Welcome to Meta’s future, where everyone carries cameras

Cameras stared at me all over Meta’s Menlo Park campus. I’m not talking about security cameras or my fellow reporters’ DSLRs. I’m not even talking about smartphones. I mean the Ray-Ban and Meta smart glasses that Meta hopes we’ll all wear – in some form one day.

I visited Meta for this year’s Connect conference, where almost every hardware product included cameras. These are the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which have received a software update, the new Quest 3S virtual reality headset and Meta’s prototype Orion AR glasses. Orion is what Meta calls a “time machine”: a working example of what full-fledged AR could look like, years before it will be consumer-ready.

But at least on Meta’s campus, the Ray-Bans were already everywhere. It was a different kind of time machine: a glimpse into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s future world, where glasses are the new phones.

I’m conflicted about this.

Meta really wants to point cameras in your face. The glasses that follow 2021’s Ray-Ban Stories are apparently on the rise in this regard, as Zuckerberg said The edge Sales are going “very well”. They are not full-fledged AR glasses as they do not have a screen to display information, although they are becoming more powerful with AI features. But they’re perfect for what the entire meta-empire is built on: encouraging people to share their lives online.

The glasses come in a variety of classic Ray-Ban styles, but right now it’s obvious that users don’t just wear glasses. As I strolled around campus, I spotted the telltale signs on person after person: two prominent circular cutouts on the edges of their lenses, one for a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera and the other for an indicator light.

This light flashes when a user takes photos and videos and is also generally visible in sunlight. In theory, this should have reassured me: when the lights weren’t on, I could trust that no one was taking pictures of me eating lunch before my meetings.

But when I talked to people on campus, I was always a little nervous. I was very aware of these circles and checked to see if anyone was filming me when I wasn’t paying attention. The sheer potential of a recording would distract me from conversation and create a quiet, anxious hum in the background.

When I put a pair on myself, the situation suddenly changed. I had been hesitant as a potential recording target, fearing that I might be photographed or filmed as a byproduct of polite eye contact. However, with the glasses on my own face, I felt like I should record more. There’s something truly fascinating about the experience of a camera right at eye level. By simply pressing a button on the glasses, I could take a photo or video of anything I saw, at the exact angle I saw it. No fumbling around pulling out my phone and hoping the moment lasts. There may be no better way to share my reality with other people.

Metas smart glasses have been around for a few years now, and I’m hardly the first – or even the first – to offer them The edge – to be impressed by them. But this was the first time I saw these glasses not as early adopter technology, but as a ubiquitous product like a phone or a smartwatch. I’ve gotten a glimpse of how this seamless capture would work on a large scale, and the prospect is both exciting and terrifying.

The camera phone was a revolution in itself and we are still grappling with its social impact. Now almost anyone can document police brutality or capture a fleeting, funny moment, but also take creep photos and post them online or (a far lesser offense, to be clear) antagonize people at concerts. What happens when even the minimal friction of pulling out a phone is eliminated and billions of people can instantly snap a photo of everything they see?

Personally, I can see how this would be incredibly useful for taking candid photos of my new baby, who is already starting to recognize when a phone takes a photo of her. However, it’s not hard to imagine far more malicious uses. Sure, you might think that we’ve all gotten used to everyone pointing their phone cameras at everything, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing; I don’t like that there’s a chance I’ll end up on someone’s TikTok just because I left the house. (The rise of sophisticated facial recognition makes the risks even greater.) With glasses cameras ubiquitous, I feel like there’s an even greater chance that my face will show up somewhere on the Internet without my permission.

The integration of cameras into a visual aid that is essential for many people also carries clear risks. If you already wear glasses and switch to prescription smart glasses, you will either have to carry a low-tech replacement pair or accept that they will be used in potentially very inconvenient places, such as: B. a public toilet, remains attached. The current Ray-Ban Meta glasses are mostly sunglasses, which is why they are probably not the first choice for most people. But you can get them with clear and transition lenses, and I bet Meta would rather market them as everyday glasses.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that most people will buy them. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are pretty good gadgets now, but I was on the Meta campus meeting Meta staff to see the Meta hardware for a Meta event. Unsurprisingly, Meta’s latest hardware has been commonplace, and it doesn’t necessarily tell us much about what people outside of this world want.

Camera glasses have been around for years. Remember how magical it is to photograph what’s right in front of your eyes? My former colleague Sean O’Kane reported almost exactly the same experience with Snap Spectacles back in 2016.

But Meta is the first company to make a credible effort to achieve mainstream acceptance. They’re a lot of fun – and that’s what scares me a little.