Meta's Smart Glasses Can Take Calls, Play Music, and Livestream From Your Face (theverge.com) 63
Meta announced a new pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses, capable of livestreaming to Facebook and Instagram and translating text. The glasses were announced at today's Connect event in Menlo Park alongside Meta's new Quest 3 headset. The Verge reports: The new glasses, which Meta just announced at its Connect launch event and which are up for preorder now and will be on sale October 17th starting at $299, have two primary purposes. The first is to replace your headphones: the smart glasses have a similar personal audio system like Amazon's Echo Frames and the Bose Tempo series, all of which play music but endeavor to make sure only you can hear it. With the new generation of glasses, Meta also upgraded the microphone system in a big way: the specs have five mics, including one in the nose bridge, which should make both your calls and voice commands much clearer. (The Stories only had one mic, and it kind of fell apart in loud or windy conditions.)
The other job of the glasses is as a camera. The smart glasses have small camera lenses on each right temple, just like the Stories -- but these cameras take 12-megapixel photos and 1080p videos, both big upgrades from the previous generation. You can store roughly 500 photos and 100 30-second videos (that's the maximum length the glasses allow) before you fill up the 32GB of internal storage, and everything syncs through the Meta View app. The app also lets you quickly share anything you capture to Meta's many, many sharing platforms.
In addition to taking photos and videos on the camera, you can also now start a livestream to Facebook or Instagram with just a couple of taps on the stem of the glasses. When you're recording, a white light around the lens pulses to indicate you're recording.
The other job of the glasses is as a camera. The smart glasses have small camera lenses on each right temple, just like the Stories -- but these cameras take 12-megapixel photos and 1080p videos, both big upgrades from the previous generation. You can store roughly 500 photos and 100 30-second videos (that's the maximum length the glasses allow) before you fill up the 32GB of internal storage, and everything syncs through the Meta View app. The app also lets you quickly share anything you capture to Meta's many, many sharing platforms.
In addition to taking photos and videos on the camera, you can also now start a livestream to Facebook or Instagram with just a couple of taps on the stem of the glasses. When you're recording, a white light around the lens pulses to indicate you're recording.
Smart Glasses: Frequently Asked Questions (Score:2)
> Meta's Smart Glasses Can Take Calls, Play Music, and Livestream From Your Face
Q: Can it sit on your face too?
A: Technically... yes.
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News flash - Republicans aren't the prime demo for this stupid product. This is squarely aimed at tech hipster democrat they/thems.
We already tried this (Score:5, Insightful)
Glassholes.
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Zuckers.
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camera (Score:5, Insightful)
No one wants to be around someone using a facebook camera all the time. Didn't we already go through this with google glass?
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No one wants to be around someone using a facebook camera all the time. Didn't we already go through this with google glass?
Especially when you are in the loo ... or walking through your own bathroom while your significant other is undressed and about to bathe themself.
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Nah, what we went through was a bunch of judgemental arseholes needing to call someone a name because to make them feel better about themselves simply because someone had a toy they hadn't, and ignored the fact that they were very likely already on camera while calling someone who has a camera a glasshole.
Re: camera (Score:1)
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1) Fist-
2) Hand-
3) Baseball bat-
4) Bullet-
4) Other - Add your own-
Can it do TikTok movies? (Score:2)
Just asking for a friend.
The new rich idiot ID system (Score:3)
If you buy these, you have too much money, and you are Facebook's bitch.
Basically, a prime target for grifting.
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In fairness, most people are facebook's bitch at this point.
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That's because they don't know how to use it. They actually post things that are true there.
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If you buy these, you have too much money, and you are Facebook's bitch.
Basically, a prime target for grifting.
At $299, they're not totally out of line with high-end glasses frames. I don't think they'll make you a target for anyone other than people that hate glassholes.
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Hell, I have plain old non-prescription sunglasses that cost more than those do...
I wonder why cameras glasses seem creepy (Score:4, Interesting)
In every iteration of the camera glasses that we've seen so far from every company, they always give off a creepy vibe...
Yet people don't really care at al generally if someone is live-streaming from a phone.
I guess it's because cameras being in the glasses seems kind of like you are trying to hide the camera, and this iteration has the most subtle camera yet...
Still - creepy, I just can't see this being a big sell. And if people do wear them I think they are going to get harassed on the street or on transit.
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I'm not sure if that will be the case here. Past iterations of these kind of things haven't had any purpose but what is being touted in TFS, picture/videos and yeah this adds live streaming. There is almost no use other than creeping and everyone knows it.
This thing has their AI integrated so you can query it on the go without busting out a phone. That could be a significant use that has nothing to do with creeping... possibly even the primary use.
Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
This thing has their AI integrated so you can query it on the go without busting out a phone.
I get what you are saying here, but to an external observer they don't see that utility, just another pair of glasses with creepy cameras... Google Glass I thought was useful in that way also, but it got a lot of blowback anyway.
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I'm not sure if that will be the case here. Past iterations of these kind of things haven't had any purpose but what is being touted in TFS, picture/videos and yeah this adds live streaming. There is almost no use other than creeping and everyone knows it.
This thing has their AI integrated so you can query it on the go without busting out a phone. That could be a significant use that has nothing to do with creeping... possibly even the primary use.
Well I can see some use cases.
1) There's a lot of times I think "oh, I'd like a picture/video of that" but the few seconds to get my phone out and recording means it's too late. Presumably tapping a button on your glasses would be faster.
2) Say you're calling a friend for help with your car, or your parent is calling you for help with the computer. Holding the phone and pointing it is pretty awkward. Do a video chat with glasses and they can see the same car part / computer screen as you can, and both hands
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1) There's a lot of times I think "oh, I'd like a picture/video of that" but the few seconds to get my phone out and recording means it's too late. Presumably tapping a button on your glasses would be faster.
Probably that would be not fast enough either and the only practical solution would be to record continuously in a buffer and always have access to the last 5-10 seconds ("oh, I'd like a picture/video of what I just saw"). Which would be creepier.
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In every iteration of the camera glasses that we've seen so far from every company, they always give off a creepy vibe...
Yet people don't really care at al generally if someone is live-streaming from a phone.
I guess it's because cameras being in the glasses seems kind of like you are trying to hide the camera, and this iteration has the most subtle camera yet...
Still - creepy, I just can't see this being a big sell. And if people do wear them I think they are going to get harassed on the street or on transit.
From what I remember, the original Google glass wasn't designed to hold lenses. These are, which means you can put prescription lenses in them. That will probably present an interesting problem to businesses that don't want them around, because making someone take off prescription glasses is more or less like making someone leave their wheelchair at the door - likely to end in a lawsuit.
And send everthing to meta (Score:5, Interesting)
Right form factor (Score:2)
"on each right temple" (Score:5, Funny)
"The smart glasses have small camera lenses on each right temple"
How many right temples does a person have?
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Before or after they wear this around me?
Obvious question. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Additional?!" "Manage" what information? I don't want to share any data. Only interested in using them for listening to music from my phone's media player, doing hands-free phone calls, and taking an occasional picture which gets downloaded to my phone. Basically, earbuds, bluetooth headset, and camera built into something I wear anyway. None of that should require any connection to the evil empire.
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The biggest feature is the integrated Meta AI, that is definitely going to require sending data.
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It might come as a shock to you but they didn't design these glasses exclusively for you and your use case. There are plenty of other products already on the market for what you want.
These glasses weren't so much designed for my use case either, they were designed by a social media company for my spouses use case. She is a mom who [despite my efforts] uses social media extensively. So she'd use these to record little clips of cooking things or cute moments with the baby and share them. For her use case they
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No, siriusxm is an accessory bundled with the car. The car is primarily designed for transportation not listening to the radio.
This is more like complaining that your siriusXM portable radio list that a subscription is required on the box. Maybe it also has an AM/FM capability and that is all you want it for but if you bought a siriusXM specialized radio at 10x the price instead of buying an AM/FM radio that is on you. For the people who bought it for what it is and complain the AM/FM radio doesn't work whe
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>These aren't sunglasses headphones.
Nope. They're marketed as "smart glasses", and Meta AI is at the bottom of the feature list [fb.com]. In fact, that's a new "feature" which was added to the exiting model and is only available as "beta" at launch. Glasses are primarily designed to be, well, glasses. The rest are accessories. I wish to not subscribe to anything which requires sharing information with Meta.
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"Glasses are primarily designed to be, well, glasses."
Well played.
"They're marketed as "smart glasses""
There you go. They aren't "glasses" they are "smart glasses" and that "smart" means online services, that means sharing your data. If you don't want that, then buy dumb glasses w/built-in headphones. They are MUCH less expensive. https://www.amazon.com/OhO-Sun... [amazon.com]
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Another significant feature which isn't mentioned. (Score:2)
The glasses have the Meta AI built in so basically a chatgpt onboard and they announced that early next year they'll be rolling out the capability to have that AI observe via the glasses. An example was looking at leaking faucet and asking "how do I fix that?"
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The glasses have the Meta AI built in so basically a chatgpt onboard and they announced that early next year they'll be rolling out the capability to have that AI observe via the glasses. An example was looking at leaking faucet and asking "how do I fix that?"
Amazing use case. Looking at a leaking faucet you'd like to fix... while wearing sunglasses.
I suppose that genius example is there to balance out people like the earlier poster, above, who are all worried about unintentionally filming their undressed spouse while in the bathroom.. that they walked into while wearing ray-ban sunglasses.
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"while wearing sunglasses"
There are more than 150 lens variations from the ray banz side, they showed clear lenses but there are also likely transition lenses. These really are most useful as something you wear around, indoor and outdoor. But if you need an outdoor use case, you could ask for the history on a statue you are looking at or to identify a bird/tree/flower species.
Look, when you are stranded in the wilderness you are going to damn happy to have some glasses that can tell you how to survive and w
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Do wilderness areas generally have cellphone coverage now?
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Based on my last RV trip around the country... yeah, more than you'd expect. But we also don't know to what extent the AI is onboard vs being totally API driven and internet dependent. There are some very compact offline large language models now.
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Confirmed, they have clear/transition lenses.
https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/el... [ray-ban.com]
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Buy two, look at the second pair and ask "how do I get meta out of this shit?"
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You’re the product (Score:3)
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Just wait 'til some tinkerer managed to free it from its bonds.
It happened with the Quest, it happened with various consoles, it will happen with this one.
Just what we need (Score:3)
More people wandering about having conversations for the world to hear. Between those with bluetooth connections for their phones and this, we'll have hordes of derelicts wandering around talking to themselves. And let's not get started on those who have their phones on speaker while wandering the store.
As far as music, it's bad enough some folks (I'm looking at you, Paco) play their crap (and yes, it is crap) for the world to hear, one can only imagine what a wonderful life it will be with these glasses streaming music because you can guarantee, everyone around will hear it.
Don't you worry (Score:2)
These things will be banned pretty much anywhere, from concerts to strip clubs to presentations to bars to...
Anywhere where either privacy or copyright plays a role, these things will be banned.
Meh. (Score:2)
The only way this will work... (Score:2)
...is if they make it a truly open standard so that the glasses can do whatever the Apple Vision can do.
Back in 2013, the "HTC First" was a phone with a dedicated Facebook button and Android overlay. Did you know anyone who used it? No you didn't; only about 15,000 were ever sold. This was back when Facebook was at its peak, and they couldn't drum up excitement about the hardware.
Yes, Facebook is still super popular as a website, but there's a huge chasm between "I'll begrudgingly doomscroll on this website
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How interesting... (Score:2)
Certain U.S citizens: "THEY'RE TRYIN TO PUT THEM MICROCHIPS IN YOU WRITTEN THE VACCINE SO THEY CAN TRACK YOU!!!"
A decent chunk of those same citizens own an iPhone, iPad, use Facebook and YouTube while searching on Google as they walk along a street with cameras on every corner. People are fucking stupid.
The lack of imagination is sorely disappointing (Score:2)
What did we