Not content with distorting actual reality, Facebook now wants to build a digital layer for the world
- Reference: 1600324084
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/17/facebook_ar_project_aria/
- Source link:
News of the effort came at Facebook’s annual Connect conference during which the biz discused its virtual-reality roadmap.
Zuck shows Virtual Empathy by visiting storm-wrecked Puerto Rico in VR [1]READ MORE
As Facebook [2]explained here , its vision involves glasses that “enhance your surroundings with a 3D layer of useful, meaningful and contextually-relevant information. And unlike the devices of today that force you to choose between your screen and the world around you, these glasses will blend into the flow of everyday life.”
Facebook doesn’t know how to build that overlay. But it has built a prototype of the glasses.
Dubbed Project Aria, the techno-specs are packed with cameras and microphones to record the world as wearers see it.
Facebook sees the goggles as a smartphone killer, and asks us all to imagine “a time when we have all the benefits of connectivity (and more), without the need to keep our heads and our eyes down, looking at a device.
Innovative technology with fashion-forward style to help people better connect with friends and family.
“Imagine calling a friend and chatting with their lifelike avatar across the table. Imagine a digital assistant smart enough to detect road hazards, offer up stats during a business meeting, or even help you hear better in a noisy environment.”
But Facebook isn’t sure it is on the right track, so forget getting your hands on Aria any time soon. The antisocial network said the gizmo is a “research device” that “will use sensors to capture video and audio from the wearer’s point of view, as well as eye movement and location data to help our engineers and programmers figure out how AR can work in practice.”
Around 100 Facebook staffers in San Francisco and Seattle will don the glasses and go into the real world to collect data. Facebook promises they won’t go into restaurants or shops without written consent, and will never record in “sensitive areas like restrooms, prayer rooms, locker rooms, or in sensitive meetings and other private situations.”
[3]
Facebook's Aria AR glasses. Some assembly required.
Click to enlarge
The device will shine a white light to indicate when Facebook’s AR explorers are exploring, and they’ll wear a lanyard explaining what they are up to. That lanyard will include a URL that offers more info about Aria, which sounds like a great idea at a time we’re all being encouraged to stay six feet apart.
Facebook has outlined data hygiene practices to preserve the privacy of anyone who is recorded by its roving recorders. Faces and car licence plates will be blurred, hopefully. Permissions will be sought. Encryption will be applied. Promises are just words on a screen.
Facebook hasn’t suggested a time frame for Aria becoming a product. But it has said that in 2021 it will deliver Ray-Ban branded smart glasses, and that they’ll ”combine innovative technology with fashion-forward style and help people better connect with friends and family.”
Also new is a next-generation Oculus Quest VR headset, now at 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye, faster Qualcomm innards, 6GB of RAM and a price – US$299 – that’s $100 lower than previous models. Global [4]manipulation of populations not included. ®
Get our [5]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2017/10/10/mark_zuckerberg_vr_visit_to_puerto_rico/
[2] https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/privacy-matters-project-aria/
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/09/17/pr_supplied_facebook_aria_ar_glasses.jpg
[4] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
That's what
The lanyards for. You can read the explanation and then throttle them with it. We all know it'll happen after the Google disaster
>>Ahem, excuse me, when I'm walking down the high street, that is also a private situation as far as I'm concerned,
Legally, in the UK, a person has no expectation of privacy in a public place; anyone can take pictures or record you for any reason they like.
This https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/speech_100825.pdf goes ito some detail....
Seems strange that the police don't seem to be aware of that?
Not aware? Or, quite happy to overstep their legal authority if they believe they can get away with it?
The contents of the speech do not really support the statement that "anyone can take pictures or record you for any reason they like". Just one example, from the speech: "Last year a peaceful demonstrator against the arms trade, with no criminal record, succeeded in the Court of Appeal in a claim for invasion of privacy after he had been photographed by the police."
Who you are, who is doing the photographing/recording and their reason for doing it, are all taken into account in cases where invasion of privacy is alleged in a UK court. It is true that we do not have laws which explicitly grant "image rights" as some other countries do, but its a bit more nuanced than you suggest.
"when I'm walking down the high street, that is also a private situation as far as I'm concerned"
If you really believe that then you should never leave your house again, or permit any family members to leave, or do anything online, or buy anything with a credit/debit card etc etc...
Boycott Facebook
Come on. This scourge needs stamped out.
Re: Boycott Facebook
I emptied and then deleted my personal profile and all my company pages about three months ago. Absolultely no regrets.
Lanyards...
"... they’ll wear a lanyard explaining what they are up to..."
Great, and I'll wear one explaining that by my rights under GDPR, I want all data about me gathered by these snoopers to immediately be destroyed.
Re: Lanyards...
Note: must be personally identifiable.
must be personally identifiable
Re photos in public places, it is still not clearly established under precisely what conditions the GDPR rights apply, so the grey areas will continue to be exploited until clear precedent emerges. This could of course be an opportunity to apply for that precedent (provided you have the dosh).
However, quite apart from the privacy question, this is yet one more departure from direct contact with the real world, which can only further degrade human engagement with life, the universe and everything . One day our entire lives will be mediated by some flat screen or other, and nobody will realise until too late how much interesting (and indeed important) detail has been filtered out.
If properly cultivated, the sensitivity of direct human sensory perception beats anything mediated by our technologies hands down - typically by several orders of magnitude. Lose that advantage and life could well seem, to quote Hamlet, "weary, stale and unprofitable"
Re: Lanyards...
Considering they already have image and face matching built into facebook, and plenty of your info on there likely even if you kicked facebook years ago...
Are these people so young they don't remember what happened to Google Glass?
And since these are willing Facebook employees, there's little motivation against vigorously exercising one's right to privacy.
Not that I condone violence - but mass surveillance by a megacorp is a form of violence as well.
Oh, goody.
The return of the glassholes. Now with extra spyware.
Re: Oh, goody.
"and will never record in “sensitive areas like restrooms, prayer rooms, locker rooms" ... we know how well this worked out with ZOOM meetings don't we?
Great news
Business people will be able to hold virtual meetings or chat to their mistresses while hammering up the M1 at 90.
Farceholes
So, unable to learn from the public reaction to Google's ' Glassholes', Zuck wants to go a couple of steps further in his bid to conquer the world's social data in every respect.
" Imagine calling a friend and having their avatar siiting opposite you"? More smart pollution from ear bud wearing idiots shouting at unseen people, and they laugh at old men shouting at clouds?
Where is the plane of Focus in AR?
For traditional 3D fun, e.g. IMAX, 3DTV, or VR headsets, your eyes focus on a single fixed-distance 2D plane. The virtual stuff appears to be in front of or behind that plane, but your eyes' focus stays fixed on the screen, and your brain does a pretty decent job (or not, in my case) of pretending not to notice the discrepancy.
But in Real Life, I need my eyes to focus on the actual position of the physical object that I am looking at.
How is it possible to overlay the two in AR? How can I focus on the virtual person sitting on a physical chair if my eyes need to be focussed on two different things at the same time to do so?
I wonder how well they will work
after they've been punched to the back of the wearer's head?
Facebook is going to have the world's biggest dataset on one particular life experience
They'll be able to write the book on the experience of being punched in the face
meaningful and contextually-relevant information
That'll be adverts, then...
Meh
"By permitting conspiracies and blatant falsehoods to circulate unchallenged"
Just like paper making companies allow people to make leaflets doing the same. Megaphone manufacturers. Banner producers. Email accounts. Almost like its a media format or something.
However as for the tech, good luck giving it a go. Google glasses fell over, maybe this one will succeed where it failed but probably not. Eventually someone might achieve it and it might be desirable. Or not.
Eye bleach sold seperatly
Aria search .... blue waffle .....images ....open all
> Facebook promises they won’t go into restaurants or shops without written consent, and will never record in “sensitive areas like restrooms, prayer rooms, locker rooms, or in sensitive meetings and other private situations.”
Ahem, excuse me, when I'm walking down the high street, that is also a private situation as far as I'm concerned, and I will not take kindly to being filmed (which is what these monstrosities will be doing).
And I simply do not believe any reassurances FB may care to utter regarding privacy. Their record on privacy is about as solid as... something not in the least solid.
More evil from the masters of evil.