I’ve long argued that Hollywood has simultaneously set and ruined our expectations for smart glasses. But after binge-watching two seasons of Netflix’s A Man on the Inside, this is perhaps the first time I’ve seen Hollywood, perhaps inadvertently, illustrate the biggest cultural problem with smart glasses as they stand today.
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The AI wearable surveillance state hinges on good intentions masking legitimate privacy concerns.
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In a nutshell, Ted Danson plays Charles Nieuwendyk, an elderly widower who finds a new purpose working for a private investigator. Armed with a pair of Ray-Ban Meta-like glasses, a voice recorder, and a smartphone, Nieuwendyk infiltrates a retirement home, and several privacy-infringing hijinks ensue as he hunts for the jewel thief robbing the retirees. Arguably, Nieuwendyk’s actions should be despicable. He’s using smart glasses — and other gadgets — to spy on an entire retirement home of non-c
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I suspect most viewers will view the smart glasses in this show as a mere plot device. It’s an outlandish premise, and the audience is made to understand that Nieuwendyk is a good person. He’s a bored grandpa trying to solve a crime — not, as many anti-smart glasses advocates fear, using glasses to harass women and ransom compromising footage. It helps that he’s not particularly good at staying covert, but after four decades of gracing our TV screens, it’s also hard not to fall for Danson’s palp
This felt more like a reflection of my own experience as a wearables reviewer. These days, I spend months decked out in “spy glasses” and always-listening gadgets, living in what I’ve dubbed “the wearable surveillance state.”
Two weeks ago, Meta launched cheaper smart glasses without Ray-Ban branding. Meta has been releasing new smart glasses at a steady clip ever since its Ray-Ban Meta glasses exceeded expectations in 2023. Last fall, the company even released its first pair of display glasses, complete with a nigh-invisible screen on the right lens and a futuristic wearable wristband for gesture controls. However, this launch was a bit different. This time, Meta partnered with Kylie Jenner, and ever since, the hot
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“We all agree that the Meta glasses are for perverts, yes?” Namina Forna, a New York Times bestselling author, writes in a Threads post with over 30,000 likes.
Posts like those have been rampant over the past week or so. To be fair, it’s worth noting that these glasses aren’t capable of 24/7 audio or video surveillance as some posters allege. Battery life is nowhere near good enough; using Live AI for continuous video, taking long phone calls, or recording about 10 3K videos will drain the battery in less than an hour (and that’s if you start fully charged). Even so, the fact that you can mod the glasses or take short, stealthy clips is unsettling enou
On the flip side, several Meta glasses users have posted that they’re bewildered by the sudden hate. It’s not sudden, really — the smart glasses debate has reignited in recent months thanks to recent New York Times and Wired investigations, which found that Meta has been mulling over facial recognition features for the glasses. But smart glasses fans point to accessibility use cases, or the fact that they bought the glasses to film private, hands-free videos of their children, pets, or vacations
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