Ray-Ban Meta glasses have sold 2M units, production to be increased
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I also strongly suspect these numbers are misleading. I was offered another pair for free on opening a verizon fiber account. I'm betting there's some scheme to pump up these numbers to make it look like they're catching on. Though perhaps this skepticism is negated by the increase in production.
Granted, I've seen a couple tiktokers use something like them, but I don't know what the experience is like getting that video out of Meta's grasp.
EDIT: added a couple thoughts.
It really sucks that dumb, cheap sunglasses no longer are sold. It’s either these meta sunglasses or have your eyes melt
You can. Literally nobody is stopping you.
I do now have one in nearly every room in my house, and Google Home is pretty dominant in its field. I’m not convinced Meta glasses will have the same effect (I hope not) but it does seem possible.
While I never planned to use them as a headphones, there is something surprisingly pleasant about not needing to put yet another gadget in your ears. And the sound feels more like coming from the environment and not directly emerging in your ears. Talking to ChatGPT with Advanced Voice mode or listening a podcast during a walk or bike ride or so is a really nice experience with these. Receiving calls is fun too.
Camera is really interesting to use in some unusual scenarios, like POV view of a ballet teacher or figure skating couple performing a death spiral. I give them to try to my friends when I see an opportunity to film something like that. That's really fun and sometimes illuminating.
I briefly enjoyed playing with Meta AI. One use case was "listening the podcast, encounter unknown term or name, ask "Hey Meta, explain <word> meaning", and back to listening without even lifting a finger". But then Meta disabled it in the country I'm in (I bought it in airport in another country), so only basic voice commands are working, which is fine.
I've recently thought that a killer bit of hardware would be a way to interact with an LLM by voice without other people thinking you're talking to them and saying "what?". I was imagining the return of those classic bluetooth headseats, or some combo of earbud and throat mic, but the Ray Bans seem like they might be an option, too.
"The user pressed button as the word `cromulent` was spoken by unidentified individual in front of ...",
"The user seemed to have been engaged in a snowboarding session when the button was pressed, ...",
"The user was screaming `computer LOCKDOWN LOC-aaagh` as they..."If they opened up the glasses and all of their cameras to other AI models, it'd be pretty powerful. Alas, walled gardens. I would bet OpenAI is working on some similar hardware to compete.
Google was right in the end, just ten years too soon with Google Glass.
If it were possible to use something like these without throwing everyone they interact with under the bus in terms of privacy and security, I'd have no problem with them.
An equivalent device not attached to meta would be great. Does one exist?
I use mine all the time for mostly watching movies or gaming but sometimes work
They are legitimately one of the best devices I have and I’ve been in AR a long time
If we’re looking for a head-mounted device that’s useful for blind people, taking away the camera and intelligence and replacing them with a screen definitely is not it. You’re losing the useful parts and replacing them with a useless one.
What I object to is other people forcing me to be exposed to threats against my will.
It's definitely not technical hurdles preventing them from making one.
Censorship and alignment (speech, LLMs, glasses, drones, ..) rarely stops negative scenarios, but it slows positive scenarios from existence and competition with negative scenarios.
They did partner with BMW, CMU and some universities, https://www.projectaria.com/research-kit/
I'm sure everyone would welcome competing devices. Well, Meta and EssilorLuxottica are showing that a profitable market exists.
> Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which oversees the product as well as its virtual- and augmented-reality goggles, reported losses of nearly $5 billion in the fourth quarter.
The same value proposition surely applies to locking GPS collars. A clear value for individuals managing dementia patients, but it's a privacy nightmare for everyone and most of the customers aren't nurses.
Accessibility doesn't need to come at the expense of privacy.
(And even giving them to someone else could still include consent)
I see the argument in public (thought I'm uncomfortable with that as well), but this affects other situations too. I'm not going to ask my blind friend to remove his accessibility device when he enters my home, but the same can't be true of my business. Can't have protected personal, health, financial, or corporate information delivered directly to Meta.
That's probably the crux of it. These aren't just vision aids, they're cloud-centric data-harvesting Meta products.
So I'm not arguing against the tech, but I am expressing discomfort. If I knew someone who wore these, even as an accessibility aid, I'd feel uncomfortable around them.
Whenever you are in a place where there are other humans around, you are exposed, regardless if they have cameras or not.
Just counting on the fact that most humans have poor photographic memory, so they might forget what they have seen at you, cannot be claimed to be enough to consider that you are not exposed.
Whatever you do not want to be remembered, you should not do in the presence of humans. Wherever in your home or at your business there is something that you would not want remembered by others, you should not bring any guests, regardless if they carry cameras or not. If there exists any "protected personal, health, financial, or corporate information" that you do not consider public, you should not show that to your guests, regardless if they carry cameras or not.
I agree however that any cameras hidden wherever you believe that nobody sees you, are an assault on privacy, unlike cameras carried by humans, who you must expect to be able to see and remember you (or any of your private information that is visible), even without cameras.
Therefore I believe that in the majority of situations, restrictions on the carrying of cameras, including such as the Meta glasses, do not make sense. Either the presence of the untrusted humans must be completely forbidden, or wherever they are allowed they should be able to carry their cameras or glasses with them. One of the acceptable exceptions is for preventing the recording of shows, where even if I consider that it is an abuse to forbid recording for personal use, I agree that otherwise it would be difficult to discover later whether such recordings are in fact distributed commercially.
For a visit in a company however, camera restrictions are useless, because usually far less of the private information of a company is valuable than its management or its lawyers believe. The really valuable information is usually small enough to be easily remembered by a competent human who has seen it, with no need to record it with a camera. Information leaks must be prevented by allowing guest access only in selected areas and by showing them only the information that must be shared with them, not by frisking them for cameras.
I don't agree that corporate restrictions on cameras are useless, even if the information itself isn't particularly valuable. I work in semicon, if I put these on at work and information somehow gets sent to a non-US server, I would have broken International Traffic in Arms Regulations. In all likelihood the information won't reach or be useful to China, but the US government doesn't care and will fine us into oblivion regardless. Honestly, it's more a liability thing than actual security.
We need better laws around this, not the fact that the technology is present but managing the presence of the technology a la The Quantum Thief's Gevulot.
I always put it as "If I'm in bed and I see the shadow of a person standing outside my window, is it a person or an inconveniently shaped tree?" in that moment my supposed privacy is a Schrodinger's cat and after I have drawn the curtain to see what's out there, the hard truth is that I still can't be 100% certain that I have "privacy".
https://www.businessinsider.com/i-was-assaulted-for-wearing-...
This documentary has always stood out to me:
The Google Glass look tended to draw attention in a negative way, such god awful styling that narrow minded people might conclude you were an asshole for wearing one.
It does have a glowing LED: https://youtu.be/X95mWoTgjaE?t=105 but I feel like they're easy to hide with some black tape.
* They could measure the forward voltage of the LED when driven by a known current. Bonus points for measuring at multiple currents. Remember that the forward voltage depends on color.
* They could measure the reverse leakage current at a known voltage, and compare that to the illumination from the camera’s exposure feedback. Remember that every LED is also a photodiode.
* They could vary the LED driver current to heat it up, then measure that both of the above measurements are compatible with the higher temperature. Remember that most semiconductor properties have a strong temperature dependence.
So it would be pretty easy to detect most simple mods if they really wanted to.
These look very close to normal, so I think most people don’t even notice.
this one didn't age very well did it?
& as for internet laughing at someone's misfortune, that's normal. He says they wouldn't say he had it coming if it was jewelry, but people are laughing saying this rapper had it coming singing "ice on my neck" before going for crowd surfing: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VocdUpfuepY
Interested to see what could be done locally with always-on visual capture + LLMs. Not interested in sending that data to Meta.
To be honest, the biggest issue with the glasses is battery life and I don't see that changing any time soon. It doesn't matter what LLM processes your data if it can only do it for one hour per charge.
Darn it
This doubled my battery life.
I wear them every day when I’m not at home. I think I go something like 7 or 8 (?) hours now between charges.
https://brilliant.xyz/products/monocle
https://www.projectnorthstar.org/
https://github.com/AugmentOS-Community/OpenSourceSmartGlasse...
Say on the metro sitting opposite someone. If they pulled out a camera and pointed it in your face you'd be offended and say something, with a camera phone you'd still probably notice if they tried to get a pic of you and most people would find it at best creepy and ask the person to stop or move away from them.
This product normalises that. Sure there are some legit use cases but I'm not consenting to you as a stranger pointing your camera in my face. You may not legally need my consent to do that but it's straight up rude to do it anyway.
Will be interesting to see how this pans out. I'm fairly placid and would probably just tut and move if someone sat opposite with these but I suspect other people might have a stronger reaction.
Breaking societal norms like this should have consequences, even if it's sanctioned by Zuck.
Isn't this just a voice activated camera, in a form factor that you can wear on your head.
(Genuinely curious, not hating on the product)
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/688306/number-of-gopro-u...
It might be interesting if people will be able to tell the glasses are being used, like "How are you today Charles?" "don't you remember I go by chuck?"
I'm sure the AI will improve quite a bit but given the hype it was a surprise.
when that's not the festure and they're not the customer, the other data and people buying the data are.
- Mark Z.
Seen some comments about juiced numbers, every teen interacts video first, that’s how they communicate with friends, not text, so I totally buy these numbers. Anecdotal, I’ve been to a couple of ray ban stores and staff say they sell like hot cakes and are sold out a lot of the time (obviously low production is a contributor, but point being they seem to have market fit)
It’s insane to me that anyone would do this knowing how little Facebook respects privacy.
So much of the modern world has me feeling like I'm taking crazy pills.
... Having someone <tax you|arrest you|suppress your rights|force sterilization|anything short of death by cancer> is very low on the disdain scale.
Same thing with voice assistants like Alexa, for the average person having a live speaker listening 24 7 is kinda silly, but for someone who's legally blind it's a life changer.
Say at 90 you can't see well, you can say, "Hey Alexa, play some John Coltrane". It would be better for this all to run locally, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-acoustic-...