Is it just me or is this article fairly scattered and confusing?
First off I’ve never heard of these supposed “glass holes” before so either their hype failed or the title has mismatched expectations with the zeitgeist (“have arrived”). They proceed to show several tweets of people using them but don’t provide a polished critique of their own (at least not up front). It also felt like a more accurate description about what makes these different from Oculus headsets would have been nice.
I’ll admit to not having finished the article. It was just really poorly written in my opinion. Maybe someone else can point out what it is that makes it so seemingly unpolished and tabloid-like? I’m having trouble with it.
It was a pretty popular term for people who used Google Glass. This is because they recorded video footage in public wherever they went, in a way that initially didn't notify the people around them.
It's a pretty scummy move (and I say this as someone who loves Meta's VR products), and I don't think it really needs to be explained beyond how well it was explained in the article.
I'm of the age where I agree with it being weird and scummy but I can't help but believe that popular perception will eventually drift. There's kids today who've probably been recorded in some manner or another nearly 24/7 since birth. Everything from internet enabled baby monitors, Alexa/Google home, to nest/wyze home security cameras. What's one more on a person's head?
I'm fully aware of what "glassholes" are and theres still just isn't anything in this article. Just enough words to make it look like there's more here than five embedded social media posts.
You didn't have a camera on your face. Now you have a camera on your face. Theoretically, this is useful for people who want to take a photo/video of what they're looking at quickly and maybe hands-free.
Also seem to function as a different shape of bluetooth headset. (mic+ear-firing speakers)
Imo there are plenty of pov videos in yt when ppl wear a gopro on their head. Now it's enough to have a pair of glasses and not look weird when filming for light use. Just as an example: street photography YouTubers that share a day of their process of shooting
I mean the time to be upset about being recorded in public was before nearly every square inch of (populated) western civilization had a security camera pointed at it. You can go to pretty much any random place in any major US city and would be able to find a camera recording you. Until we agree to start tearing that all that down I'm not sure what the point of being upset about this is.
I live in Singapore, which probably has the most CCTV coverage of any country in the world. When I was younger, I would (and did) take issue with omnipresent government surveillance, but now I don't really care as much.
That being said, I feel that random gronks with cameras strapped to their faces filming everybody is totally different.
Glasshole video can (and does) go straight to social media where anyone can see it, not just a small group of government people who are (at least in theory) regulated, supervised and democratically accountable.
Arguably the horse has already bolted with smartphone cameras (a practice I also find distasteful). If I owned a cafe I'd probably ban both of them.
It doesn't make much sense that people can't be upset about one thing that they immediately encounter because they have to first be upset by another thing that operates in the background just because you'd prefer it that way. While I despise the ubiquity of security recording in all facets of modern life it is a far more present danger that the person in front of you with the camera will post a maybe-decontextualized version of your encounter on social media than the faceless organization that is rolling tape all day. If you understand the underlying problem is being recorded at all times in public I am not sure what you are confused about in people being upset that more people are doing it more blatantly.
FYI that is not entirely true. Public cameras aren't common or normal here in Switzerland and many surrounding countries. I know that because it's unusual enough that I instantly feel watched in ex. German cities where this is more common.
What you describe I've only really seen in Asia, Germany or really touristic squares in poorer countries in Europe.
People don’t care about public recording as much as they did at the time of the glass launch.
Are you joking? I'm way, way more freaked out about the surveillance state now than before? Meta has way more capability to track and target users, way more than ever before.
To be honest, I don't really see what's there to be outraged about.
(1) Don't v-loggers already walk around with a camera like in "first-person"?
(2) A Quest 3 headset is really obvious, so one can't be stealthy with it.
(3) Why should the cafe's address be blanked out?
The article also seems to assume that public Quest 3 users are attention-seeking, while I think they're just having fun using AR in public. I don't see why one should feel bad wearing a headset around.
I really hope tech gets so good in the future, camera will automatically generate a new high quality face in countries where it's prohibited to film someone so that gdpr/similar laws are unaffected. Maybe even include a dataset of known ppl/friends that agreed to be filmed so that their face will be unaltered
If meta adds a head automatically to everyone else you interact with that is wearing one such that you can not tell they aren’t also in VR, that would be awesome for party games.
Great idea lol. If they then also added some remote people and/or a few entirely imaginary people on top of that and you had to work out who was present/real at all, even better.
Phones do all that already, long time ago. Web tracking also that done by Verge is worse in terms of privacy damage than private people taking photos and videos.
The engineered click-baity outrage killer google glass - a curious fun product.
To put it bluntly journalists who push the “glasshole” narrative are attention-seeking parroting assholes.
28 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 82.4 ms ] threadFirst off I’ve never heard of these supposed “glass holes” before so either their hype failed or the title has mismatched expectations with the zeitgeist (“have arrived”). They proceed to show several tweets of people using them but don’t provide a polished critique of their own (at least not up front). It also felt like a more accurate description about what makes these different from Oculus headsets would have been nice.
I’ll admit to not having finished the article. It was just really poorly written in my opinion. Maybe someone else can point out what it is that makes it so seemingly unpolished and tabloid-like? I’m having trouble with it.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wnj7gw/how-glassholes-are-ha...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/rise-...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/19/google-gl...
https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23054367/google-ar-glasse...
It was a pretty popular term for people who used Google Glass. This is because they recorded video footage in public wherever they went, in a way that initially didn't notify the people around them.
It's a pretty scummy move (and I say this as someone who loves Meta's VR products), and I don't think it really needs to be explained beyond how well it was explained in the article.
Okay, so maybe 10k people.
Also seem to function as a different shape of bluetooth headset. (mic+ear-firing speakers)
That's the issue.
That being said, I feel that random gronks with cameras strapped to their faces filming everybody is totally different.
Glasshole video can (and does) go straight to social media where anyone can see it, not just a small group of government people who are (at least in theory) regulated, supervised and democratically accountable.
Arguably the horse has already bolted with smartphone cameras (a practice I also find distasteful). If I owned a cafe I'd probably ban both of them.
What you describe I've only really seen in Asia, Germany or really touristic squares in poorer countries in Europe.
The ubiquity of the smartphone camera and the public revelations about government surveillance did much to normalize recording in public.
It would be nice to establish norms and laws around anonymization of facial recordings and the need to auto-blur.
But I wouldn’t count on public outrage to hold the line on recording. I don’t anticipate the degree of public backlash we saw with glass.
Are you joking? I'm way, way more freaked out about the surveillance state now than before? Meta has way more capability to track and target users, way more than ever before.
That matters for thinking about what products will receive public push-back.
If someone wasn’t recording, the paranoia is much smaller.
(1) Don't v-loggers already walk around with a camera like in "first-person"?
(2) A Quest 3 headset is really obvious, so one can't be stealthy with it.
(3) Why should the cafe's address be blanked out?
The article also seems to assume that public Quest 3 users are attention-seeking, while I think they're just having fun using AR in public. I don't see why one should feel bad wearing a headset around.
The engineered click-baity outrage killer google glass - a curious fun product.
To put it bluntly journalists who push the “glasshole” narrative are attention-seeking parroting assholes.