Meta's ships facial recognition on smart glasses

https://www.buchodi.com/meta-glasses-facial-recognition/

by buchodi • 2 months ago

332 288 2 months ago

buchodi.com

gizajob• 2 months ago

This company is so beyond creepy and disgusting.

everdrive• 2 months ago

Disgusting. Meta does not care about the harm they do so long as they make money.

attila-lendvai2• 2 months ago

i'm afraid it's about much more than just money... it's about retaining power/dominance over the very game that is being played.

(i.e. if you control the money printer, then all you care about is that your subjects continue playing. fb is just one cog in a big machine.)

gigel822• 2 months ago

Fudge... we can de-flock all we want but if naive people walk around with the portable surveillance cameras on their face, there's nothing we can do about that.

We need privacy regulation...

jondwillis• 2 months ago

I don’t think it’s reasonable to think that privacy regulation is coming with the current admin and weak “opposition”, and lack of capacity to care or understand the stakes by the populace. We need some very effective political organizing, yesterday. And normalized, cheap, scramble suits wouldn’t hurt either.

jimt1234• 2 months ago

The US courts have almost always held that anything in public can be recorded. The only expectations of privacy relevant to 'smart glasses' that the courts recognize, I think, are gonna be restrooms and your own home. I guess what I'm getting at is I don't expect regulation or the courts to do anything about the privacy and recording issues. IMHO, the only potential regulation might be around how the recorded data is handled, but honestly, I don't expect anything there, either. I mean, apparently, the US DHS wants to build their own 'smart glasses' to record and do facial recognition for ICE.

gigel822• 2 months ago

I think we need legislation. The "no expectations of privacy" probably was ok when little old ladies were spending time outside their home watching passerbys, but not when everyone's movements are tracked and saved by fully autonomous systems.

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Yes, our rights are being narrowed, and billionaires including Meta executives are collaborating with the increasingly authoritarian US government's executive, in my understanding.

I recently read in a couple of articles and saw a video, of US ICE agents obnoxiously taunted protesters during their manhunt activities, saying, "we now know who you are," referring to the agent's cell phones who they are using to record the immediate-area protest activity, and apparently collecting faces on preloaded apps.

Rhetorically, what's to stop the US ICE from requesting, and the authoritarian-administration-friendly billionaire executive leaders granting, special editions of the Meta glasses? Or, requesting for national security reasons, which is literally what ICE's mandate is, requesting all of the databases of PII laden facial recognition social networking in the real world, of regular citizen owned Meta smart glasses?

miltonlost• 2 months ago

Hope they get sued out of existence for this by Illinois. The biodata stored and used only serves authoritarians.

KaiserPro4• 2 months ago

Former Facebook wanker, who worked in research.

1) we were always told and legal always pushed back hard on anything face detecting.(ie haar cascade "this is a face" let alone actual this is dave/sally)

2) the FTC would audit us to make sure we weren't doing that kind of stuff

3) all of the research prototypes had inbuilt/inline face removers up until 2024(I left after that so I don't know when/if that changed)

3.1) One of the very first things I worked on was face removal, it was a central core of the entire fucking project. Like if we didn;t have any of those constraints we'd have been 2 years ahead.

4) Stella is the name for v1 rayban stories, so its very odd that they get the update when they've not had any new features since for a long time(unless I am mistaken).

KaiserPro4• 2 months ago

now, I will say that Boz was pushing to have facial recognition when I was were, and some of the early storyboards for XROS were pretty reilant on it (ie in an office having the sims like diamonds above your head that indicated who you were and if you were busy)

I assumed that Zuck said no because he'd had enough time with the lawyer and the FTC sniffing about to not bother.

However the glasses based AI lifelog stuff (which was basically a really effective personal assistant) would be a lot more effective if it could use facial recognition (we weren't allowed to use speaker diarization as that would allow us to record individual audio from users and recognise them like with facial recognition)

giobox• 2 months ago

I know a few folks who work in FTC compliance roles at Meta. I don't think the wider nerd-sphere appreciates the extent to which the FTC regulates Meta following the consent order after their privacy scandals of the 2010s, or the sheer number of roles within Meta now working only on FTC related compliance. I'm sure Zuck is no doubt desperate to ramp it down.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/...

ninininino• 2 months ago

Pure speculation, probably they finally figured out the correct legal ToS and privacy policy and everything else that made them feel confident + some regulatory/lawmaker discussions reached a certain point that they finally decided they could do it? Does that add up?

vaylian• 2 months ago

Trump is POTUS. And Zuckerberg seems to be on good terms with Trump.

KaiserPro4• 2 months ago

I think the ToS is lenient enough to get away with most things.

I suspect that its a two-fer,

1) zuckerberg has said "it must be done" as part of the AI push

1.1) it might be also that Wang has pushed to get that data, but thats a guess. I doubt he has that kind of sway

2) they've realised that the FTC isn't either capable, or they have bribed the right part of the government to avoid getting nailed.

The thing that gets me is the number of lawyers that are there, and the sheer amount of process that is there to stop this kind of thing happening requires Zuck to explicitly say "I WANT THIS" repeatedly.

michaelt• 2 months ago

probably they finally figured out the correct legal ToS and privacy policy

Unlikely IMHO - the person who agreed to the TOS is the one person the glasses don’t record.

More likely they’ve decided to launch it and see what happens; they can always withdraw the feature later, and laws can be surprisingly flexible when you’re a large corporation.

johndough• 2 months ago

I recall that Facebook asked me to identify faces of my friends in order to "verify" myself about 15 years ago. Do you know whether Facebook still stores that data?

KaiserPro4• 2 months ago

Do you know whether Facebook still stores that data?

Honestly I couldn’t answer that. I never really touched production userdata (mainly because it was scary and also it was in PHP or some horrid transpiled interface to PHP)

My gut feeling is that facebook doesn't throw data away unless its forced to. So its probably there on your graph somewhere.

pseudalopex2• 2 months ago

Wired reported in 2021 Facebook said it would stop using facial recognition technology to identify people in photos and videos and delete accompanying data on more than 1 billion people.[1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-drops-facial-recognitio...

pseudalopex2• 2 months ago

“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” according to the document from Meta’s Reality Labs, which works on hardware including smart glasses.[1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re...

pesus4• 2 months ago

They really are mask off evil now. Any idea what those "other concerns" could be?

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Amazingly valuable insight.

It also suggests a certain amount of self-policing by Facebook, which leads to obvious failure cases:

Since Mark Zuckerberg attended Trump's most recent inauguration celebration and NOT non-billionaire average citizens, by and large, I speculate that the FTC threat is no longer a concern to Zuckerberg's Meta corporation. Back scratching all around?

micromacrofoot• 2 months ago

they finally wore down all the people internally who were against this

pesus4• 2 months ago

Or they all left or were fired. It's safe to assume anyone still working there at this point in time after everything they've done is in favor of this.

kstrauser5• 2 months ago

I'm in the position to make security policies at work, and one of them is that no smart glasses are allowed in the office. We will not be having workers aiming Facebook glasses at our screens showing confidential information. And along those lines, I can think of damn few scenarios where I'd be OK with someone using face recognition against me. Restaurants? It's not Facebook's business to know where I like to eat, presumably to sell ads to show to me. Music clubs? They don't need to know what I listen to. Anything vaguely resembling a public bathroom? Fuck right off with that. Public sidewalks? I don't want them tracking who I spend time talking to.

No, I can't really think of any situation where I'd be remotely OK with this being used. To be blunt, I kinda hope this quickly turns not into just a public shaming against people wearing public spyware, but a situation where people are physically afraid to be caught wearing them outside. I think the branch of future possibilities where it's called out as antisocial behavior to poison public spaces like this would be a happier world than one where it becomes common behavior.

Edit: In before the "do you ban cell phone cameras at work, too?" unclever gotcha: Yes. Yes, we'd definitely ban people spending the whole day holding their cell phone cameras up to their screens to record their work. We don't share confidential info with anyone other than vendors we've vetted and contracted with. If I walked by a desk and saw someone recording, I would pull them aside and explain why they're on thin ice.

monkpit• 2 months ago

To make matters worse, I’ve seen threads where people with these glasses discuss how to circumvent/disable the “now recording” light, so people won’t know when they’re active.

flir4• 2 months ago

The tech's there. The genie can't be put back in the bottle, and it will only get cheaper and more invasive. Only question we have any control over is... do we want everyone to have it, or only govs and corps?

There's a second-amendment-like argument here, imo, that is very hard to push back on - because at least this stuff doesn't kill people. I want every cop to be surrounded by five or six recording devices that they don't control at all times - it's the least worst option.

(Obviously I'm not a fan of the "everying goes to facebook" architecture. I'm hoping we get past that).

Forgeties794• 2 months ago

They haven’t even sold 10mill units. We can still say no.

yuliyp2• 2 months ago

The tech's also been there to put cameras everywhere, and to wiretap every phone, etc. We put guardrails in place to control how that tech is deployed.

convolvatron• 2 months ago

you're implying there is some kind of symmetry here, that facial recognition will empower individuals in a way to counteract the power given to governments and corporations.

I should try to compile my own database of everyone's location? I fail to see how it helps me in any way

jimbokun• 2 months ago

If only people already had recording device in their pocket they take with them everywhere…

NicuCalcea• 2 months ago

We can't put the genie back in the bottle, but we can control how we react to it. As far as I'm concerned, I will treat people wearing smart glasses the same way I would treat someone shoving a smartphone camera in my face. I'll just refuse to engage with them.

wizzwizz4• 2 months ago

Are you forgetting Google Glass? We put this genie back into the bottle once: we can do it again.

innerHTML• 2 months ago

while I agree with you I can definitely see women wearing it to "feel safe". during dark months women wear vests with lights on them. admittedly I have not seen any of them wear bodycams yet.

kstrauser5• 2 months ago

I can definitely see women not wanting to be facially recognized as they're minding their own business and walking home from work and not wanting to be stalked.

footy2• 2 months ago

I live in Canada (many dark months) and am a woman who knows many women and I've never known anyone to wear a vest with a light on them. I do own a hat with a light that I use when I'm walking to the gym in the dark so that drivers will see me, but so do many of my friends and it doesn't seem to be gendered.

I also fail to see how facial recognition would be analogous to lights in terms of safety or frankly anything else.

bryanlarsen• 2 months ago

The big difference is that if a woman wears a camera to make her feel safer, she'll do it in a way that it's obvious she's recording. The whole point is to make potential attackers aware that they're being recorded. A gopro or a cell phone camera body mount works a lot better for this than meta glasses.

fc417fc802• 2 months ago

I think it's important to keep in mind the difference between metadata versus full video as well as the difference between centralized versus device local solutions. I don't want BigTech tracking my every interaction any more than the government but I don't mind if the dash cam on my neighbor's car logs when I walk by his driveway so long as it isn't uploading that data to a third party. But of course most people don't want to self host and most services aren't E2EE so I won't try to pretend that any of this is important in practice at present. But if we're thinking about possible regulations and the world as we'd like it to be then it becomes relevant.

kstrauser5• 2 months ago

That's an important distinction, but yes, it's irrelevant here. If Apple offered on-device, privacy-preserving, not-uploaded facial recognition, I wouldn't be inherently opposed to it. There's no way Facebook wouldn't feed that data right into their own Eye of Sauron.

Same with Logitech Circle doorbells that tell you which of your friends or family is at the front door, using local computing. That's a great feature. I wouldn't use a Ring camera that was shipping the data back to Amazon and any number of police departments.

ncr10012• 2 months ago

This is a good start, for thinking about evolving privacy policies in a governmental sense.

j45• 2 months ago

I wonder if people held their phones in the face of people recording with glasses if they'd be ok with it.

footy2• 2 months ago

_Careless People_ should be required reading for anyone buying this crap.

attila-lendvai2• 2 months ago

i was hoping that it's a good book to suggest to the "i have nothing to hide" folk...

sadly, it's "only" about the sickos at fb. don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that it's written, but hardly anyone needs it who lived through the past few years with an open eye...

Cider99863• 2 months ago

I have a feeling people using these don't read many books.

ChicagoDave2• 2 months ago

The number of times those get grabbed of someone’s face and stomped on will be greater than zero. And businesses will have signs for No guns/spyglasses.

hallway_monitor• 2 months ago

At what point does civil disobedience become justified? Expected even? Also let's be clear - this is not violence, not assault, it is simple destruction of property.

evilduck2• 2 months ago

I don't think you could plausibly do this and only catch a property crime charge. If you're caught, forcefully removing worn objects from another person will almost certainly catch you a misdemeanor battery charge in most US jurisdictions.

I'm no lawyer and things vary by location, but clothing is generally considered an extension of the person and usually touching their worn objects constitutes physical contact with the person themselves. Doing so with intent of committing criminal mischief, vandalism, or felony property damage will get all of them thrown at you. If you hastily do so and happen to harm the person in the process (since you're naturally grabbing at someone's eyes, that seems like a serious risk), there's a good chance you'll be given an aggravated or felony battery charge instead.

1234letshaveatw• 2 months ago

The number of times the grabber gets a beatdown will be equivalent, signs will be ignored

llbbdd• 2 months ago

Real tough guy hours

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Capturing the faces of every small child at a playground, by a creeper who's just standing outside the fence, looking onto the inside...

Imagine that, this weekend. Brought to you by Meta Smart Glasses

browsingonly2• 2 months ago

Not when cops are wearing them. Cops with these that have the day's BOLO and warrant hotlist loaded on them will be the new hot ALPR.

pesus4• 2 months ago

This is incredibly creepy and invasive, and should be outlawed, frankly. There is no legitimate reason for this to exist. My only hope is regular Wayfarers aren't completely tainted by these creep glasses having the same design, but it may be too late.

Morromist• 2 months ago

Smartglasses, NFTs, getting ai to write your emails, always talking to Alexa, taking photos of everything constantly for social media.

People who do these things must think the tech makes them more likable and interesting. But, in fact, I immediately deeply dislike these people and would never want to be friends with them. Its a paradox.

Its actually like watching a dude pissing themselves in public and thinking "Ah yeah, I'm covered in pee now! I'm so cool, look how jealous those non-pissers are!"

endemic• 2 months ago

I had the exact same thought about the brand crashing due to association with Facebook. Gotta juice them numbers, I guess.

bensyverson2• 2 months ago

They seem determined to make Chicago lawyers rich. [0]

  [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_Information_Privacy_Act

joe_mamba3• 2 months ago

Lawyers operate on exciting laws. What happens when the laws change?

bobmcnamara4• 2 months ago

$1k/per with no exponential horsepower? Barely a tax.

cbarrick• 2 months ago

$5,000 per violation if the violation is intentional or reckless.

shakna• 2 months ago

Half a billion tax, last time they tried it.

Manuel_D• 2 months ago

That pertains to collecting biometric info, not end users of facial recognition services. From your link:

The BIPA requires companies doing business in Illinois to comply with a number of requirements pertaining to the collection and storage of biometric information. These include a requirement that companies:
Obtain consent from individuals if the company intends to collect or disclose their personal biometric identifiers.
Destroy biometric identifiers in a timely manner.
Securely store biometric identifiers.[6]
A key area of focus is that an entity must use a "reasonable standard of care"[7] in managing biometric information and identifiers.

free_bip• 2 months ago

If you actually read the full text of the law, it states:

" "Biometric identifier” means a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry. Biometric identifiers do not include writing samples, written signatures, photographs, human biological samples, [...] "

So if it's just pictures of faces, then it's okay. If, however, at any point in the pipeline the actual facial geometry is calculated or stored, that might be a violation.

inlined2• 2 months ago

So geo-gate it?

GrinningFool3• 2 months ago

Another case of really cool tech done badly.

Imagine a world in which you could use facial recognition, have an instant summary in front of you you reminding you of someone's birthday, the names of their kids ...

Then imagine that it wasn't tracked, recorded, saved, or tied into anything at all. Just a useful service, in service to only you.

Thanks Meta et al, for pushing forward with this broken (for people) model of business and ensuring we'll never be able to have that.

Terr_• 2 months ago

There's this degradation over the last ~30 years from "wow it's like a kind of capital-equipment anyone can own that'll empower them with agency and serve their own individual interests" to "you're renting this product from a supranational corporation so that it can exploit you".

The problem isn't that I'm being recorded by cameras everywhere, the problem is when those silos are broken down to create a panopticon.

Gooblebrai3• 2 months ago

have an instant summary in front of you you reminding you of someone's birthday, the names of their kids

"How much outsourcing of your mind do you want to give to technology?" "Yes"

If you really can't remember all the details of people that you want to remember, you can always write those details on your phone or trusty Rolodex after you meet them and then check them out before you meet them again if you must.

john_strinlai2• 2 months ago

If you really can't remember all the details of people that you want to remember, you can always write those details on your phone or trusty Rolodex after you meet them and then check them out before you meet them again if you must.

i do not see any practical difference between the hypothetical device the parent proposes and this, except that your suggestion is more cumbersome. you're just "outsourcing your mind" to paper or whatever.

(i will note that i agree with your general point. i try to make a concerted effort to remember those details, rather than rely on any type of note-taking)

Atheros• 2 months ago

Remembering someone's birthday and the names of their kids signals that you care about them. If Meta short circuits that then the signal evaporates.

reaperducer3• 2 months ago

Imagine a world in which you could use facial recognition, have an instant summary in front of you you reminding you of someone's birthday, the names of their kids ...

I already have that. It's called a memory. Came free with my brain.

recursive-call• 2 months ago

Which is great for you, but a lot of people genuinely don’t have the memory capabilities to remember the birthdays of various people. I literally forget how to spell my own name sometimes, keeping track of birthdays is out of the question. But people get really offended if their birthdays go by unnoticed…

plagiarist2• 2 months ago

I don't want superficial interactions with people pretending to remember my birthday or children using details from a fucking glasses summary.

If I wanted to chat with someone pretending to be interested in me I could just answer the door when salesmen come knocking.

GrinningFool3• 2 months ago

If I remember you have two hypothetical kids and one loves robotics and the other loves games; they are 9 and 11; but I can't remember their names no matter how many times I've asked (much to my increasing embarrassment), it doesn't mean I'm pretending to be interested.

In any case the point I was making was more about how the technology we are allowed is not in our service. This was just a use case where having a trustworthy service would be nice, but is impossible.

airstrike• 2 months ago

What a huge surprise coming from the company that records its own employees.

teeray• 2 months ago

I fail to see how nonstop recording of every interaction with people in everyday life will pass muster in a two-party consent state.

senordevnyc2• 2 months ago

My understanding is that those laws cover audio, not video.

morkalork• 2 months ago

Perhaps the laws should be modernized

ncr10012• 2 months ago

No, you must have signage posted that you are actively video recording. That's my understanding.

gherkinnn2• 2 months ago

Black Mirror was ahead of its time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You

wald3n• 2 months ago

Dystopian

altcognito• 2 months ago

If Zuck could ship a set of 1950 x-ray glasses, they would.

Never really grew up past middle school. I have dealt with high schoolers with better self control and moral compasses.

The rest of SV billionaire class is so abhorrent that you figure they either enjoy being the villains or they figure "it's ok if you get away with it." Sociopaths.

RobotToaster• 2 months ago

I wish something like this existed that was completely offline. I'm face blind (prosopagnosia) so being able to feed an offline database photos of friends so it can recognise them would be great.

Accessibility shouldn't require giving up privacy.

jjice• 2 months ago

Honestly, if any big tech would implement it this way, it's likely Apple. Their image face recognition in Photos currently is fully on device from what I understand and it is set by who you associate it with locally.

true_religion• 2 months ago

I’m not sure why they don’t do it this way already with the meta glasses.

Online comparison just adds latency.

polio• 2 months ago

Apple will create a comparable device; it'll just take them five more years to get the product experience down.

Gooblebrai3• 2 months ago

Sorry that you have to deal with this condition. What method do you use currently to help with recognising them?

joshred• 2 months ago

Usually you talk to them and then you remember who they are or where you know them from.

It's not like you can't tell your wife apart from your orthodontist.

caturopath2• 2 months ago

Like the poster, I'm faceblind. It isn't the worst thing: I'm not voice blind, height blind, age blind, hairstyle blind, gender blind, features associated with race and ethnicity blind, attractiveness blind, affect blind, context blind, etc., so I'm mostly good at figuring out who someone is. Within one encounter with a bunch of people, I try to note what someone is wearing.

Every once in a while I don't recognize someone and I go through this whole thing of bringing up every biographical detail about them I remember and all the things we've talked about to show that I'm not an asshole who wasn't paying attention in the past. Fortunately, I have a decent memory for such things.

ryandrake2• 2 months ago

I find myself asking this every time a new software product is released. "Nice, but why can't this be usable without an account and a tether to the developer's cloud?"

salawat• 2 months ago

And the answer is monetization. We can't just solve a problem. It has to have a business model built around it. No exceptions.

fennecbutt• 2 months ago

Late stage capitalism.

majiy2• 2 months ago

Literally my thoughts. That would be so helpful, but I will not give any data-hungy company access to people around me.

I recently heard the best way to explain faceblindness: Apples.

Can you tell apples apart? Yes, sure, if you put two apples next to each other, they look similar, but there are differences.

But could you recognize that specific apple among 50 similar ones?

If an apple addressed you on the street, could you remember where you've seen it before?

That is how it feels to be faceblind.

There are workarounds, but they are context-dependent and error-prone.

That apple with red hair and a beard? Sure, that's the colleague from the office next door. But was that the same apple that waved to you in the city yesterday?

The only green apple among red ones? Easy to recognize. But only after some awkward misunderstandings you realize that there are two of them.

And changes of hairstyle are a real problem. I once wondered who that new colleague was during lunchbreak. I was about to ask her, when she said something (unrelated) and I recognized her voice. I had worked with her for 10 years, she had colored her hair.

riffraff• 2 months ago

Thank you so much for sharing this, I had no idea this condition existed and you provided a perfect explanation.

malfist• 2 months ago

Thats exactly how I describe it. I recognize most people by their hair and voice, but its error prone. My other half, who I've been with for a decade and a half, put on a wig the other day and walked by me at a bar and the only thing I thought about was "that guy was good looking". He got a good laugh out of that.

eterm• 2 months ago

I'm saving this comment, thank you for a great explanation of what it is like.

I was in my late 20s when I realised I was "face-blind", but I should have realised a lot earlier, I remember reading in a book as a child about how "people can recognise a person by their face from a long distance, but find it difficult to recognise a voice", and I could not relate whatsoever to that passage.

I thought I regularly struggle to recognise someone until they start speaking, but it wasn't until a decade or two later that I read about prosopagnosia and then suddenly a lot of things made sense.

Your explanation is so much better than the rubbish illustrations of blanked or blurred faces, because it isn't like that at all, indeed sometimes I might rely on a detail about their face to recognise someone.

It's why face-blind isn't a great term either, because it's not a kind of blindness, I can see just as well as anyone, it just doesn't trip the automatic and instinctual recognition that I understand most people have.

sureglymop• 2 months ago

Probably quite feasible. Immich on my little raspberry pi is able to do facial recognition for 50k images over night.

cortesoft2• 2 months ago

This shouldn't be hard to do, facial recognition is pretty easy to run locally.

Stagnant• 2 months ago

What ever model digiKam is using for face detection seems to be very accurate in my experience. It is open source and works fully offline.

Andrex• 2 months ago

Meta has to release the hardware, then we can get started on alternate OSes.

It's a shame open source hardware isn't a thing in this area, but we've been here before. (Buying locked down devices and installing alt OSes.)

godelski• 2 months ago

All hardware is open if you're willing to open it up ;)

But reverse engineering isn't as easy as my snarky response implies. But I do think more of us should get into hardware hacking. It's the only way we have to fight back. I'm tired of this "own nothing" paradigm and being forced into whatever dumb thing they want is to do. And it's so dumb too. There's not many power users but there's a disproportionate amount of resources dedicated to fucking us over

jabedude• 2 months ago

Apple is the only company doing this sort of processing

e12e• 2 months ago

And Google?

slicktux• 2 months ago

It’s possible to make it offline but one would still need a phone for the object recognition software…that software would have to be what stays offline. Definitely doable.

dado3212• 2 months ago

Isn’t this offline? Where do you see that it’s online?

eska• 2 months ago

Does meta have any offline products? Their business model is to connect everything to the cloud (e.g. multiverse with ar glasses before)

gherkinnn2• 2 months ago

How do people around you react to your face blindness?

Do they consider not being remembered rude? Do you get incredulous reactions like people with aphantasia?

filup2• 2 months ago

I can't think of one single practical use case for this that would benefit my life, because, right behind the glasses I have my very own locally available facial recognition built in.

john_strinlai2• 2 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia

(not that i think meta is doing it for accessibility reasons...)

NewsaHackO2• 2 months ago

A lot of people are face blind (including me), and it's extremely embarrassing, especially when I'm supposed to remember a person's name. Wouldn't wear survialiance tech to try to fix it though.

filup2• 2 months ago

I didnt know this was a thing, how severe is it for you?

I have a similar thing with names when and I think it's just because my brain somehow decides that interaction meant nothing and the information was not important to save.

reaperducer3• 2 months ago

A lot of people are face blind

3.08%, according to https://hms.harvard.edu/news/how-common-face-blindness

sillyfluke• 1 month ago

3 in 100 is a lot, yet I have never met anyone in person who disclosed that they are face-blind. Your flock needs to break the stigma and mention it more if possible I guess.

toast0• 2 months ago

I'm great at recognizing faces, but I'm pretty bad at remembering who they are. If this was offline only and the UX was reasonable, I might consider asking people I know if I can take their picture so my glasses can help me remember who they are. Of course, that's a pretty awkward conversation, so there's always the strategy of half introductions, hoping the people you half introduced fully introduce themselves and then you remember who they are. :P

inlined2• 2 months ago

I’m not diagnosed face blind but I’m hoooooorble with names. It’s weird because I’ve been tested and score in the 98th percentile for memory generally.

I hung out with a large group of people for nearly a decade and couldn’t remember who was who until the pandemic. The names under zoom helped me gradually learn over weeks.

When I teach scuba I recite the list of student names for my class in as random an order as possible while I drive to the shop to lower my cognitive load to put faces to names. When I do roll call, I write down every person’s name and try to gradually move off the cheat sheet as I call on them to answer questions. But once they put on their gear (especially since I teach where they use hoods) it all goes downhill. Two white guys approximately 35yo? I’ll get them confused.

If this were socially appropriate I’d totally use it as my prescription glasses to help continue smoothing the curve.

hsbauauvhabzb• 2 months ago

I find writing or typing names helps a lot. There are also general tricks if you google it.

jemmyw• 2 months ago

I find it quite interesting the people on the thread mentioning face blindness or being bad at names and how it's embarrassing. I'm bad at names, really bad, but I've given up embarrassment about it. For one thing I can remember the names of some people and I've come to realize that being great at learning names is meaningless, I remember the names of people I really like... sorry others, we can't all click.

Secondly, put yourself in the opposite situation, do you really care if someone forgot your name? Does it even reflect how well you know someone? I had a friend at scouts when I was a kid and we were inseparable for a year. Never remembered his name. Didn't matter.

malauxyeux• 2 months ago

It's somewhat niche, but nursing homes would benefit from low-friction facial recognition of residents.

At least where I've worked, there's a constant churn of care staff — with some workers bridging a gap for only a single shift. Institutions currently offer a printed list with portrait, name, room number, and relevant pathologies for each resident. But it takes most people at least a few days to memorize the info. And some people are difficult to recognize from their intake photo.

OTOH, the tech would only need to match a handful of residents. And it would need to conform to privacy laws. So doing the match locally on the device would be a much better fit.

Bender2• 2 months ago

Do these emit something unique that could be detected so that loud klaxon could let everyone know there is a glasshole approaching? Some unique bluetooth identifier perhaps?

devmor2• 2 months ago

Yes actually. You can poll for nearby Bluetooth devices and cap the packets advertising the manufacturer.

Singletail• 2 months ago

Advertising packets only go out on startup and pairing, not during normal operation.

supermdguy• 2 months ago

Someone posted a tool that does this recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140042

Bender2• 2 months ago

Wow, no idea how I missed that thread. Thankyou.

wewewedxfgdf• 2 months ago

The company feels like the corporate embodiment of its founder.

joe_mamba3• 2 months ago

Unscrupulous guy who stole the idea from other guys in university, then used tribal nepotism to make sure his fabric of society destructive platform is the one who gets big-finance VC funding in order to destroy society to make money?

Pretty common pattern in the business racket if you look at history.

guelo• 2 months ago

What does tribal nepotism mean here?

Cider99863• 2 months ago

HN was positive on him at one point.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157445

I really applaud Zuckerberg for positively embracing all the attention that's been shouldered on him, really. I think stuff like this SNL skit or him taking his core team at Facebook to watch "The Social Network" together at a movie theatre just shows tremendous inner strength and maturity on his part. It's great to see him be able to laugh it off and joke about it.

He's come a long way in his public speaking skills too, he was pretty natural and comedic during his talk at Startup School. I think he's only going to get better from this point on too.

hnlmorg• 2 months ago

You say that like people shouldn’t be allowed to change their opinion of other people.

Forgeties794• 2 months ago

Yeah 15 years ago. We also thought Twitter was going to foster a positive social revolution, increase accountability, and topple autocracies. We saw how that turned out. Uber was once loved, Airbnb was once loved, we’ve seen it over and over again. HN isn’t exceptional here.

senderista• 2 months ago

Doesn't every company? Amazon is another example that immediately springs to mind.

NoImmatureAdHom• 2 months ago

Please God no

panzi• 2 months ago

How many ships does Meta have?

righthand• 2 months ago

Imagine being a POS that works for that company.

mrcwinn2• 2 months ago

Please hurry Apple.

kylehotchkiss• 2 months ago

_Frantically Tattoos "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" message under my eyes so I can lawsuit meta for ignoring my data privacy preferences_

rebolek• 2 months ago

By looking at my face you agree with EULA take explicitly says "don't look at my face"

Havoc• 2 months ago

Maybe Meta, Flock and Palatir could team up? Create an evil combo stock similar to musky's

tremon• 2 months ago

What makes you think they haven't already?

dmantis• 2 months ago

That's called NSA.

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Palantir already aggregates tech -- in my understanding this is their business. So I assume that idea is here now.

swader999• 2 months ago

I'd rather be face forgetting self than wear this nonsense.

Animats• 2 months ago

So why not turn it on?

At least in China, where face recognition is at building gates, subway gates, store checkouts...

threwrfaway3• 2 months ago

Start up idea:

Ordinary glass (as in spectacles) frames that have a near IR LED on the bridge and on the side. PWM to be efficient, bright, but erratic clock of around 10Hz.

Want a picture of me? Ask, or use film.

emsign2• 2 months ago

This. Projects like this already exist to blind surveillance cameras.

stebalien• 2 months ago

I expect cameras will start to come with built-in IR filters in that case.

threwrfaway3• 2 months ago

If it's near IR, bright and erratic, enough will get through and it will mess up with the auto gain.

King-Aaron• 2 months ago

To combat this I'll release a set of glasses with a high output CO2 laser on it

Starlevel004• 2 months ago

Luckily they don't come with a built-in fist filter.

404mm• 2 months ago

Surely there’s gotta be some narrow frequency band that disrupts it from working, right? I’m getting really tired of all the cameras and ALPRs around us.

alehlopeh• 2 months ago

Yeah they just need to route power from the shields.

xxs• 2 months ago

It will randomly turn the TV on/off and switch the channels as a funny bonus. Cool idea nontheless

threwrfaway3• 2 months ago

A capacitive switch is free.

1659447091• 2 months ago

Ordinary glass (as in spectacles) frames that have a near IR LED on the bridge and on the side.

Or use those 1550 nm LiDAR lasers that are safe for eyes but burn out cameras pointed at them

emsign2• 2 months ago

Absence of consent is abuse. Smashing your spy glasses is self-defense.

ChrisArchitect• 2 months ago

Title is: Meta's smart glasses app ships complete, dormant face-recognition pipeline

aanet4• 2 months ago

I'd like to wear an EXACT OPPOSITE of this...

Namely, if someone is using Facebook's AI-powered glasses in my vicinity, I want to get a notification (of some sort) so that I can avoid those persons

skizm• 2 months ago

What if these existed, but Facebook sold them?

aanet4• 2 months ago

You kid...or at least I think you do :-)

But I get your point

I'd run away from any FB-made devices

webdoodle• 2 months ago

Of course they would. They already know who you hate from constant doomscrolling and rage bait. They'll call it asshole avoidance, and charge a premium.

optymizer• 2 months ago

Nearby Glasses on Play Store does this

(not affiliated, I did a simple search before writing an app myself)

aanet4• 2 months ago

Ah thanks. I think that would be very valuable indeed.

Even more if there's an iOS version.

tjpnz• 2 months ago

Why should the onus be on me to avoid them? I don't want the default to be imagery of myself and family members hoovered up and exploited by an ad company (already made it clear to family that my kids pictures aren't to be shared on any Meta platform). I could even see some reacting violently should they be foisted upon unsuspecting members of the public. It's nothing like CCTV or videos recorded passively on a camera or smartphone which is generally accepted.

TiredOfLife2• 2 months ago

And I would like glasses that detect anti glasses wearers

wussboy• 2 months ago

Sorry, wrong comment

jazz9k• 2 months ago

How do these glasses communicate/upload info? Is it saved to the glassed itself? I wonder if there's a way to deauth them when they are near you.

idle_zealot• 2 months ago

How does HN feel about this as a general ethos:

- Computers can do as much work as they want to automatically, so long as none of it touches a network boundary.

- Any time a computer wants to touch the network it must be explicitly initiated by a human action. Sort of like how in browsers capturing the mouse or entering fullscreen mode requires a trusted user action and isn't something a page can do unilaterally, but broader. This also means that the extent of the network communication must be made explicit and clear with no chance of misunderstanding by the user. If what you're doing is genuinely complex beyond your ability to communicate to your target user then you shouldn't be doing it on the behalf of that user. Note that this only really applies to mass consumer products, not something built/deployed internally.

I feel like if a hard boundary is not set around this we will end up in a Panopticon. Set aside governments actively pushing for it, it seems a simple profit motive in a digital era yields this outcome. Maybe nuanced rules would produce better outcomes in theory, but humans don't seem great at sticking to nuanced and fiddly rules when there's strong incentive to bend them beyond recognition.

zaptheimpaler• 2 months ago

Yes that would be great. Right now, there are many applications that use pinned certificates to communicate to servers meaning there is literally no way to see the data your own device is sending/receiving from the internet. It's an insane thing that should be banned.

trumpdong• 2 months ago

There is one way, you can modify the app or the OS to change which certificate is pinned, ignore all certificate failures, lie about the certificate in use, log encryption keys, or not even ask the app whether it likes the certificate.

Not on iOS, of course.

warumdarum• 2 months ago

Anybody else or does it all feel desperate? Like "here set this bubble play money on fire before it gets worthless" desperate?

clickety_clack• 2 months ago

Creeper glasses.

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Yep, everyone from children to all the people attending Democratic rallies, identities and social network profiles siphoned up just by Meta smart glasses.

simonw• 2 months ago

When Google Glass first released back in 2012 I was running a conference technology startup, and since we had a database full of speaker and attendee profile photos the obvious thing we could build with Glass would be a "your glasses help you spot the people you are planning to meet in a crowded room" app.

The Google Glass developer terms strictly forbid building that, and it didn't take more than a few seconds of deeper thought to understand why.

bigbuppo• 2 months ago

Yeah, but Meta is the stalker that planted the bushes outside your house so they can have a place to hide while they're fapping as they're getting more data from you so they can... I mean, they don't know what they want to do with the data, but they have it. They also said they like the way you smell.

slim• 2 months ago

They now what to do with it. They sell it to gov

zdragnar• 2 months ago

And yet people with Google glasses were called the glassholes. What will we can people with Meta glasses?

outside1234• 2 months ago

Only because they couldn't figure out how to sell ads doing it tho

Findecanor• 2 months ago

Meta had taken its name from the virtual world "Metaverse" in Neal Stephenson 1992 novel Snow Crash. The novel is the earliest known use of that word, so if it wasn't directly then it was indirectly.

The book also describes "Gargoyles": people using headsets with cameras and sensors to spy on everyone around them for the "Central Intelligence Corporation" while being also simultaneously in the Metaverse.

Funny, how the gargoyles are described in the book in a somewhat derogatory manner, and the villain of the story is an billionaire who owns a large Internet corporation.

At least the gargoyles in the book got paid.

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Your last point is making me laugh, sardonically.

glitcher• 2 months ago

My mind immediately went to the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly! Is this where we’re headed?

jpalomaki• 2 months ago

Not sure if this is the future I want, but I've always thought the main idea of smart glasses is to automatically bring up information that is relevant in your current context. One part of this is to recognize who you are staring at.

dylan6042• 2 months ago

It worked well for the Terminator, so why shouldn't it work for us too? Being able to identify target/foe is of course how this will be used.

However, I'd be much more inclined for the Black Mirror use of being able to block someone literally not just a number in your phone.

rightbyte2• 2 months ago

I have some vague recollection of a sketch where the user walks around and gets popups and ads in his glasses and later removes them to discover there is a calm city life around him. Was that Black Mirror?

asdff• 2 months ago

ICE contract coming soon!

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Yep, there's a anime called I think it's the Eden of the East, which explores this as a key motivating technology in the story.

yalogin2• 2 months ago

This is terrible but inevitable for privacy. Meta is going to exploit this and hoard all the data all the while claiming they conform to all the laws of the land. I just wish this doesn’t take off but they are targeting sub $500 and it’s bound to get all the instagram influencers and heavy users to buy.

gspr2• 2 months ago

It is absolutely not inevitable. Please don't spread this defeatism. It is absolutely possible to ban the use of these things in public.

yalogin2• 2 months ago

I am not sure of that, may be in Europe, cannot see the U.S. banning. May be some states but highly skeptical there. Better chance of it flopping or doesn’t get to a good enough threshold to matter.

NuclearPM• 2 months ago

Thats a w’eird apostrophe

redbell• 2 months ago

IMHO, Meta is the prime example for privacy intrusion in tech history and with this new smart glasses device, they've leveled their game too far by recording people in their home, sometimes even naked, without their consent. This was already discussed here about a month ago: Meta in row after workers who saw smart glasses users having sex lose jobs (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47961838)

ToucanLoucan3• 2 months ago

It should be socially normalized to eject people wearing these from your premises and/or life.

I don’t care what convenience feature this possibly has, if you’re wearing a data miner you have no place near me. Fuck off.

thin_carapace2• 2 months ago

haha maybe you are down voted for the crass expression but I do agree with the sentiment - I never gave consent to be filmed in public, let alone for the express purpose of assisting zuckerbergs torture nexus (or for filling his minions' spank bank apparently). however I don't know of any precedent that considers physical violence as a valid response to being filmed without consent

clumsysmurf• 2 months ago

I had an appliance delivered from Home Depot, and after it was installed, the person mentioned he had Meta glasses on. I didn't realize the whole time he was wearing them in my home, because I didn't know what they looked like. I felt uneasy.

TiredOfLife2• 2 months ago

Amish communities exist. You are free to join them.

phyrex• 2 months ago

Those glasses don't record by themselves. Somebody pressed the button and deliberately recorded it.

peteyPete• 2 months ago

The more impactful and positive an invention is, the more harmful it can be in the wrong hands. Sadly, AI is being developed at break neck speeds and everyone is trying to extract something from it which also means the powerful will seek to increase their power through it.

Feels like we're juggling with ball sized nukes these days... So amazing... until someone eventually drops a ball.

li4ick• 2 months ago

Not the point of this article, but that schema design is quite bad.

neilv• 2 months ago

Ideas for what individuals can do about this and related awful tech:

1. Ask your local and state governments to completely ban "stalkerware" and "Big Tech surveillanceware" (like will use this and other face recognition), as well as ban using hidden cameras (including in these glasses) to photograph/video people.

2. Tell everyone, before their buy the glasses, what a "glasshole" is.

3. Social negative feedback to people who wear these. Tell your friends if they're being inconsiderate. Tell coworkers it's inappropriate in the workplace. Frown at strangers who do it. Tell apparent creepers to stop, and/or consider calling the police.

4. Social negative feedback to people who work at the companies pushing this tech. There's plenty of tech talent on the job market. Why consider someone who continued to work for one of the companies, in some cases after years of sociopathic abuses of society?

5. Be skeptical of influencers and astroturfing shills promoting the products.

Other ideas?

ncr10012• 2 months ago

As a programmer, I 100% support this.

I have the knowledge to compellingly argue, to legislators who do not have the knowledge, all these points.

mrcwinn2• 2 months ago

The shame of this is that even if you as a consumer choose not to buy them, others will. And while anyone can take a photo of you in public, you’ll have glasses taking pictures of you and transferring your identity and location to Meta servers (who by the way contract with the government).

petterroea• 2 months ago

Meta are making the glasses something you could be punched for wearing.

I live in a big city and I love it because i feel anonymous - nobody cares who I am. It's a stark contrast to where I grew up, where if you were out in public with someone unusual you could hear about it at school the next day.

I think the age of anonymity in public is getting to a close. First government mass surveillance and now private mass surveillance (which will surely be funneled into government surveillance over time)

bicepjai• 2 months ago

What can go wrong with :)

nerdyadventurer• 2 months ago

Heading towards surveillance economy, paid by our foolishness.

totetsu• 2 months ago

In case anyone missed it. Michel Foucault the face tested in this article talked about the mechanisms of surveillance and the Panopticon.

ncr10012• 2 months ago

Knowledge is power, I believe?

And Leadership is likely to be involved in saying what is "true" and what is "false", which are key elements of knowledge to be clear, in order to manage the strength of their own power.

thisisthenewme• 2 months ago

i feel like ai would be very beneficial here. use ai to create massive amount of fake facebook accounts with fake picture and fake friends. meta wants all the data so we give them more than they would ever care about. make it impossible for them to really know real from fake.

tarcon• 2 months ago

Using makeup and decoration to escape facial recognition: https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/article/48030/1/anti-sur...

kittikitti• 2 months ago

Thank you for sharing these insights. One of my main purchase factors was the facial recognition concerns. I now understand that this is very important and that they aren't disclosing everything. I cannot buy any of Meta's smart glasses and someone would likely break mine even if I did.

pj_mukh6• 2 months ago

Headline should be modded, these models aren't actively wired in anywhere. No idea why they'd be shipping these but the HN headline doesn't even match the blog headline.

iAMkenough2• 2 months ago

I think it’s accurate. Facial recognition has been shipped to devices, and is all wired up, just not exposed to the average user.

It’s on your device, you just haven’t been granted access to it.

pj_mukh6• 2 months ago

Author has the word "dormant" in the headline and HN doesn't. Critical word. Let's not just support headlines when they confirm our biases.

niemandhier• 2 months ago

That makes them illegal in Europe afaik.

comandillos• 2 months ago

Article fully written by AI.....

metalman• 2 months ago

comming full circle means there will be a facial smash feature where an AI can create a smashed face overlay on command,or even automaticly every time certain people are in view

aanet4• 1 month ago

Well, well, well... Guess what? Shaming FB seems to have worked (for now).

https://www.wired.com/story/meta-removes-face-recognition-co...

g8oz• 1 month ago

If and when this becomes a deployed feature it will absolutely be used by creepy men to dox and harass women they are interested in.

Meta's ships facial recognition on smart glasses

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