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Comment by paulpan | Hacker News Reader

Quite an audacious move by Facebook. Tech specs look good, but the biggest challenge is going to be privacy.

I recall years ago when the first Google Glass came out, certain venues like museums put up rules banning their usage. And that was for a halo product whereas this is clearly targeted more at mainstream users.

With rumors of Apple also offering up something similar soon, we'll see how this sort of gadgetry is "normalized" by society.

(Google Glass apparently still exists! Albeit only for enterprise: https://www.google.com/glass/tech-specs/ )

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As much as I personally think the efforts of mega tech companies to intrude into every aspect of every user's life and the lives of those around them are repugnant and dystopian, I do think these will eventually make it mainstream. Convenience and novelty always trump security and privacy among the majority, unfortunately.

I think AR/VR is an avenue that could be really beneficial to humanity. Humans have a need and drive for unique experiences but that comes with a huge environmental cost. If AR/VR gets good enough this could replace many things for many people.

Even small quality of life things having a window to the outside in a windowless room could help a lot of people.

That said, if the only ones making these devices are the big tech companies they will exist to convince you to purchase and consume with little other benefit.

And 4 years later, what did you see happen when snapchat spectacles came out?

I will have my chuckle when we finally see Apple's iGlasses.

But as far as I know from chitchat going around Shenzhen, they don't have a camera or anything, and they are just making simple video goggles.

My speculation is that they're going to heavily rely on U1, and possibly depth-only cameras.

Apple has all of the components put into place for you to point at a lamp, flick your finger, and turn it on.

My intuition is right with you. They will actively avoid anything that the end user thinks is a camera while packing it full of sensors that allow interactions with (mapping/object recognition of/etc) the world around them.

A decade too late?! They've dropped the "i" naming scheme for new products. Apple Watch, Apple Tag.

Maybe Apple Lens?

what's the big deal? You still have iOS. Anyway nobody really cares if it's MacOS, OSX, Apple Phone or iPhone...The time when the Apple's product name mattered much is long gone.

Who said anything about a big deal? It was just mirthful musing about the future name of Apple's eyeware product.

Apple Sight?

iSight has a nice ring to it

Eye Phone

We'll see. Their phone was derided when it came out because it didn't even have a keyboard. The famous Ballmer quote about the iPhone launch which many journalists agreed with at the time: "[the iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard"

It turned phones were better without keyboards, if you rethought the UI. Maybe glasses without cameras are too.

> Tech specs look good

Oh, you.

Where are all the open source tech specs projects?

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