion of being recorded without knowing it was happening.

> The main critique of Google Glass wasn’t really that they looked stupid (although, to be clear, they did). People were kicked out of bars for wearing Glass because the device represented a form of ubiquitous recording. Glass was outfitted with a camera that the user could activate at any time

https://www.wired.com/story/google-glass-reasonable-expectat...

Apple decided to give people an indication of whether the people using this device could see them or not, in addition to adding a big button on the top of the device you have to press to take a picture or video.

I personally think these things are much worse, at this point, because ubiquitous recording is now an old concept, and these things are a literal eye mask with faked attention. There is something so broken about it.

But I do take your point, and don't think you deserved a downvote for it. So much downvoting going on.

There is the ubiquitous presence of devices that have the ability to take a recording today.

However, unlike Google Glass, modern smartphones play a "camera shutter" sound to at least give some indication that they are capturing an image to the people around you.

Likewise, Apple is giving people an indication that the person wearing the headset can currently see you.

The lesson from Google Glass is that people didn't like not knowing what was happening.

> The lesson from Google Glass is that people didn't like not knowing what was happening.

I think that is at least in part a highbrow post-justification, though I accept it's going to be more common among Apple pundits who need the Vision Pro to be a success but spent time deriding Google Glass.

The instinctive reason is quite different; it was about inattention and rudeness. Google "google glass rude" and you will see _plenty_ of coverage about it at the time. People don't like this stuff on other people.

I certainly reserve the right to dislike these things on a purely instinctive level. Whether or not they have to choose to take a photograph of me or not.

> I think that is at least in part a highbrow post-justification

I think that the ability to record people without them knowing it is quite literally what people said was the main point of contention with Google Glass.

> If you see someone wearing Google Glass wink at you, you might want to get out of the way because they're probably not flirting with you.

A new app that's just been developed and released for the futuristic piece of technology lets users take a photo by simply winking an eye.

https://phys.org/news/2013-05-google-glass-photo.html

> However, unlike Google Glass, modern smartphones play a "camera shutter" sound to at least give some indication that they are capturing an image to the people around you.

I just tried with my modern smartphone: it's completely silent, both on photo and on video mode. The default might have been to play some sound, but I probably toggled the option off when I first got it, because I find these fake shutter sounds (unlike the real mechanical shutter sounds from DSLRs) to be annoying.

No, the real difference is the positioning. To take a photo or record a video with a smartphone, you have to hold it in a particular position (back or front pointing directly at the subject), which isn't usually the normal "relaxed" position to hold a smartphone, and this gives people around some indication that you're capturing an image. With Google Glass and similar, the normal position is the ideal one to record video.

Being filmed with other people bothers me a little, sure. It's the rudeness that bothers me the most.

I wouldn't let someone be a guest at my place if they're gonna wear this thing. Leave it at the door.

The shutter noise on smartphones is entirely optional. My normal iPhone doesn’t make any noise when it takes a photo.

> However, unlike Google Glass, modern smartphones play a "camera shutter" sound to at least give some indication that they are capturing an image to the people around you.

I mean, they mostly don't. They do in Japan (maybe Korea too?) but otherwise you can mute it.

This is easily the thing that makes me most uncomfortable, no matter how much it could be improved. The ick-factor of it all is difficult to describe, and if it doesn’t bother others, I’m not even really capable of arguing why it matters to me. There’s functionally very little difference from an “immersion dial” and a person who puts on noise cancelling headphones and uses their phone with intent to disconnect for a bit. I know.

As much as it makes me feel like some angry senior who dislikes the kids and their phones… I don’t like it.

It is just unavoidably creepy, and yet it was excitably launched with a video that was the most dystopian, unsettling portrayal of the target consumer's life.

It so profoundly undermines what Apple is; no other Apple product has ever been remotely "hell is other people", especially not "hell is other people who are in the room with you".

I think there's a lot more than just the airpods comparison that i've seen elsewhere, too. Because the people with the Apple eyes are using fake eyes; it is not filtered attention, it is actual misdirection.

Though I personally find having a conversation with people who won't take their airpods out is a sign that I am having a conversation with someone who devalues interacting with humans.

> Though I personally find having a conversation with people who won't take their airpods out is a sign that I am having a conversation with someone who devalues interacting with humans.

And that's a generational difference.

You and me may feel like that but a lot of kids these days don't.

I’m sure if they can get AR glasses on kids from an earlier age then future generations won’t find living day to day with a cell phone resting over your eyes strange at all. Something like one laptop per child, but with Vision Pro.

Difference is video is captured at all time since camera is on at all times for tracking. It's icky not knowing if you're being broadcasted while making eye contact as more than background character. I suppose that's true with audio being recorded as well.

This is such a weird sentiment to read given that it's conveyed over possibly the most artificial and de-humanizing communication channel ever invented, the internet. I mean if we want to get all dystopian, what kind of world are we living in where millions of people spend millions of hours pushing buttons all to mindlessly scream into an unfeeling void full of nothing but computer generated letters that you hope maybe somewhere at the other end might be a real person who's being genuine with you, but is also just as likely to be a dog, a person getting their jollies off trying to rile people up or a bot. At least with the Vision Pro, to be experiencing the dystopian future, you have to be in the same room with another actual human being. On the internet, you can lock yourself away from all human contact and you might as well be communicating with aliens for all the humanity that sans-serif fonts on a plain background with user names like "fuzzbunny382" have.

I can certainly see how you can find it uncanny, or just plain dislikable. But I feel like "genuinely sick, actively dystopian idea" is overstating it by a bit.

Because people would never ignore someone in the same room as them were it not for tech like this.

Right! Most people ignore each other in coffee shops and airport lobbies. Our attention is already stretched so thin, parent should not feel entitled to mine

Nice little straw man.

I tell you who should feel entitled to someone's attention: the kid in the Apple Vision Pro launch video whose dad plays with them while wearing an enormous eye mask that has fake digital eyes.

That was such an appallingly dystopian marketing message it made me physically nauseous.

Lighten up Francis. It will be seen as no more dystopian than filming from behind a camcorder or a camera pressed up to their face blocking the face completely. This Gen Xer thinks that people making videos or pictures with the Vision Pro will be no more annoying or off putting than any home movie shooting dad was in the past. There have been geeks with obtrusive cameras gear as long as there have been cameras. The Vision Pro will allow people to be involved in what they are filming much more than holding a camera in front of them. You can still drink, talk, hold hands, etc. At least he can still play with them while filming.

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