Meta's ships facial recognition on smart glasses

I recently heard the best way to explain faceblindness: Apples.

Can you tell apples apart? Yes, sure, if you put two apples next to each other, they look similar, but there are differences.

But could you recognize that specific apple among 50 similar ones?

If an apple addressed you on the street, could you remember where you've seen it before?

That is how it feels to be faceblind.

There are workarounds, but they are context-dependent and error-prone.

That apple with red hair and a beard? Sure, that's the colleague from the office next door. But was that the same apple that waved to you in the city yesterday?

The only green apple among red ones? Easy to recognize. But only after some awkward misunderstandings you realize that there are two of them.

And changes of hairstyle are a real problem. I once wondered who that new colleague was during lunchbreak. I was about to ask her, when she said something (unrelated) and I recognized her voice. I had worked with her for 10 years, she had colored her hair.

It's a shame open source hardware isn't a thing in this area, but we've been here before. (Buying locked down devices and installing alt OSes.)

Do they consider not being remembered rude? Do you get incredulous reactions like people with aphantasia?

(not affiliated, I did a simple search before writing an app myself)

I don’t care what convenience feature this possibly has, if you’re wearing a data miner you have no place near me. Fuck off.

> The BIPA requires companies doing business in Illinois to comply with a number of requirements pertaining to the collection and storage of biometric information. These include a requirement that companies:

> Obtain consent from individuals if the company intends to collect or disclose their personal biometric identifiers.

> Destroy biometric identifiers in a timely manner.

> Securely store biometric identifiers.[6]

> A key area of focus is that an entity must use a "reasonable standard of care"[7] in managing biometric information and identifiers.

Or use those 1550 nm LiDAR lasers that are safe for eyes but burn out cameras pointed at them

I hung out with a large group of people for nearly a decade and couldn’t remember who was who until the pandemic. The names under zoom helped me gradually learn over weeks.

When I teach scuba I recite the list of student names for my class in as random an order as possible while I drive to the shop to lower my cognitive load to put faces to names. When I do roll call, I write down every person’s name and try to gradually move off the cheat sheet as I call on them to answer questions. But once they put on their gear (especially since I teach where they use hoods) it all goes downhill. Two white guys approximately 35yo? I’ll get them confused.

If this were socially appropriate I’d totally use it as my prescription glasses to help continue smoothing the curve.

Secondly, put yourself in the opposite situation, do you really care if someone forgot your name? Does it even reflect how well you know someone? I had a friend at scouts when I was a kid and we were inseparable for a year. Never remembered his name. Didn't matter.

(not that i think meta is doing it for accessibility reasons...)

At least where I've worked, there's a constant churn of care staff — with some workers bridging a gap for only a single shift. Institutions currently offer a printed list with portrait, name, room number, and relevant pathologies for each resident. But it takes most people at least a few days to memorize the info. And some people are difficult to recognize from their intake photo.

OTOH, the tech would only need to match a handful of residents. And it would need to conform to privacy laws. So doing the match locally on the device would be a much better fit.

There's a second-amendment-like argument here, imo, that is very hard to push back on - because at least this stuff doesn't kill people. I want every cop to be surrounded by five or six recording devices that they don't control at all times - it's the least worst option.

(Obviously I'm not a fan of the "everying goes to facebook" architecture. I'm hoping we get past that).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You

I recently read in a couple of articles and saw a video, of US ICE agents obnoxiously taunted protesters during their manhunt activities, saying, "we now know who you are," referring to the agent's cell phones who they are using to record the immediate-area protest activity, and apparently collecting faces on preloaded apps.

Rhetorically, what's to stop the US ICE from requesting, and the authoritarian-administration-friendly billionaire executive leaders granting, special editions of the Meta glasses? Or, requesting for national security reasons, which is literally what ICE's mandate is, requesting all of the databases of PII laden facial recognition social networking in the real world, of regular citizen owned Meta smart glasses?

Pretty common pattern in the business racket if you look at history.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157445

>I really applaud Zuckerberg for positively embracing all the attention that's been shouldered on him, really. I think stuff like this SNL skit or him taking his core team at Facebook to watch "The Social Network" together at a movie theatre just shows tremendous inner strength and maturity on his part. It's great to see him be able to laugh it off and joke about it.

He's come a long way in his public speaking skills too, he was pretty natural and comedic during his talk at Startup School. I think he's only going to get better from this point on too.

I assumed that Zuck said no because he'd had enough time with the lawyer and the FTC sniffing about to not bother.

However the glasses based AI lifelog stuff (which was basically a really effective personal assistant) would be a lot more effective if it could use facial recognition (we weren't allowed to use speaker diarization as that would allow us to record individual audio from users and recognise them like with facial recognition)

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re...

It also suggests a certain amount of self-policing by Facebook, which leads to obvious failure cases:

Since Mark Zuckerberg attended Trump's most recent inauguration celebration and NOT non-billionaire average citizens, by and large, I speculate that the FTC threat is no longer a concern to Zuckerberg's Meta corporation. Back scratching all around?

And Leadership is likely to be involved in saying what is "true" and what is "false", which are key elements of knowledge to be clear, in order to manage the strength of their own power.

People who do these things must think the tech makes them more likable and interesting. But, in fact, I immediately deeply dislike these people and would never want to be friends with them. Its a paradox.

Its actually like watching a dude pissing themselves in public and thinking "Ah yeah, I'm covered in pee now! I'm so cool, look how jealous those non-pissers are!"

sadly, it's "only" about the sickos at fb. don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that it's written, but hardly anyone needs it who lived through the past few years with an open eye...

However, I'd be much more inclined for the Black Mirror use of being able to block someone literally not just a number in your phone.

Imagine that, this weekend. Brought to you by Meta Smart Glasses

It’s on your device, you just haven’t been granted access to it.

I have the knowledge to compellingly argue, to legislators who do not have the knowledge, all these points.

(i.e. if you control the money printer, then all you care about is that your subjects continue playing. fb is just one cog in a big machine.)

"How much outsourcing of your mind do you want to give to technology?" "Yes"

If you really can't remember all the details of people that you want to remember, you can always write those details on your phone or trusty Rolodex after you meet them and then check them out before you meet them again if you must.

The problem isn't that I'm being recorded by cameras everywhere, the problem is when those silos are broken down to create a panopticon.

If I wanted to chat with someone pretending to be interested in me I could just answer the door when salesmen come knocking.

I already have that. It's called a memory. Came free with my brain.