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What are the privacy/security issues with this? Does this mean every conversation a person wearing these has (or that occurs within earshot) is being collected

What are the privacy/security issues with this? Does this mean every conversation a person wearing these has (or that occurs within earshot) is being collected and harvested by someone? Will the AR be used to insert ads into people's conversations or plaster images of ads all over the place? Will certain words or phrases be automatically censored? This is cool tech, that could be used to help people, but it comes with lots of potential for new forms of evil that were not possible without it. Considering that I can't remember the last time I bought a product using a new technology that wasn't also designed to work against my interests, I'm immediately skeptical of any device that can't be used offline and especially one that requires being connected to cell phone apps.

lazyeye 4y ago
Completely agree. There seems to be such a gap in the market for privacy-first hardware but very few companies are doing anything.
- Kalium 4y ago
  The key question is always a painfully simple one: how much are people willing to pay as a privacy-first premium? The answers to this determine everything. Treating privacy-first as the moral and ethical default we should expect everyone to start from is a wonderful idea, rooted in compassion, kindness, and a foundational respect for human rights. It has also been an abject failure to date. We should not expect the future to be different unless we are willing to be realistic about the economics at work. Otherwise the market gap will remain in the realm of the wonderfully hypothetical forever.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > The key question is always a painfully simple one: how much are people willing to pay as a privacy-first premium? the fact is that no amount of money a customer can pay will ever be worth more than taking that customer's money and then also selling every scrap of data that your product can get its hands on on top of it. We need to stop accepting "But I can make more money by screwing you" as a valid excuse for how things are. It's true, but still not okay. If the economics are always going to favor exploiting people, than I guess if we don't want to be exploited we need some very powerful regulations and all of the oversight and enforcement that requires in place to change that situation. I'd prefer that to blind faith and optimism. Until then, there are a number of things we should be insisting on in products as consumers to help protect ourselves. "works offline" is a really good one in a lot of situations.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    This is why the solution involved legislation and regulation. If it prices the low end out of the market, so be it.
- OmahaBoy69 4y ago
  Shameless plug: https://github.com/TeamOpenSmartGlasses/OpenSourceSmartGlasses https://github.com/TeamOpenSmartGlasses/OpenSourceSmartGlass... ASR is done locally on the user's phone.
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    Bookmarked. I will follow with interest although not sure ASR done locally on phone guarantees data is not being uploaded to the cloud.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    Very cool! Thanks for sharing!
Rustwerks 4y ago
The implications are approximately the same as https://www.amazon.com/tape-recorder/s?k=tape+recorder https://www.amazon.com/tape-recorder/s?k=tape+recorder except with compute power to make storage and search more convenient. Except that the glasses/app don't save anything by default nor do they need to use the internet. I suppose it would be a nice feature if they saved all of your conversations for later? The translations are too imperfect for any legal matter use.
- Vrondi 4y ago
  Bad choice of example, because a tape recorder has no network connection and requires some effort to capture into a digital format that can easily be shared on a network. Unlike tape recorders, recent digital devices and apps often harvest your info behind the scenes.
primax 4y ago
I don't see how this is inherently worse than mobile phones, which are carried by everyone in the developed world all the time.
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  The likelihood that what you say "in person" is recorded and stored by someone easily subpoenaed increases quite a bit. While mobile apps might record and upload without the owner of the phone knowing, the odds seem low; this changes the situation significantly.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > I don't see how this is inherently worse than mobile phones, the problem isn't that it's worse than a cell phone. The problem is that it isn't any better. All of the privacy and security problems that exist with cell phones now exist with this product. You're locked in to using a cell phone which, for most people, is a hardware platform that Google controls and exploits at your expense. You can't secure your cell phone and keep it private, and so nothing on your cell phone should be assumed to be secure or private. If I'm in my doctors office, or working with a client, or doing anything where I don't want Google and who knows who else listening I can turn off my phone, or put it away, or leave it at home, and be reasonably sure that I'm not being eavesdropped on (there's always some risk of three letter agencies listening, but you can't do anything about that), but that's not an option if I need my phone to transcribe every word being said to me and even in situations where I currently leave my phone on it isn't normally sending every word it hears to the cloud to transcribe and send back to me either. I like that this can work with a cell phone app, but it'd be much better if it could be used entirely offline, and ideally on different hardware as well, including a PC. Imagine being able to run something like this entirely offline connected to something the size of an ipod or even a nano running linux. Imagine being able to build your own tools to interface with it. Add your own substitutions/annotations to real time text. Add dictionaries, or translation features. This could be really cool even life-changing tech for people, or it could just be one more technology that's convenient but ultimately used to exploit people.
Sunspark 4y ago
It's not that easy to pick up every speech utterance in a wide range and separate it by speaker. The further away the sound is, the less intelligible it is. An artificial non-directional microphone is unlikely to pick up with the same clarity or distance as with your own ears. There should not be any privacy concern with having a microphone ear vs a biological ear. If there is a concern the best way to manage it is to not talk about confidential topics with other people in the room. There won't be any ads, because people would just use their phones instead which don't have ads. Specifically Google Live Transcribe, Otter and the like. Those require a data connection to the network, but there are versions that don't need the network at all. E.g. Chrome's Live Caption option. Eventually as technology becomes more power efficient and miniaturized it won't need to be paired to a phone. The advantage of glasses is that people find it very distracting seeing a phone scrolling away, my GP stares at the phone instead of me because he is fascinated by it. Sometimes you can't be holding a phone up if something is being worked on. The glasses would also allow for a bit more directionality. It's a promising tool depending on how well it is implemented.
danscarfe 4y ago
We've taken a privacy-first approach here. All data is only ever stored on the device, owned by the user, inaccessible to us. It's only ever transcribing when a user asks it to and only stored if the user asks it to be. We don't censor anything. We are soon to release purely on-device transcription, but the quality of this is still not as good as the cloud providers offer. The app itself is what powers the glasses, they are just output devices.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > We don't censor anything. I hadn't thought that you would be, but I don't know anyone who hasn't had at least one service they used change their terms for the worse over time, especially once it becomes successful or ownership/management changes. Better to safeguard against such problems before they are problems than come to depend on a device like this only to find yourself stuck when the rug gets pulled out from under you. > We are soon to release purely on-device transcription This is really great! It's so important that people don't have to worry that things said between them and a lover, or a doctor, or a client, or a therapist is going to end up exposed to anyone else. If you really want this device to be able to help people without opening them up to exploitation, please try to develop it to be as open as possible. Making it easy for developers to use it with whatever other hardware they like (a PC vs a cell phone), or even allowing them to extend it by adding new or customized functionality would be ideal and could help people in ways you hadn't even considered. This is a cool product and a great use of the technology, and I'd love to be able to recommend it without reservation.
  - danscarfe 4y ago
    We are soon releasing versions for iOS, Mac and Windows. We are also hoping to release an extensibility model to allow others to build skins / modules. The glasses will only work properly on Android though.
vlunkr 4y ago
> Will the AR be used to insert ads into people's conversations or plaster images of ads all over the place? I doubt it. This isn't the kind of cheap mass-market device where running ads is going to make you a big profit.
- autoexec 4y ago
  The worry is that if this takes off, eventually somebody (maybe future shareholders) is going to say "why are we leaving all this money on the table" This product is already targeting some specific demographics. I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to fork over money for access to those eyes just as I'm sure a lot of people will want access to what's being said or looked at. It'd be very nice if we didn't have to worry about that sort of thing at all, but here we are.

lazyeye 4y ago

Completely agree. There seems to be such a gap in the market for privacy-first hardware but very few companies are doing anything.

Kalium 4y ago
The key question is always a painfully simple one: how much are people willing to pay as a privacy-first premium? The answers to this determine everything. Treating privacy-first as the moral and ethical default we should expect everyone to start from is a wonderful idea, rooted in compassion, kindness, and a foundational respect for human rights. It has also been an abject failure to date. We should not expect the future to be different unless we are willing to be realistic about the economics at work. Otherwise the market gap will remain in the realm of the wonderfully hypothetical forever.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > The key question is always a painfully simple one: how much are people willing to pay as a privacy-first premium? the fact is that no amount of money a customer can pay will ever be worth more than taking that customer's money and then also selling every scrap of data that your product can get its hands on on top of it. We need to stop accepting "But I can make more money by screwing you" as a valid excuse for how things are. It's true, but still not okay. If the economics are always going to favor exploiting people, than I guess if we don't want to be exploited we need some very powerful regulations and all of the oversight and enforcement that requires in place to change that situation. I'd prefer that to blind faith and optimism. Until then, there are a number of things we should be insisting on in products as consumers to help protect ourselves. "works offline" is a really good one in a lot of situations.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  This is why the solution involved legislation and regulation. If it prices the low end out of the market, so be it.
OmahaBoy69 4y ago
Shameless plug: https://github.com/TeamOpenSmartGlasses/OpenSourceSmartGlasses https://github.com/TeamOpenSmartGlasses/OpenSourceSmartGlass... ASR is done locally on the user's phone.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  Bookmarked. I will follow with interest although not sure ASR done locally on phone guarantees data is not being uploaded to the cloud.
- autoexec 4y ago
  Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

Rustwerks 4y ago

The implications are approximately the same as https://www.amazon.com/tape-recorder/s?k=tape+recorder https://www.amazon.com/tape-recorder/s?k=tape+recorder except with compute power to make storage and search more convenient. Except that the glasses/app don't save anything by default nor do they need to use the internet. I suppose it would be a nice feature if they saved all of your conversations for later? The translations are too imperfect for any legal matter use.

Vrondi 4y ago
Bad choice of example, because a tape recorder has no network connection and requires some effort to capture into a digital format that can easily be shared on a network. Unlike tape recorders, recent digital devices and apps often harvest your info behind the scenes.

primax 4y ago

I don't see how this is inherently worse than mobile phones, which are carried by everyone in the developed world all the time.

hunter2_ 4y ago
The likelihood that what you say "in person" is recorded and stored by someone easily subpoenaed increases quite a bit. While mobile apps might record and upload without the owner of the phone knowing, the odds seem low; this changes the situation significantly.
autoexec 4y ago
> I don't see how this is inherently worse than mobile phones, the problem isn't that it's worse than a cell phone. The problem is that it isn't any better. All of the privacy and security problems that exist with cell phones now exist with this product. You're locked in to using a cell phone which, for most people, is a hardware platform that Google controls and exploits at your expense. You can't secure your cell phone and keep it private, and so nothing on your cell phone should be assumed to be secure or private. If I'm in my doctors office, or working with a client, or doing anything where I don't want Google and who knows who else listening I can turn off my phone, or put it away, or leave it at home, and be reasonably sure that I'm not being eavesdropped on (there's always some risk of three letter agencies listening, but you can't do anything about that), but that's not an option if I need my phone to transcribe every word being said to me and even in situations where I currently leave my phone on it isn't normally sending every word it hears to the cloud to transcribe and send back to me either. I like that this can work with a cell phone app, but it'd be much better if it could be used entirely offline, and ideally on different hardware as well, including a PC. Imagine being able to run something like this entirely offline connected to something the size of an ipod or even a nano running linux. Imagine being able to build your own tools to interface with it. Add your own substitutions/annotations to real time text. Add dictionaries, or translation features. This could be really cool even life-changing tech for people, or it could just be one more technology that's convenient but ultimately used to exploit people.

Sunspark 4y ago

It's not that easy to pick up every speech utterance in a wide range and separate it by speaker. The further away the sound is, the less intelligible it is. An artificial non-directional microphone is unlikely to pick up with the same clarity or distance as with your own ears. There should not be any privacy concern with having a microphone ear vs a biological ear. If there is a concern the best way to manage it is to not talk about confidential topics with other people in the room. There won't be any ads, because people would just use their phones instead which don't have ads. Specifically Google Live Transcribe, Otter and the like. Those require a data connection to the network, but there are versions that don't need the network at all. E.g. Chrome's Live Caption option. Eventually as technology becomes more power efficient and miniaturized it won't need to be paired to a phone. The advantage of glasses is that people find it very distracting seeing a phone scrolling away, my GP stares at the phone instead of me because he is fascinated by it. Sometimes you can't be holding a phone up if something is being worked on. The glasses would also allow for a bit more directionality. It's a promising tool depending on how well it is implemented.

danscarfe 4y ago

We've taken a privacy-first approach here. All data is only ever stored on the device, owned by the user, inaccessible to us. It's only ever transcribing when a user asks it to and only stored if the user asks it to be. We don't censor anything. We are soon to release purely on-device transcription, but the quality of this is still not as good as the cloud providers offer. The app itself is what powers the glasses, they are just output devices.

autoexec 4y ago
> We don't censor anything. I hadn't thought that you would be, but I don't know anyone who hasn't had at least one service they used change their terms for the worse over time, especially once it becomes successful or ownership/management changes. Better to safeguard against such problems before they are problems than come to depend on a device like this only to find yourself stuck when the rug gets pulled out from under you. > We are soon to release purely on-device transcription This is really great! It's so important that people don't have to worry that things said between them and a lover, or a doctor, or a client, or a therapist is going to end up exposed to anyone else. If you really want this device to be able to help people without opening them up to exploitation, please try to develop it to be as open as possible. Making it easy for developers to use it with whatever other hardware they like (a PC vs a cell phone), or even allowing them to extend it by adding new or customized functionality would be ideal and could help people in ways you hadn't even considered. This is a cool product and a great use of the technology, and I'd love to be able to recommend it without reservation.
- danscarfe 4y ago
  We are soon releasing versions for iOS, Mac and Windows. We are also hoping to release an extensibility model to allow others to build skins / modules. The glasses will only work properly on Android though.

vlunkr 4y ago

> Will the AR be used to insert ads into people's conversations or plaster images of ads all over the place? I doubt it. This isn't the kind of cheap mass-market device where running ads is going to make you a big profit.

autoexec 4y ago
The worry is that if this takes off, eventually somebody (maybe future shareholders) is going to say "why are we leaving all this money on the table" This product is already targeting some specific demographics. I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to fork over money for access to those eyes just as I'm sure a lot of people will want access to what's being said or looked at. It'd be very nice if we didn't have to worry about that sort of thing at all, but here we are.