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Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

> allows people to selectively pay attention to a human in the same room, even though they are marketing it to people who spent all that energy amplifying the idea of the "glasshole"?

Perhaps we could learn the lesson from Google's Glass that people didn't like the notion of being recorded without knowing it was happening.

> The main critique of Google Glass wasn’t really that they looked stupid (although, to be clear, they did). People were kicked out of bars for wearing Glass because the device represented a form of ubiquitous recording. Glass was outfitted with a camera that the user could activate at any time

https://www.wired.com/story/google-glass-reasonable-expectat...

Apple decided to give people an indication of whether the people using this device could see them or not, in addition to adding a big button on the top of the device you have to press to take a picture or video.

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I personally think these things are much worse, at this point, because ubiquitous recording is now an old concept, and these things are a literal eye mask with faked attention. There is something so broken about it.

But I do take your point, and don't think you deserved a downvote for it. So much downvoting going on.

There is the ubiquitous presence of devices that have the ability to take a recording today.

However, unlike Google Glass, modern smartphones play a "camera shutter" sound to at least give some indication that they are capturing an image to the people around you.

Likewise, Apple is giving people an indication that the person wearing the headset can currently see you.

The lesson from Google Glass is that people didn't like not knowing what was happening.

> The lesson from Google Glass is that people didn't like not knowing what was happening.

I think that is at least in part a highbrow post-justification, though I accept it's going to be more common among Apple pundits who need the Vision Pro to be a success but spent time deriding Google Glass.

The instinctive reason is quite different; it was about inattention and rudeness. Google "google glass rude" and you will see _plenty_ of coverage about it at the time. People don't like this stuff on other people.

I certainly reserve the right to dislike these things on a purely instinctive level. Whether or not they have to choose to take a photograph of me or not.

> I think that is at least in part a highbrow post-justification

I think that the ability to record people without them knowing it is quite literally what people said was the main point of contention with Google Glass.

> If you see someone wearing Google Glass wink at you, you might want to get out of the way because they're probably not flirting with you.

A new app that's just been developed and released for the futuristic piece of technology lets users take a photo by simply winking an eye.

https://phys.org/news/2013-05-google-glass-photo.html

> However, unlike Google Glass, modern smartphones play a "camera shutter" sound to at least give some indication that they are capturing an image to the people around you.

I mean, they mostly don't. They do in Japan (maybe Korea too?) but otherwise you can mute it.

Being filmed with other people bothers me a little, sure. It's the rudeness that bothers me the most.

I wouldn't let someone be a guest at my place if they're gonna wear this thing. Leave it at the door.

The shutter noise on smartphones is entirely optional. My normal iPhone doesn’t make any noise when it takes a photo.

> However, unlike Google Glass, modern smartphones play a "camera shutter" sound to at least give some indication that they are capturing an image to the people around you.

I just tried with my modern smartphone: it's completely silent, both on photo and on video mode. The default might have been to play some sound, but I probably toggled the option off when I first got it, because I find these fake shutter sounds (unlike the real mechanical shutter sounds from DSLRs) to be annoying.

No, the real difference is the positioning. To take a photo or record a video with a smartphone, you have to hold it in a particular position (back or front pointing directly at the subject), which isn't usually the normal "relaxed" position to hold a smartphone, and this gives people around some indication that you're capturing an image. With Google Glass and similar, the normal position is the ideal one to record video.

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