On Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a slew of new augmented reality glasses, including what he claimed to be the “first AI glasses with high resolution,” a new $799 version of its Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses that features a tiny screen that’s viewable to the wearer.
But it didn’t take long for the company’s MetaConnect 2025 keynote to descend into chaos. The social media giant’s demos repeatedly failed, leading to awkward stares, deafening silences, and muted laughter.
The poor showing painfully demonstrates that the tech is far from ready, even as companies continue to shove AI into every aspect of our daily lives.
Google smartglasses got quite a backlash some ten years back, a beta version dude wore into a fast food place or something got everyone upset for filming them all without consent.
They shelved it around then for whatever reasons.
I used a Google glass once. A friend had bought one and we sat around his house kinda playing with it. The display was tiny, only about a fingernail sized portion of the top corner of one eye, and iirc it was text only. Also, the module on the glasses to do that was pretty huge - like “90s-toy dragonball power level eyepiece on top of a normal glasses frame” huge.
He ended up returning it after we all discussed it. I don’t remember that or if the consensus was, but I remember thinking it was neat but really really really really really really really premature and REALLY expensive. I think it was over a grand.
Compare that to the hololens 1 that I played with at some point, and THAT was really cool. Awful gestures, very dark, bigger but still laughably small FOV, but at least the hololens was playing spatial computing games overlayed into your vision. It, too, was really premature, but at least it was forward progress.
I don’t know what’s in Zuck’s head or heart, but I think AR and VR are fucking awesome technologies, and while embarrassing moments are easy to make fun of, I also know that his show of spine for something he believes in in the face of people and investors has impressed me at least a little bit. I wish money wasn’t involved and wouldn’t ruin everything it touches, because for better and for worse, the tech is going to change the world.
Turns out people don’t want to be filmed at all times
It’s ok when it’s hidden, but not when you are aware of them.
I mean, it’s not okay with me, I just don’t feel like we have a choice anymore.
you mean security camera vs in your face camera?
This for sure. Security cameras everywhere, from the time you pull into the parking lot to inside the business, traffic cams, etc.
Difference is that you don’t expect that those will be potentially uploaded to a social media platform with the commentary of the recorder.
They are ussually closed loop as well… so in theory only accessed by the store manager or police. Though, im sure more and more are being piped straight to the cloud for ‘analyzation’
i haven’t been on that website that lets you login to almost any ALPR because it smells like a honeypot to me but y’know.
Surveillance Camera Man
They shelved it mostly because the battery technology wasn’t evolved enough. Now that it is, no privacy concerns will ever stop them
They shelved it because it didn’t work. I have a very normal English accent (think BBC) and the voice recognition was extremely unreliable. Super frustrating experience. Plus nobody wants to use a voice interface in public.
I dunno if we ever really saw how the “camera on your head” social aspect would have played out because they were too shit for anyone except the curious rich to buy them in the first place.
This thing seems to work (well in theory anyway) without a voice interface which is much saner.