No bright future with Facebook’s shades
Do we really need sunglasses that can take photos, capture video and play music?
If you answered, “hell yes,” Facebook just launched a new product that would get a thumbs up from James Bond. But before we get going, please indulge me as I bore you with a tale from summer vacation.
My wife and I don’t feel comfortable with air travel just yet — the stupid anti-vaxxers really are holding up any return to normal — but we did want the kids to get away for a little R&R before the return of school on Thursday.
So we booked a few nights last month at Hockley Valley and then Niagara. It was lovely, even if there now appears to be a labour shortage pandemic in the service sector. James Bond would never wait 20 minutes for a martini on an empty patio.
Anyway, one morning, before we decided to “Journey Behind the Falls,” we took in the rushing aquatic wonder at ground level. Everyone behind the rails was taking photos, including one gorgeous woman who was wearing next to nothing. I mention this only because, as she sauntered along with her muscled boyfriend who also appeared to have a clothing allergy, I noticed some of the cameras in the hands of young men slyly went from shooting the water to shooting the passing hottie.
It was creepy. This poor thing was just taking in the sights without realizing she had become one.
It’s like she was strutting along an invisible red carpet as random strangers suddenly morphed into paparazzi, filming her string bikini from behind.
I was thinking about this woman after learning about Facebook’s new “smart glasses.”
In collaboration with one of the greatest eyewear brands in the world, Ray-Ban Stories are now available in Canada.
Starting at $369, and coming in 20 style combinations, RayBan Stories look like normal Ray-Bans but feature dual five-megapixel cameras, three microphones, speakers embedded in the arms and “beamforming” technology.
This is Facebook for your face.
And given the social behemoth’s track record when it comes to privacy, I would feel safer in exploding underpants.
I read a bunch of reviews on Friday and watched a couple of promo videos to grasp the target demo. It appears to be anyone, everyone and no one in particular.
In one video, a woman wearing Ray-Ban Stories does backflips on a beach and then stands on her hands to snap an upside-down, sunglasses shot of jellyfish kites. Gosh, how relatable.
If the goal is to telegraph everyday usefulness, this does not seem like persuasive marketing: Hey, guys, I just bought Ray-Ban Stories in case I’m ever shot out of a cannon against my will on a sunny day and want to document the scattering starlings as my cheeks flap in the wind and I’m too terrified to pull out my phone before impact.
We are already a society gone selfie mad. We don’t need our sunglasses taking more photos, especially when we already have phones with superior lenses and resolution. Or maybe that’s exactly what Facebook is hoping to disrupt, two eyes at a time.
In one video, Facebook’s chief android, Mark Zuckerberg, let the long-term strategy slip: “Ray-Ban Stories are an important step toward a future when phones are no longer a central part of our lives.”
Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to sound like a neo-Luddite, but enough is enough with all this “smart” tech.
Why is my LG dryer sending me texts to say a cycle is done? Why is my Apple Watch giving my wrist a haptic tap to say it’s time to stand when I’m behind the wheel and doing 100 clicks on the QEW en route to Niagara?
I can’t stand while I’m driving a car, you idiot watch. Just tell me the time and knock it off with the health tips before you get my family killed.
It is telling that Facebook has not put its logo on these new glasses. Facebook knows most people believe it is to privacy as the Gap is to haute couture. The company does not want potential consumers to entertain the possibility their eye data will be sold to a third party, or that hackers may see them squinting down at the urinal.
What’s next?
Is Amazon’s Whole Foods going to create a line of AI tongue sensors that make Cheetos taste like caviar? Is IBM going to launch a cochlear implant that sonically converts your partner’s bellyaching into Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5? That’s not hyperbole — it’s the philosophical blueprint of all “smart glasses,” a product with huge R&D budgets, AI end dreams, but still few good reasons to buy.
It’s bad enough that every second person in public is now disconnected from reality with headphones and a smart phone. Imagine if Ray-Ban Stories become The Next Big Thing.
Then the person at the bistro table next to you will be blasting Doja Cat through her eyeballs as she surreptitiously films you stuffing your face with calamari.
That’s not progress — it’s a dystopian nightmare.
If those weirdos in Niagara Falls were bold enough to raise their phones to take spontaneous photos of a passing hottie, imagine the encrypted footage they will compile when their sunglasses can double as spyware.
Technology keeps pushing public behaviour into an obnoxious red zone.
You don’t need 20/20 vision to see how Ray-Ban Stories will continue this trend.