This is such a pedestrian take. If you don't want HYPER-REALITY to predicted the future you don't have to.
The same people who say don't buy AR glasses because they will turn your whole world into the internet, are the same people MAKING that happen.
You don't want your phone to be out all the time? Build the infostructure for labeling priority notifications, and allowing them permanent access to your field of vision also allows you to hide the phone and low priority communications almost all the time.
Email used to be really disruptive to my focus, everyone expected fast response. Slack didn't just add to our disruptions, for many of us it allowed us to drastically scale back the time spent on lower priority communication like email.
I feel like you could retroactively apply this line of argumentation to smartphones: "don't buy a smartphone"
But the truth is, there's too much utility in technology. If AR can do useful things that smartphones cannot, we're going to end up with mass proliferation of AR, regardless of what parasitic technologies accompany it.
Smartphones started in a very different time. Our point of reference were PCs and laptops, where we were the owner and could do pretty much anything we want. They took a lot of that away with smartphones, but because smartphones started in the in-between times, they (at least Android) still have side-loading, the possibility of installing browsers with ad blockers, heck even the source code in the form of AOSP, etc.
You can be sure that almost twenty years later, they will use a new device type as an excuse to lock things further down. Remote attestation, no side-loading, no or little browser competition, etc. This has kind of already happened with smart watches, where there is no AOSP-equivalent, virtually no models with unlockable bootloaders, etc.
AR glasses will be the next venue to further trample on your rights. The difference compared to smart watches is that they could potentially replace smartphones.
All this is without taking into account the grave privacy violation AR glasses are to other people. Yes, phones can also make photos and film, but it is much more visible.
Luckily, at least where I live, most people find AR glasses creepy and there is a majority of parliament that wants to ban them (though the government is kinda weak as usual).
> You're right, we should stop innovating entirely, because bad people and slippery slope fallacies exist in the world.
There are plenty of areas where innovating would help people tremendously, with much fewer slippery slopes. Just because people ask you to be mindful of the areas where abuse is already the default use case doesn't mean there's nothing you can do.
It sounds like you already understand what technological innovation is, and that failure of a country to govern its own people effectively has nothing to do with that... so I'm not sure where the misunderstanding is.
We need not stop innovation entirely, of course. But tech should not be in the driver's seat. Tech for tech's sake, and the maximised profits. To ensure that technology is better aligned to the interests of people a helluva lot more and better regulation is in order imho. There are obvious useful aspects to many new technologies, but it is also in a balance to all the negative externalities. Unfortunately the latter are more long-term consequences and the former are more on the short-term gains. There are obvious dystopian tendencies to all the stuff we are inventing now, and somewhere we should call a halt to that, before there is no easy return.
The main problem with smartphones is not that they started at an "in-between" time, but that they started in an "in-between" place as a hybrid of a PDA and a traditional cell phone. Cell phones tended to be very closed in large part due to the influence of traditional phone companies, which wanted control over every device plugged into the phone network, and smartphones inherited some of that.
Unfortunately, new devices tend to inherit from smartphones instead of desktop computers; even VR devices like the Steam Frame are clearly based on smartphone hardware, even though it doesn't have (for now) a cell phone modem.
Currently AR headsets are all just mobile platforms with exotic UX. If they could lock down AR glasses why wouldn't they do it with smartphones?
If anything the current set of HMDs are more capable and open than the average phone. What's special about the headsets that make them easier to lock down?
Some of us still do the majority of computing on traditional PCs, a market which remains healthy despite the growth of alternatives, and use "dumb" doorbells, lightbulbs, and freezers.
And given the recent flood of security and privacy problems with smart devices, it's not inconceivable that the tide will turn against locked-down, always-connected devices in the not-so-distant future.
Maybe it is time to reconsider buying a smartphone. Just speaking for myself, I'm tired of how easy it is to get distracted by technology nowadays (I wrote a bit about this on my blog[1]). Plus, we're seeing various (albeit small) movements towards dumb phones and phone bricking. Hyper-mobile, general-purpose tech like smartphones/AR is a recipe for distraction. The value of it is real, but at a certain point it just becomes a way to avoid having any moment of quiet contemplation.
Smartphones seem like critical infrastructure to people that spend a lot of time on their phone. This is less an indication of utility than how inured someone has become to the ridiculous bullshit that smartphones have become.
Well, where are those useful things? Google Glass was 13 years ago, today's devices don't do much different, and neither has convinced anyone outside of enthusiasts to walk around with one strapped to their face all day.
To be ancedotal, I have never in my life seen anyone anywhere using these devices even one time. By no means does this feel like a technology that is "coming"
I totally would go without a smartphone for what it's worth, the negative impact on my life far outweighs the positive in my opinion. Annoyingly, society has been set up to exclude people without smartphones at this point so they're necessary.
A decent compromise I've tried is an e-ink phone, not a dumbphone or a minimal phone but an actual Android smartphone with an e-ink screen.
>All this leads me to ask, what actual incentive (aside from short term conveniences) would I have to buy an AR device?
There was a time, at least for myself and a lot of people in the AR wave, where we were trying to make computing integrated into everyday life such that they kind of disappear.
The idea was that genuinely we could have “spatial” computing where there really was very little difference between the digital and the physical because we could build a digital twin of the real world
The only way you can do this reliably is to have a constant stream of data from fixed and egocentric sensors which have context about the world around you to give you more information to make your life easier and more integrated.
This was in a time where we were the surveillance web was just starting to really ramp up around the 2010s
Of course, the massive government corporate surveillance state dashed any hopes of being able to do any of this with human dignity.
We did used to dream of a better world, not naiively I and others have been writing about the risks and dangers of all these things while still pushing them forward.
Short of an overhaul of human society, I don’t see the kind of technological future that we all wanted happening
I still use my xreal glasses from time to time but the social ecosystem doesn’t exist to actually make progress. Maybe in another half century
How many wearing those will be unwittingly participating in yet another (Niantic) Pokemon Go AI mapping experiment?
Niantic Spatial mapped over 30 billion real-world images and street scans from millions of players visiting public parks, sidewalks, murals, statues, and general urban landmarks featuring over 1 million distinct mapped locations including many government and military installations.
My favorite purchase of 2026 was my pair of Xreal One Pro glasses, which I use as an external display while traveling or on the couch at home. These are not AR glasses; the category doesn’t yet have a well known, accurate, catchy name (Screen-in glasses? Facially mounted display? Spatial glasses?)
I agree with the article that AR glasses are not a great future, but I think [ e-display eyewear / screen spectacles / whatever we call them ] that are dumb and just display what you feed them, are great!
My fear is that as usual if they become popular, they’ll just be yet another device used for more invasion of privacy and spying. They won’t stay dumb for long. There will be mandatory apps, phoning home, the works. Look what happened with TVs lol
Display glasses are the term I hear most frequently; as evidence you're the only one using that term but display glasses has already been used by others in this thread.
Displays in a helmet aren't "display glasses" because they're not glasses.
Display glasses are a subset of HMD's, a more specific term. The "display" part of it implies that they're monitor replacements -- both in their interface (DisplayPort alt-mode) and an FOV suitable for monitor replacement.
Finally, being a monitor replacement implies a mostly-2D view, in contrast to XR/VR/AR which implies 3D.
I have the Viture Pro which is similar, but the trouble I've always had with display glasses like that is that having the display fixed to the center of your field of view feels very unnatural. They have all the sensors to support 3DoF tracking, but you need some (usually proprietary) software on the host device to enable that.
Still, if support for that becomes more standardized and the FoV gets better, I do think this category of displays is pretty exciting. I've found them useful despite those drawbacks!
That's one big advantage of the XReal's. They can pin to an external point without external software, and they have a "follow" mode which is pinned to a specific location on your field of view (which may or may not be the center) but with damping so that it's much more fluid. It works very well.
The Xreal one pro indeed seems to be AR glasses (their marketing page says "AR for all"), compared to something like the Xreal air which is more of a screen-in glasses.
All I want from smart glasses is the possibility to get notifications above my field-of-vision instead of below. Not having to constantly look down at my phone would do wonders for my posture. No camera, no microphone, no XR - just a line or two of text.
They are good for gaming and movies. Not too great to read text though. You can use them to work (read/write code), but it’s not a great experience imho. The resolution isn’t good enough to feel that I want to work with them.
Best steam deck experience I’ve ever had though. Sekiro and Elden Ring with a giant virtual display is fantastic
I find them awesome for reading text, but I generally plug them into my phone, It's usually displaying much larger fonts than you'd use on a computer.
As a rule of thumb, you probably want a font size similar to what you'd use on a 12 or 14 inch screen. People code quite well on 12 - 14 inch displays but it's not the advertised "57 inch screen equivalent" if you're displaying text.
I paid $600; it's a little steep but I use them plenty to justify it (probably wear them 3-4 hours a week on average).
Yes, there are prescription inserts that you get with the glasses.
I only use one setting, and it isn't ultra-wide screen or anything.
Visually the text is worse than looking at text on a laptop screen (or any other screen); the advantage is in the neck. It's so much better not having to look down.
- do you use these in 'ultrawide' mode (3840x1080)?
- if so, do you find the head tracking works well (i.e. it just works)?
- do you notice the lack of vertical resolution?
(I don't own a pair of these or similar, and like the idea. But a portable monitor gives me a second screen in addition to my MBP. AIUI the glasses would mean I would no longer be able to see my MBP screen, so the glasses would be a substitute, not a complement.)
I guess it depends on your view of what portable is. Lugging around a tablet size thing seems a bit odd when glasses solve both in one device. My aim is one pair of glasses that have enough grunt to run Linux on the device. Most likely candidate is Meta VR glasses right now but perhaps Apple might do something late in 2027 (I hope)
I bought a pair of Xreal XBX a01+, and they are unbearably bad. It is impossible for me to see the virtual screen fully sharp at any given time. I can see part of the screen sharp with an eye closed.
I do not wear prescription glasses, I have used VR glasses and do FPV drone on regular basis. So it is not just me.
I would strongly advice against buying such a product without trying them first! Because at this moment it clearly does not seem to be suitable for everyone.
I have an earlier device from this category ("Viture Pro XR") and find them very handy.
These little wearable dumb displays can be a great alternative to lugging around a laptop. The only problem right now is that the software ecosystem on smartphones is decidedly half baked. Desktop mode on the Pixel series is OK, but it's still janky and a lot of apps don't scale correctly.
definitely I'm looking forward to Meta VR glasses because they will let me do what I'm doing right now on A Vision Pro. Typing this using a VM running Debian 13. I'm running a Picobot agent and chatting with it about Neuromancer. I can do this because I run Anjin Virtual Computer. There are two software issues in VR, breadth and depth. Running Linux at least gives a lot more software. In time people will fill in the deep experiences that full 3D UX needs but for now its been helpful to run mobile apps and other OS's. On Quest and GXR I can run Windows XP.
Am I really the only one who opened the website saw the video first before reading anything and ended up wanting that those glasses exist as shown in that video?
Same. I watched the video years ago and it's always stuck with me as something I would want. Not the ads of course, but an enhanced "UI" for the real world. The video is exceptionally well done.
That video is a piece of art. I actually love the "Clear the area" animation on the street, the red arrow plowing through before the traffic and the virtual fences on the sidewalk. But we will probably get the ads and the shittification before that.
This author understands neither AR technology, nor consumer electronics.
The idea of always on 6 dof tracked advertisements that show up all the time is a bad product that consumers would not buy. The battery would not last long, it would be annoying to use compared to other devices, and it would struggle to deliver value.
The author writes as if web browsers, Windows, Android, and iOS have ads built into them popping them up randomly when that is nowhere near the case.
The law of ad entropy in technology states that over time, ad coverage always increases. First in the applications hosted on the platform, and then eventually the platform itself will just start serving ads. At the heat death of technology, all platforms will be completely covered in ads, leaving no more more energy for useful work.
See: the web itself, search engines, app stores, desktop search, operating systems from desktop to mobile to TV... the list is endless and the trend is relentless. It already started with AI, now injecting ads directly into chats.
So I think it's not a stretch to predict AR platforms will be the same and the ads will be in your eyeballs. It doesn't really matter that these anti-features will cause the product to be worse for users if it makes the platform more profitable for owners.
I can also guarantee with complete certainty that any sort of "neural implant" technology will one day be serving ads directly into your brain.
This ignores capitalism, which in the limit trends toward mon/duopoloies, regulatory capture, cartels, and cronyism. In the long term, the firms that survive are the ones that capture their customer base and abuse them the most, not the ones who offer the best products.
I’d go for this type of eyewear solely for the convenience of adjusting my Rx without the annoying annual visits. But there is no chatter about this, everyone concerned about cameras and some sort of contextual reality. Which is fine, just saying…
How would this... work? The shape of the glass lens is what focuses the light onto your retina correctly. I don't think you could adjust your prescription via software, but I would love to learn otherwise.
"I disagree with this" is not an identifier of clickbait, anymore than your whinge about "pointless rants" (as if this is the first blog you've ever encountered in your life) notwithstanding.
But hey, at least you got that sweet X-clapback in without saying a single insightful or vaguely responsive thing. So there's that to be proud of.
Scrolled down to find the Bluesky/Mastodon links, found them both.
Do these people think that you can stop a technology be telling people to not use it?
"Do not buy books from Amazon, go to a library". "Do not use Google Maps, paper maps are perfectly fine". "Do not have Slack on your phone, your boss does not need to be able to message you off-hours".
"Do not use LLMs, they are just bad".
Is this just plain virtue signaling? Can't imagine anyone thinks telling people to not use AR/AI will actually work.
Counterpoint: I am looking forward to the opportunity to get fully open source, open hardware AR glasses. I anticipate that it will happen as first Meta and Google and big Chinese firms spend the R&D to create the hardware to make it possible, then Chinese knock-offs and discount brands appear, and then someone will start selling a pair through CrowdSupply which are truly open source.
At that point I will be able to have the fun of AR (gaming with paper toys or other papercrafts, displaying characters on a table for my tabletop RPG group, getting directions in a foreign city, identifying plants and insects just by looking at them, seeing where my cats are located through walls via their airtag collars) without any ads, without any data harvesting nor privacy concerns, and even being able to write my own custom apps or firmware mods. It will still be a toy rather than a necessary part of life like a smartphone has become but a fun toy nonetheless.
Countercounterpoint: by participating in this ecosystem which is ad-subsidized, you legitimize it via network effects, contributing to a shittier world for all, even if you yourself block the ads. I don't want the be the target of someone else's AR glasses, and I shouldn't have to give up being in public to accomplish that.
The research and industrial pipeline would be ad-subsidized, in Schlagbohrer's account, because it starts with Meta/Alphabet/etc proving the market and establishing demand for microdisplays (and other components). This gives the knock-off market a target to optimize until the components are cheap enough that some small business sets up an open hardware glasses kit on crowdsupply for Schlagbohrer to buy.
For myself, my smart glasses use case involves darkening headlights of oncoming traffic as I drive at night. The road curves a bit in parts of the city I live in, and the headlights shine in my eyes. It's not worth 5,000$ but car insurance also feels expensive until I need it.
I agree the FOSS parts are fine. The problem is that there are reasons you have to carry a cell phone, and there are not FOSS alternatives for those things.
Patching binaries of such mandatory garbage is a nice idea though!
This could solve the main problem I had with graphene in the past, which is that some applications I had to use (like for parking or charging a car or whatever) crashed on startup with a Null Pointer Exception, and the set of broken apps changed from week to week.
I imagine binary patching could be used to bypass hardware attestation checks too (you'd need to extract the key from the enclave, but that's usually pretty trivial, depending on the phone model). None of the apps I used required that.
GrapheneOS and iPhones are generally more secure and therefore private than desktop OSes. The idea that phones are inherently worse for privacy is wrong. You can use them in airplane mode to avoid sharing your location with carriers.
The apps you use, sure, those are also optional, but using those same apps on a desktop would give them even more information about you and more power over your system.
>> The idea that phones are inherently worse for privacy is wrong.
Phones will always be worse for privacy. They are festooned with microphones, cameras and a variety of radios. The PC I am using to type this doesn't have any of those things.
My desktop computer does not follow me around everywhere. I can be assured I am not being tracked by it by not being in the same location. If I have to leave my phone behind in order to ensure I am not being surveilled, then it begs the question: why do i need a phone in the first place?
Your phone also still collects a record of your GPS data, and that history gets transmitted back the moment you have a connection. Your phone can also still be tracked via bluetooth while in airplane mode. That's also how "find my device" works when your phone in airplane mode. WiFi data can also be collected while in airplane mode.
Airplane mode is basically a lie. It's prevents the transmission of certain specific signals from your device, but that's about it.
Why stop there? Stream the camera to a CNN and black out all the ads in real time you'd other wise be forced to see walking down the street or in the subway.
C'mon man. AR glasses and phones can be used the exact same way.
I'd rather read articles on an AR display than a little 6.6 inch screen.
If you don't want ads, the solution is running open source OS's on these things (which is the most likely outcome for people here anyway), not avoiding the hardware entirely.
Im waiting for prices to come down but having experienced AR glasses before, they're a great compromise between VR (too sweaty) and having to use either a larger laptop/ipad.
I wouldn't buy AR glasses, but also feel powerless to prevent myself from being in the reticule of those who do. When you think about what LLMs and facial recognition allow, we're entering a new conception of the public sphere and personal space/human dignity. I think it goes beyond the traditional notion of "privacy" or "public spaces" and closer to questions about moral rights over your likeness and aggregated personal information.
For instance, what if they invented "X-Ray Spex" like there used to be advertised in the back of comic books, that let you see through people's clothes. Do you have an "expectation of privacy" on a subway train against someone seeing you nude, if the technology exists to do it? I feel like similar cultural standards should apply when it comes to triangulating details about your identity from surreptitious recording devices.
Social norms around public space can change over long periods of time. But, to me, AR glasses appear to be a bridge too far. They're so baldly voyeuristic, even if you don't understand the technical details.
> we're entering a new conception of the public sphere and personal space/human dignity
I think the Bay Area is entering a new conception of yada yada yada. I think some folks who live here don't realize the sheer strength and scale of the reality distortion field. That which is cool in the Bay is frequently very, very uncool elsewhere.
AR glasses, both in purpose and aesthetics, are inextricable from the attitudes and politics of SV. Public opinion of SV has tanked since 2023 in a way I've never seen before.
I guess what I'm saying is this: Remember the jabra headset dorks from the 2000s? We made fun of them for being dorks. We're going to make fun of AR glasses people for being voyeurs, fascists and ICE accomplices. The social pressure against these things will be immense.
> Pop-up windows were a plague in the 90s and early 2000s, and remained that way until browsers started blocking them by default.
And they've come roaring back, on the wake of the well intended but arguably misguided GDPR specification about cookie notifications. It's now common to see popups on many sites in the exact same style.
Popups are such terrible UX that it forced websites to mostly abandon them, but once people were used to them for another reason, ads were quick to follow. They are usually an ad from the site itself rather than a 3rd party, but that hardly matters.
Even the cookie notifications are rife with dark patterns, making it difficult to get to the option with minimal necessary cookies.
Also, if you're walking down the street in headgear capable of always-on video capture and face recognition, don't be surprised if people knock (it) off your head.
133 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 68.4 ms ] threadThe same people who say don't buy AR glasses because they will turn your whole world into the internet, are the same people MAKING that happen.
You don't want your phone to be out all the time? Build the infostructure for labeling priority notifications, and allowing them permanent access to your field of vision also allows you to hide the phone and low priority communications almost all the time.
Email used to be really disruptive to my focus, everyone expected fast response. Slack didn't just add to our disruptions, for many of us it allowed us to drastically scale back the time spent on lower priority communication like email.
But the truth is, there's too much utility in technology. If AR can do useful things that smartphones cannot, we're going to end up with mass proliferation of AR, regardless of what parasitic technologies accompany it.
You can be sure that almost twenty years later, they will use a new device type as an excuse to lock things further down. Remote attestation, no side-loading, no or little browser competition, etc. This has kind of already happened with smart watches, where there is no AOSP-equivalent, virtually no models with unlockable bootloaders, etc.
AR glasses will be the next venue to further trample on your rights. The difference compared to smart watches is that they could potentially replace smartphones.
All this is without taking into account the grave privacy violation AR glasses are to other people. Yes, phones can also make photos and film, but it is much more visible.
Luckily, at least where I live, most people find AR glasses creepy and there is a majority of parliament that wants to ban them (though the government is kinda weak as usual).
...sorry but that ain't happening.
There are plenty of areas where innovating would help people tremendously, with much fewer slippery slopes. Just because people ask you to be mindful of the areas where abuse is already the default use case doesn't mean there's nothing you can do.
Sorry state of things indeed.
Innovate what, exactly? The demise of democracy? Authoritarian rule? Technology innovation ain't societal progress, and we should aim for the latter.
Unfortunately, new devices tend to inherit from smartphones instead of desktop computers; even VR devices like the Steam Frame are clearly based on smartphone hardware, even though it doesn't have (for now) a cell phone modem.
If anything the current set of HMDs are more capable and open than the average phone. What's special about the headsets that make them easier to lock down?
And given the recent flood of security and privacy problems with smart devices, it's not inconceivable that the tide will turn against locked-down, always-connected devices in the not-so-distant future.
[1] https://bdvorak.com/blog/tech-is-disrespectful/
To be ancedotal, I have never in my life seen anyone anywhere using these devices even one time. By no means does this feel like a technology that is "coming"
A decent compromise I've tried is an e-ink phone, not a dumbphone or a minimal phone but an actual Android smartphone with an e-ink screen.
There was a time, at least for myself and a lot of people in the AR wave, where we were trying to make computing integrated into everyday life such that they kind of disappear.
The idea was that genuinely we could have “spatial” computing where there really was very little difference between the digital and the physical because we could build a digital twin of the real world
The only way you can do this reliably is to have a constant stream of data from fixed and egocentric sensors which have context about the world around you to give you more information to make your life easier and more integrated.
This was in a time where we were the surveillance web was just starting to really ramp up around the 2010s
Of course, the massive government corporate surveillance state dashed any hopes of being able to do any of this with human dignity.
We did used to dream of a better world, not naiively I and others have been writing about the risks and dangers of all these things while still pushing them forward.
Short of an overhaul of human society, I don’t see the kind of technological future that we all wanted happening
I still use my xreal glasses from time to time but the social ecosystem doesn’t exist to actually make progress. Maybe in another half century
Niantic Spatial mapped over 30 billion real-world images and street scans from millions of players visiting public parks, sidewalks, murals, statues, and general urban landmarks featuring over 1 million distinct mapped locations including many government and military installations.
I agree with the article that AR glasses are not a great future, but I think [ e-display eyewear / screen spectacles / whatever we call them ] that are dumb and just display what you feed them, are great!
Display glasses are a subset of HMD's, a more specific term. The "display" part of it implies that they're monitor replacements -- both in their interface (DisplayPort alt-mode) and an FOV suitable for monitor replacement.
Finally, being a monitor replacement implies a mostly-2D view, in contrast to XR/VR/AR which implies 3D.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=display+glass&ti...
Still, if support for that becomes more standardized and the FoV gets better, I do think this category of displays is pretty exciting. I've found them useful despite those drawbacks!
How much did you pay - what do you think about the price?
Do you use prescription glasses?
Uses - HDR high res video (4k/8k big screen equivalent)?
Design? Color accuracy?
Programming/writing and reading - precieved dpi and contrast? (Print, eink, retina, OLED, 1080p lcd?
I don't need all of the best from the above - but would like to know...
Best steam deck experience I’ve ever had though. Sekiro and Elden Ring with a giant virtual display is fantastic
As a rule of thumb, you probably want a font size similar to what you'd use on a 12 or 14 inch screen. People code quite well on 12 - 14 inch displays but it's not the advertised "57 inch screen equivalent" if you're displaying text.
Yes, there are prescription inserts that you get with the glasses.
I only use one setting, and it isn't ultra-wide screen or anything.
Visually the text is worse than looking at text on a laptop screen (or any other screen); the advantage is in the neck. It's so much better not having to look down.
- do you use these in 'ultrawide' mode (3840x1080)?
- if so, do you find the head tracking works well (i.e. it just works)?
- do you notice the lack of vertical resolution?
(I don't own a pair of these or similar, and like the idea. But a portable monitor gives me a second screen in addition to my MBP. AIUI the glasses would mean I would no longer be able to see my MBP screen, so the glasses would be a substitute, not a complement.)
I do not wear prescription glasses, I have used VR glasses and do FPV drone on regular basis. So it is not just me.
I would strongly advice against buying such a product without trying them first! Because at this moment it clearly does not seem to be suitable for everyone.
These little wearable dumb displays can be a great alternative to lugging around a laptop. The only problem right now is that the software ecosystem on smartphones is decidedly half baked. Desktop mode on the Pixel series is OK, but it's still janky and a lot of apps don't scale correctly.
The idea of always on 6 dof tracked advertisements that show up all the time is a bad product that consumers would not buy. The battery would not last long, it would be annoying to use compared to other devices, and it would struggle to deliver value.
The author writes as if web browsers, Windows, Android, and iOS have ads built into them popping them up randomly when that is nowhere near the case.
See: the web itself, search engines, app stores, desktop search, operating systems from desktop to mobile to TV... the list is endless and the trend is relentless. It already started with AI, now injecting ads directly into chats.
So I think it's not a stretch to predict AR platforms will be the same and the ads will be in your eyeballs. It doesn't really matter that these anti-features will cause the product to be worse for users if it makes the platform more profitable for owners.
I can also guarantee with complete certainty that any sort of "neural implant" technology will one day be serving ads directly into your brain.
They even say "if it becomes mainstream" and then argue as if it has. Total clickbait
But hey, at least you got that sweet X-clapback in without saying a single insightful or vaguely responsive thing. So there's that to be proud of.
Do these people think that you can stop a technology be telling people to not use it?
"Do not buy books from Amazon, go to a library". "Do not use Google Maps, paper maps are perfectly fine". "Do not have Slack on your phone, your boss does not need to be able to message you off-hours".
"Do not use LLMs, they are just bad".
Is this just plain virtue signaling? Can't imagine anyone thinks telling people to not use AR/AI will actually work.
At that point I will be able to have the fun of AR (gaming with paper toys or other papercrafts, displaying characters on a table for my tabletop RPG group, getting directions in a foreign city, identifying plants and insects just by looking at them, seeing where my cats are located through walls via their airtag collars) without any ads, without any data harvesting nor privacy concerns, and even being able to write my own custom apps or firmware mods. It will still be a toy rather than a necessary part of life like a smartphone has become but a fun toy nonetheless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
For myself, my smart glasses use case involves darkening headlights of oncoming traffic as I drive at night. The road curves a bit in parts of the city I live in, and the headlights shine in my eyes. It's not worth 5,000$ but car insurance also feels expensive until I need it.
Meta Ray-Ban - already hacked by p0pcycle
Rokid Glasses - rooted firmware https://github.com/jaskier-os/client-glasses
Google Glass Explorer Edition - officially supported root access
Even then, look at Android. Graphene and similar are pretty good base operating systems, but almost the entire app ecosystem is corporate spyware.
this is very true, but it also has a huge FOSS app ecosystem and highly polished FOSS apps.
I've recently been having Codex patch closed source apps making them work offline and greatly reducing their permissions and it works really well.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.getatoms.a...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hybridcali...
Patching binaries of such mandatory garbage is a nice idea though!
This could solve the main problem I had with graphene in the past, which is that some applications I had to use (like for parking or charging a car or whatever) crashed on startup with a Null Pointer Exception, and the set of broken apps changed from week to week.
I imagine binary patching could be used to bypass hardware attestation checks too (you'd need to extract the key from the enclave, but that's usually pretty trivial, depending on the phone model). None of the apps I used required that.
The apps you use, sure, those are also optional, but using those same apps on a desktop would give them even more information about you and more power over your system.
Phones will always be worse for privacy. They are festooned with microphones, cameras and a variety of radios. The PC I am using to type this doesn't have any of those things.
You can't. "Airplane mode" doesn't actually shut down everything. Carriers can still track your phone. https://undercodetesting.com/how-your-phone-tracks-you-even-...
Your phone also still collects a record of your GPS data, and that history gets transmitted back the moment you have a connection. Your phone can also still be tracked via bluetooth while in airplane mode. That's also how "find my device" works when your phone in airplane mode. WiFi data can also be collected while in airplane mode.
Airplane mode is basically a lie. It's prevents the transmission of certain specific signals from your device, but that's about it.
Which model?
It's there any infra for it? As in downloading face data from Facebook and the like.
Why stop there? Stream the camera to a CNN and black out all the ads in real time you'd other wise be forced to see walking down the street or in the subway.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor)
Except for those of everyone else around you
I'd welcome AR glasses - it would mean looking at my phone less. The contextual information and HUDs are a net gain.
I'd rather read articles on an AR display than a little 6.6 inch screen.
If you don't want ads, the solution is running open source OS's on these things (which is the most likely outcome for people here anyway), not avoiding the hardware entirely.
Im waiting for prices to come down but having experienced AR glasses before, they're a great compromise between VR (too sweaty) and having to use either a larger laptop/ipad.
For instance, what if they invented "X-Ray Spex" like there used to be advertised in the back of comic books, that let you see through people's clothes. Do you have an "expectation of privacy" on a subway train against someone seeing you nude, if the technology exists to do it? I feel like similar cultural standards should apply when it comes to triangulating details about your identity from surreptitious recording devices.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray#Concerns
> we're entering a new conception of the public sphere and personal space/human dignity
I think the Bay Area is entering a new conception of yada yada yada. I think some folks who live here don't realize the sheer strength and scale of the reality distortion field. That which is cool in the Bay is frequently very, very uncool elsewhere.
AR glasses, both in purpose and aesthetics, are inextricable from the attitudes and politics of SV. Public opinion of SV has tanked since 2023 in a way I've never seen before.
I guess what I'm saying is this: Remember the jabra headset dorks from the 2000s? We made fun of them for being dorks. We're going to make fun of AR glasses people for being voyeurs, fascists and ICE accomplices. The social pressure against these things will be immense.
And they've come roaring back, on the wake of the well intended but arguably misguided GDPR specification about cookie notifications. It's now common to see popups on many sites in the exact same style.
Popups are such terrible UX that it forced websites to mostly abandon them, but once people were used to them for another reason, ads were quick to follow. They are usually an ad from the site itself rather than a 3rd party, but that hardly matters.
Even the cookie notifications are rife with dark patterns, making it difficult to get to the option with minimal necessary cookies.