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Despite disappointing results for its first (test?) run, Snap(chat) has released a second generation of its Spectacles wearable camera:
Snap today released the next generation of Spectacles, its wearable camera, with new features for taking photos and water resistance. The sunglasses, which have the same striking form as the first-generation model, have been slimmed down and now come in three jewel tones: onyx (black), ruby (red), and sapphire (blue). They're available to order starting today at Spectacles.com for $150 — $20 more than the previous model.
If you've followed the story of Spectacles so far, you know that the first version proved to be a costly misstep for Snap Inc. Although reviewers were generally impressed with their whimsical design, Snap made far more units than the 150,000 or so that it ultimately sold. The company wrote down nearly $40 million in merchandise, and laid off about a dozen people.
Even worse, from the company's perspective, is that people who bought Spectacles didn't use them for very long. According to Business Insider, less than half of users continued to use Spectacles a month after buying them. They were presented as the future of communication, but the first iteration of Spectacles felt more like a toy — a relatively cheap novelty that people used a handful of times before stuffing into a drawer.
Also at TechCrunch, The Guardian, Adweek, and Macworld.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:14AM (2 children)
Well, the way those glasses even look, they kinda make it obvious you are being filmed.
Would I be at ease around anyone wearing them? Uhh.. no. I may well commit a social faux-pas in its view. I commit social faux-pas all the time, but most of the time, its a red face and a laugh, not something to either be used to blackmail me or discover on some "laugh at the idiot" video on YouTube.
Hell, I feel uneasy if someone appears to be filming me while I am eating, even though I know good and well they are probably holding their phone that way to get a better view of its screen. Who knows, maybe I have something embarrassing on my face or something, or pigeon poo in my hair... who knows?
I would be far more likely to go to a diner in almost anything ( maybe nothing at all ) than to show up wearing something like that. But that's just me - a guy coming up on 70 - and we old farts seem to have a much different take on respecting other people's privacy than the younger folk do. Would one show respect to put the damn thing away when visiting the men's room - or would I look at the next stall over to see this pair of glasses recording my trying to pass water without getting it all over me or the floor?
Or the ladies could wear this into the ladies' room and generate all sorts of stuff they could upload to xvideos.com.
Apparently, everything streams to SnapChat, as apparently you have to log onto your SnapChat account [spectacles.com] to view your footage.
Do you have any control or "copyright" of your stuff once its "in the cloud"? Although our Government passes Copyright Law, I sure don't think they are bound by it themselves.
The fact you have to have a SnapChat account now means they have a real name of a real person to link the footage to! Your name!!! Another treasure trove of footage should any person or agency have any urge to go snoop through your life... find out who your friends are... whatever. I guess we all should know for now just how cheap digital storage is these days... so what if they have a terabyte of crap on you.... they can cross-reference everything - and Gawd knows what kind of facial recognition technologies are around the corner... so cross-referencing all your friends and construction of search trees - completely automated - is well within the realm of do-ability.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:23PM
Facial recognition is already here in a major way. Better believe every major department store is connected to a nationwide database with customer facial imagery, and automatic alerts for serial shoplifters. If my cellmates from the last stint in the county were telling the truth, it's quite accurate and also analyzes gait and other traits which make disguise and concealment quite difficult.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:28PM
So, if I read this right
1. These glasses stream whatever they see to the Snapchat account of the idiot wearing them.
2. Snapchat makes money out of adslinging to the people who subsequently view this footage (genuinely don't know what their business model is, have never seen/used Snapchat).
If point 2 is correct, then irrespective of the motives of the wearer of the glasses, arguably this 'filming' is ultimately being done for commercial purposes, with the wearer becoming, in effect, an unpaid cameraman providing footage for Snapchat's financial gain. I can see some lawyers having fun with this.
If now, indeed, 'All the world's a stage' thanks to these sort of devices, then I'll be wanting my Equity card and whatever the standard rates are these days for extras from Snapchat and their ilk.