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>Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are designed to help you look up and stay present. With a quick glance at the in-lens display, you can accomplish everyday tasks—l
by SchemaLoad 1y ago
>Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are designed to help you look up and stay present. With a quick glance at the in-lens display, you can accomplish everyday tasks—like checking messages, previewing photos, and collaborating with visual Meta AI prompts
Can you imagine trying to talk to someone face to face, but they are giving you a blank stare as random notifications and tiktok videos are being beamed inbetween their eyeballs and you.
Meta seems like one of the few large tech companies where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place.
- anal_reactor 1y agoI think this is going to be very funny to observe as a third person.
- drdaeman 1y ago> Can you imagine trying to talk to someone face to face, but they are giving you a blank stare as random notifications and tiktok videos are being beamed inbetween their eyeballs and you. They wouldn't do this if the conversation is important to them. Not as much as one would glance on a smartwatch when they get a chirp, which, I believe is perfectly socially acceptable in most business/casual situations. And if they do it's nothing new - it's a literal equivalent of talking to a person deep into their phone. Exact same audiovisual media consumption - just a different form factor and display technology. Or, in a pre-phone era, a newspaper. I don't think this technology introduces anything new to this issue.
- brandon272 1y agoIt's quite different. Both are rude. But in one case the person is looking at their phone, and in another case the person is basically looking directly at you but engaged with some other thing happening on their device, as if they are in some drug induced stupor or having a neurological episode.
- jkestner 1y agoThe visual equivalent of the etiquette breaches when Bluetooth earpieces became a thing.
- heavyset_go 1y agoThe glasses close the attention loop faster, and the brain really, really likes quick stimuli -> dopamine release loops. The faster it happens, the more addictive it is. It's the difference between oral administration of drugs and IVing them directly into one's veins.
- hengheng 1y agoI don't even think it's cynical anymore to assume that this is the entire reason why Meta are pursuing this. They see themselves in a race to produce the most radical, most efficient machine that produces the most effective addictive response. Content has been interchangeable for decades, everything is about the naked control over people's attention, because that is having power over people. There is a very modernist logic in the whole effort. Everything must be taken to its extremes, nothing is ever enough, and nothing good sits in the middle of anything, and having values is only a detriment in this race.
- Vinnl 1y agoPossibly I'm a horrible conversation partner, but even today already it happens with some regularity that someone is checking their phone while I'm in a conversation with them. It's even more common in group conversations. And tacking on some personal experience, I've also noticed when I'm meeting over Zoom (i.e. with the rest of the internet within arm's reach), I get distracted way more easily than when meeting in real life. Sure, maybe not all those meetings are super important to me, but I'm not sure if the world would be a worse place if that wasn't possible.
- kqr 1y agoI try to put on a friendly tone and say "I'll continue once you're done with whatever you need to do on your phone". Sometimes it really was something important (the last few seconds of an auction is the common, time-sensitive case) but most of the time they realise the faux pas they committed and are apologetic about it.
- j4coh 1y agoYou can tell that some people who grew up addicted to video content already sort of just stare at the real world like they are watching a video and don't quite realise they are present. If they were wearing glasses where they were actually watching videos while they stare into space not much would change.
- jajko 1y agoNo its not perfectly socially acceptable, in contrary. Rude is the best description, be it personal or professional life. When I see such person who simply can't resist looking at their displays during conversations, I know I am seeing a hard addict with host of other attention disorders. And the fool is feeding those, actively making them worse for some ultra short dopamine kicks that keep getting shorter till they make new baseline. Not a stellar person in any meaningful way, rather an addict or an asshole. So much for perfectly acceptable.
- drdaeman 1y agoAre we talking about momentarily checking if there's an important interruption and continuing with the conversation? If so, I'm confused as to why you possibly think it's unacceptable and rude. I can see how this could be considered rude in a very formal setting, or when matters of high importance are discussed and uninterruptible focus is a must. But for most casual situations, I perceive glancing at incoming notification as normal. Assuming this happens reasonably infrequently, of course - that is, a glance in a while, not constant checking every other minute.
- everdrive 1y ago>I don't think this technology introduces anything new to this issue. This belief shows up time and time and again and is nearly always false. We had the written word before the internet, and before the printing press, so blogs are just like a hand-written letter. Gossip has always existed, so twitter does nothing new. There have always been things which eat at our impulse control, such as sports gambling and casinos, so smart phones are nothing new. etc. What this view really fails to understand is that the constant here is human nature. Human nature is built more or less the same way as it has been for thousands of years. What changes is how technology allows human nature to play out, whether or not any given technology interacts poorly with human nature. New problems can exist purely based on scope, scale, reach, ease-of-use, lack of friction, etc.
- drdaeman 1y agoVery fair point, thank you! I'm not sure I entirely agree with everything, but I was definitely missing the change in the accessibility of the disruptions. You're probably right that the more immediate the notification is, the higher are the chances that it'll interfere with our attention in a way that's could introduce some undesirable effects. Definitely there's a difference between a mail arriving, phone or watch buzzing, and something instantly appearing in the visual field.
- everdrive 1y agoThanks for the response, and I apologize if I came off too sharply!
- inerte 1y agoI disagree because the apps are designed to be addictive, so the conversation might actually be more important, the person might agree and say the conversation is more important, but they can't control themselves. It's hard to muster the willpower to fight "social" media.
- SoftTalker 1y agoExactly. It is bad enough trying to talk to someone with earbuds in and this just seems 10x worse. Zero chance I would buy something like this or try to talk to someone wearing them.
- SchemaLoad 1y agoI've been making an effort to keep my phone in my pocket or even bag when talking to someone, and not having it sit on the table so I can't get distracted. I just can't imagine having notifications literally shoved in your vision automatically all the time. The whole product category seems to be everything wrong with tech turned up to 11.
- zmmmmm 1y agoI do think we're in for a bit of a reality check on how human attention works. I have a HUD in my car that shows me directions, speed etc and when I'm looking at that the rest of the view out the windscreen is hardly even there to my visual perception even though I'm looking right at it. This seems to be getting largely overlooked but I feel like over time statistics are going to emerge that HUD type displays are increasing accidents rather than preventing them.
- drdaeman 1y agoIsn't it a general rule of driving (or operating any sufficiently dangerous machinery) to keep the eyes on the road, constantly reminding oneself to do so, so the attention is kept where it is needed? I mean, in theory. In practice, I see people deep in their damn phones all the time - and it's scary - but I think that's more of an attitude (social) issue than a display (technology) problem. And, yes, surely, one needs to periodically switch attention to mirrors and instruments, and I must imagine that shorter gaze movement distance shouldn't hurt. It's the same as checking the speedometer - you don't see the road, only have a rough idea from the peripheral vision. Although I can imagine that a HUD can be actively distracting, constantly intercepting attention, e.g., flickering.
- tsimionescu 1y agoI think the point is that it's much easier to forget you're focusing on the speedometer instead of focusing on the road when the speedometer is physically displayed by a HUD right on the road. Especially if the speedometer keeps changing, since your eyes are naturally attracted to movement in your current field of view. With a normal car dashboard, you're much more aware you're not seeing the road while checking your speed, and you don't actually see the speedometer moving while you're looking at the road, so it can't accidentally catch your attention. Of course, none of this will matter in the vast majority of cases. But driving safety is all about the tail end, when you're slightly tired or when someone in front of you does something unexpected and maybe illegal, or someone jumps on the road - these are the times where accidents are avoided, and a HUD might well hurt rather than help for these cases.
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- ATechGuy 1y ago> Meta seems like one of the few large tech companies where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place. 100%
- jayd16 1y agoProbably about what you get now except their neck isn't craned down to a phone.
- milkshakes 1y agoI disagree. Among Meta's many technical contributions: React PyTorch osquery GraphQL Presto/Trino RocksDB Jest OCP Llama
- Arainach 1y agoAnd among their non-technical contributions, you have genocide in Myanmar, election interference worldwide, the explosive growth of hate speech, countless teenager suicides, and more. Any large company can write a web UI framework, but only a truly special one can directly contribute to genocide, know about it, have employees bring it up and suggest intervening, and decide that nah, they'd rather let people die and make more money.
- milkshakes 1y ago> Meta seems like one of the few large tech companies where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place. This is what I disagree with. Specifically, I don't disagree that Meta has caused serious harm. I just don't think we live in such a black and white world "where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place".
- endemic 1y agoThe tech contributions are fungible, to be honest. Sure, they're popular because ~Facebook~ Meta is a giant company, but if they disappeared overnight, other equally good solutions would soon take their place.
- milkshakes 1y agoeverything is obvious after the fact, yet still it was meta who made the contributions. and meta who made them stick. what other company has contributed more widespread, enduring, and game changing open source projects than meta? asking seriously here because the list i put up there is just off the top of my head.
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- xdfgh1112 1y agoThey made quest 2 and 3. Despite their recent pushing of shitty horizon worlds, the hardware is extremely solid and affordable for VR.
- rhetocj23 1y agoAnd yet there isnt any large magnitude of buyers in the market, despite the fact that over a billion people use Meta products every month.
- gorgoiler 1y agoIn my culture it’s considered extremely casual — and therefore quite rude in social situations other than the most private and familiar — to talk with someone while wearing sunglasses. I can imagine the same thing would apply to AR devices too. What you describe sounds like it could be a real problem, but one I’d blame on rudeness rather than Meta. We already live in a world where people order coffee while reading E! news on their phones.
- pjmlp 1y agoThat is indeed pretty much culture dependent, in Southern Europe sunglasses only go out during Winter, when indoors or when bumping into a friend.
- throwaway2037 1y agoTotally agree. Italians are normally wearing sunglasses on sunny days about 75% of the year. You see old and young on the street meeting friends and chatting casually, all while wearing sunglasses.
- throwaway2037 1y ago> In my culture it’s considered extremely casual — and therefore quite rude What culture?
- _ink_ 1y ago> Can you imagine trying to talk to someone face to face, but they are giving you a blank stare as random notifications and tiktok videos are being beamed inbetween their eyeballs and you. You spelled ads wrong.
- elAhmo 1y agoThis might be good for public transport zombies, at least they wont be using their speakers to watch TikTok
- BatteryMountain 1y agoNow imagine people driving at 130km/h with a 4 ton SUV with these things...
- makeitdouble 1y agoImagine talking with someone face to face and there's a giant tv right behind you pumping inflammatory news headlines. That's a present day situation but I never seen anyone shaking their fist at tvs screens in cafes.
- pnut 1y agoObviously, they don't have the gesture bracelet for the TVs yet.
- Vinnl 1y agoOof, I hate that. Luckily most cafes over here don't have TVs, or even clocks, for exactly that reason. I've been in countries where TVs in cafes are more common, and I don't know how you put up with it.
- incone123 1y agoThe square in the middle of Woolwich, London has a giant screen showing BBC News all day. No idea who decided to put that there but it gives the place a strong 1984 feel.
- izacus 1y agoProbably because many of us avoid such cafes? The "wall plastered with TVs bar" seems to be much less popular here and those places are aggressively unpleasant for me.
- Findecanor 1y agoThat's already happening with cell phones and wireless earbuds, just without video. ... and I personally find that horrible.
- numpad0 1y agoEvery sufficiently tech obsessed kids dream about being able to look at the screen while walking. It takes experiencting for them to accept it doesn't work.
- rhetocj23 1y agoIn this world even a self driving car doesnt help if an individual sporadically walks infront of a car at close range due to being distracted.
- ajuc 1y agoFucking pedestrians even more and destroying cities is a big reason self driving cars should never happen.
- reissbaker 1y agoSelf-driving cars are massively safer for pedestrians and passengers, as per Waymo's safety reports.
- rhetocj23 1y agoHows your startup going? The sin/cos wave on the homepage was rather pleasurable to encounter.
- reissbaker 1y agoIt's going well! Generally up-and-to-the-right MRR growth. Thank you :)
- AaronAPU 1y agoI have never once in my life felt a moment of wanting that.
- maxwellito 1y ago> Meta seems like one of the few large tech companies where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place. +1 ...and I think about it everyday
- seydor 1y agoIt's more like, Meta gets people continuously wrong, like they did with metaverse. I dont think people like walking around with a teleprompter. At least when using a phone it's obvious what they are doing, and that's respectful. Plus, i dunno, i hate glasses that's why i did LASIK and it was the best decision ever.
- bondarchuk 1y agoThere's plenty of people who don't mind using their phone in a socially disrespectful way. Maybe they got it right.
- Eggpants 1y agoPeople don’t walk around pointing a live phone camera and microphone at people. Facebook got it wrong. It’s takes special kind of dbag that thinks it’s ok to wear a Facebook recording device on their face.
- kypro 1y agoIf you have kids this happens today, except they don't look up from their smart phone. This isn't a new problem.
- AaronAPU 1y agoThat is true, it’s an old problem being amplified.
- artursapek 1y agoAnd you know that Faceberg’s plan with these is to sell advertising spots directly on your eyeballs haahaha
- rhetocj23 1y agoMeta has no real internal product innovation since FB desktop. Every internal innovation after that has been a disaster. Hence the continuous acquisitions they have done.
- xg15 1y agoYeah, I was amazed at the brazenness of doublespeak present in that press release. > It’s technology that keeps you tuned in to the world around you, not distracted from it. Using this to sell a technology that will keep the wearer even longer in virtual spaces... Marc evidently hasn't let go of his Metaverse dream and small details, like most of the population finding those ideas completely horrible, aren't gonna stop him...
- rayiner 1y agoAlso it makes you look like a dork.
- baby 1y agoCan you imagine trying to talk to someone face to face, eventhough you're not speaking the same language
- pj_mukh 1y agoHonestly, I’m an avid user of Ray-Ban metas and I agree that if Zuck doesn’t want to re-hash his old original sin (distracting algorithmic feeds) into this new form factor, he would block out any feeds and notifications from the glasses when it detected someone was talking to you, which the glasses can do really well. I’m hoping whatever answer Apple comes up with here has this behavior as default because they don’t have an active user axe to grind. The glasses shine bright when you’re alone, on a walk. Also while you’re at it, kill the Facebook and Instagram feeds to save humanity. Too much to ask?
- 1shooner 1y ago>if Zuck doesn’t want to re-hash his old original sin (distracting algorithmic feeds) into this new form factor Out of curiosity, is there a specific reason to expect different? To me this is designed for attention primacy, for exactly that purpose.
- pj_mukh 1y agoI mean they’re not cartoon villains. This message is just not getting through to leadership from the bubble and all these hardware sales is an opening for alternative business plans, especially if Apple offers a decent alternative.
- 1shooner 1y ago>I mean they’re not cartoon villains. Sure. I'm not assuming the worst from them, but in lieu of a reason, I am expecting the same.
- evilfred 1y agoIf Zuck wasn't Zuck he wouldn't be Zuck
- stetrain 1y agoThe Verge's video on these was mostly footage that looked like the person was staring down at the tip of their nose. It definitely didn't feel natural or like the person was looking through the glasses at the world around them.
- moolcool 1y agoAll while sending the entire interaction to one of the most harmful companies in the world, no less. What a uniquely awful product.
- neya 1y agoEveryday, we get closer to that Wall-E scene where everyone's just so pre-occupied with virtual displays all around that they forget to live their life!
- dennis_jeeves2 1y ago>Meta seems like one of the few large tech companies where if the whole company vanished, the world would be purely a better place. In the 'developed' world I'd extend that concept to many other other organizations. Around 90% of the work they do is useless or harmful: banks, govt, fast food chains etc.
- ToucanLoucan 1y agoMmm you're making me want to read Bullshit Jobs again.
- cal85 1y agoBillions of people willingly use banks, fast food chains etc. all the time.
- BrawnyBadger53 1y agoBanks and government as your first two examples of useless institutions is definitely interesting
- evilfred 1y agobanks protect your money so you don't have to keep it under your mattress and get easily stolen. governments build roads and give you clean water. what are you on about? you know Walden was a total lie right?
- bluecheese452 1y agoThat is the pretty close to the world we already live in. They call it then genz stare.
- devin 1y agothe millennials I know are worse than their children
- bluecheese452 1y agoFor sure. Maybe it should be renamed the tik tok stare or something.
- dlandis 1y ago> Can you imagine trying to talk to someone face to face, but they are giving you a blank stare as random notifications and tiktok videos are being beamed inbetween their eyeballs and you. It would be just like in the Dungeon Crawler Carl books (and probably other scifi/fantasy books)
- stronglikedan 1y agoRemoving Meta from the equation will not remove general rudeness. Those same people aren't paying attention to you now either, it's just not so obvious. There are other, valid use cases for this. I'm looking forward to it. More specifically, I'm looking forward to the secondhand market that will surely spring up moments after release as people realize that it's not a product for them in particular.
- bko 1y agoBillions of people voluntarily Meta products every month. They invented React, React Native, PyTorch, GraphQL, Cassandra, Presto, and RocksDB just to name a few. HN reader: the world would be a better place if they didn't exist Peak Hacker News hubris.
- evilfred 1y agoAll of those would keep on existing if Meta died today, so who cares? Are you saying we have to keep permitting Meta to help governments oppress people and enable teen suicides just in case we get another React? that is silly
- bko 1y ago> All of those would keep on existing if Meta died today, so who cares Try second order thinking or thinking into the future. This company that built much of the modern web and created trillions in value. It's like the communists that just nationalize companies and institutions after they come into power thinking that wealth is just something that spontaneously comes into existence and can be captured with no ill effects. > permitting Meta to help governments oppress people Oppressive governments often ban Meta and other social media. But somehow Meta helps these governments. Try and create a consistent world view that doesn't devolve to [company] bad
- asadotzler 1y agoOr, Meta disappears and all the talent goes to other places where it does other neat things that we all benefit from. We aren't going to accept that Meta has some magic that makes bright kids do better work.
- metabagel 1y agoIdeally, the glasses would stop displaying content when you are physically present with someone and conversing with them. Or you turn the glasses off for a bit to avoid being distracted. Not really a deal breaker, in my opinion.