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Comment by bonoboTP | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and a standard dashcam/bodycam on every person's head. Right now you can see when a person is recording you, they are holding up their phone. With this, it's just a tap on the glasses (or auto-record and tap to preserve the last X minutes).

It will remember all your activities, help you find your keys and objects, remember what you bought when and if there's still toilet paper in your bathroom, etc. It will make helpful charts and statistics about your life, help to optimize it, notice if there is some product that it wants to advertise to you based on your activities etc. It's all going to be packaged and sold to ad networks. You will see AR ad objects floating everywhere, depending on what you do.

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> It will remember all your activities, help you find your keys and objects, remember what you bought when and if there's still toilet paper in your bathroom, etc. It will make helpful charts and statistics about your life, help to optimize it, notice if there is some product that it wants to advertise to you based on your activities etc. It's all going to be packaged and sold to ad networks. You will see AR ad objects floating everywhere, depending on what you do.

Presumably only if you wear it.

Yeah but maybe slowly things will require it. Just like restaurants today that only have a QR code but no physical menu, maybe a bunch of stuff will only be virtually present in augmented reality in the future. If you take off the glasses, signposts will be missing, etc. It's hard to imagine now, but maybe it would be hard to tell someone from 50 years ago that entire stores, subway ticket machines, bakeries etc. will be cashless and people will tap their phones to pay, and if you have no phone or card, you're screwed. Or if you have no Android/iOS app, you can't book appointments with certain govt offices etc.

Things that start as optional and convenience only can slowly become essentially mandatory. And then if you are already wearing it, it will push the ads.

> Just like restaurants today that only have a QR code but no physical menu

This is partly a holdover from Covid, and just as while there are a few people walking around with Covid masks on, most people aren't wearing them any more, and there are loads of restaurants that don't rely on QR codes. QR codes do have actual advantages, but also disadvantages, so they will - and have - balance against the market's requirements.

Some big leaps being made in your argument, but I think the sentiment is where the heart of the issue with this tech lies. Privacy focused individuals will never buy a product like this, but it clearly is meant for the masses & not the typical HN user.

A privacy-first version of smart glasses running OSS would make me lean forward in my seat, at minimum.

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