Snapchat's 10-Second-Video Glasses Are Real And Cost $130 Bucks (techcrunch.com) 92
Long-time Slashdot reader bheerssen writes that Snapchat "announced a new product yesterday, Spectacles, which are sunglasses with a camera built into the frame." TechCrunch reports: Snapchat's long-rumored camera glasses are actually real. The startup's first foray into hardware will be a pair of glasses called "Spectacles" and will go on sale this fall for $129.99, according to the WSJ... To start recording you tap a button on the side of the glasses. Video capture will mimic Snapchat's app, meaning you can only capture 10 seconds of video at once. This video will sync wirelessly to your phone, presumably making it available to share as a snap.
The cameras will be using a circular 115-degree lens to mimic the human eye's natural field of vision, and in the Journal's article, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel remembers his first test of the product in 2015. "I could see my own memory, through my own eyes -- it was unbelievable... It was the closest I'd ever come to feeling like I was there again." The camera glasses will enter "limited distribution" sometime within the next three months, which TechCrunch believes "could end up being like Google Glass when it first launched -- officially on sale to the public but pretty hard to come by."
The cameras will be using a circular 115-degree lens to mimic the human eye's natural field of vision, and in the Journal's article, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel remembers his first test of the product in 2015. "I could see my own memory, through my own eyes -- it was unbelievable... It was the closest I'd ever come to feeling like I was there again." The camera glasses will enter "limited distribution" sometime within the next three months, which TechCrunch believes "could end up being like Google Glass when it first launched -- officially on sale to the public but pretty hard to come by."
My goodness, those are fugly (Score:5, Informative)
I was picturing something more like Oakley's MP3 glasses, but with a super-flat little camera between your eyes. Instead it's a child's toy. They got the button on the device right (because it makes it obvious when you're recording) but they seem to have everything else wrong, including the price. That's too much for something that goofy.
One other thing they got right (Score:3)
>> they seem to have everything else wrong
Well they did get *one* other thing right. TFS says:
using a circular 115-degree lens
Genius. I would have tried a triangle lens, or perhaps square.
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http://www.directindustry.com/... [directindustry.com]
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I think they're brilliant. a fun toy with a phenominal compelling use and styled in a way so you know exactly what they are. nobody is going to be wearing these around all day and recording willy nilly. google glass was intended to record all day and you wear them everywhere. these you break out for fun.
congrats to them. I laughed when they passed up $3b buyout offer from fb, but it's clear they have had big visions.
Also, the dude dates miranda kerr. how awesome is that??
From Glassholes to snapholes (Score:2)
Um... didn't we learn something from the abhorrence of google glass. I'd tolerate being in the room with someone wearing these as long as I knew ti was painful for the wearer to use them and put them in visible agony when they were activated. I'm thinking something like glass shard ear pieces and a 50Kv electro shock to the brain when turned on for ten seconds.
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Um... didn't we learn something from the abhorrence of google glass.
Yes. We did. We learned that people want to know when they are being recorded. You have to touch your glasses every ten seconds to record continuously, assuming that's even possible. I think this addresses that problem fairly brilliantly.
Keeps the annoying part, loses the useful parts! (Score:2)
As far as I could tell, the main reason people were annoyed about Google Glass (besides the ostentatious bragging of wearing $1500 glasses) was that somebody wearing them could be taking your picture at any time, without obviously holding up a camera or a phone or wearing a lapel-pin camera or having a pen-sized camera in their shirt pocket or something clipped to their backpack straps or whatever else. These glasses still do that, just not as well as a cheap camera or phone.
But the display inside the glas
Just like google glass (Score:2)
"could end up being like Google Glass when it first launched -- officially on sale to the public but pretty hard to come by."
Then will fade away as people realize they don't want to wear dorky glasses with cameras on them.
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Then will fade away as people realize they don't want to wear dorky glasses with cameras on them.
Plenty of people wanted Google Glass, but they were threatened and bullied by the Luddites, so they stayed silent.
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Threatening to punch anyone they see wearing them in the face isn't bullying; is that what you are trying to say?
Re:Just like google glass (Score:4, Interesting)
Threatening to punch anyone they see wearing them in the face isn't bullying; is that what you are trying to say?
Your hyperbole is showing.
That's not exactly hyperbole. Consider some of the comments in this thread alone
Can they capture the full wind-up and followthrough of SnapChat glasses being slugged off someone's face?
Does it come with a disclaimer that says.. "When you get punched in the face because of these glasses, and you will get punched in the face because of these glasses, you cannot hold SnapChat legally responsible because you are an asshat."
If a person wants or expects privacy, I believe that the onus is upon them to take measures to sufficient degree
They do. They beat the crap out of glassholes. Sufficient measures thus taken, effective privacy is restored.
Some people seem to have no trouble advocating physical violence against people merely for openly carrying a camera (which seems silly because if you want to surreptitiously record people there are plenty of ways to do it that are much less obvious). I hope this is just a case of people "being tough on the Internet", but even so, the ferocity of the response seems totally out of proportion.
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What will fade away is dinosaurs like you who fear technology. This tech will come to pass, make no mistake. What are you going to do when the cameras are so small that you can't tell them apart from any other pair of glasses?
I wear contact lens because I don't *want* to wear glasses, not because I 'fear technology' and even if I did wear glasses, I don't want a 1cm in diameter camera lens bulging out of the glasses. But even if the camera was invisible, the glasses are not. While I could just put the glasses on when I want to video something, I could also just hold up my phone, which will have a lot better camera than some 1mm pinhole camera built invisibly into glasses.
You can't sell bad technology by blaming people for being
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You don't like dorky glasses? Well, they're you're eyes. Enjoy them while you've got them.
130 to get my ass kicked (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't we already go through this with Google Glass? People don't want to be recorded.
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google glass was always on recording. This is snap-button recording, like taking a photo.
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People want to share, though. These things are going to be more successful than Glass because:
1. They're cheaper than Glass ever was
2. They're ugly, but ugly in a way that screams "bad fashion" instead of "I'm a cyber-creep"
3. Snapchat is a massively-successful social network platform built around images and video. Google had... uh...
I think we will see (and should see!) a lot of the same issues that were raised with Glass be raised with these. But with the Spectacles there's at least a clear-cut use c
Stupid gadget is stupid (Score:2)
This is the retarded, short-video version of Google Glass.
Google Glass users were branded as "glassholes" and fittingly so, in my humble opinion.
Also, 10 seconds seems way too short for almost any useful purpose except cranking out stupid Vine videos.
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This is the retarded, short-video version of Google Glass.
Google Glass could only record for a few seconds as well.
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This is the retarded, short-video version of Google Glass.
Google Glass could only record for a few seconds as well.
I rest my case.
Really? (Score:2)
Does it come with a disclaimer that says.. "When you get punched in the face because of these glasses, and you will get punched in the face because of these glasses, you cannot hold SnapChat legally responsible because you are an asshat."
a** (Score:2)
So first we had "glasshole" (asshole),
I guess now we can have "snaphat" (asshat)!
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?? You have some serious mental/social issues.
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perfectly cogent.
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I think Grasshole may come from the British 'Arsehole' - it just matches pronounciation more closely than the American 'Asshole.'
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i've never heard of a grasshole.
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Just ignore the typo.
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I don't want to.
Why do people care... (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously,. you could still prosecute people that distribute content that was recorded without permission of the subject, but I see no point to the outcries against people who might record for their own personal use, and in all honesty, are probably not actually *that* interested in you in the first place to notice you, specifically, among everything else they might be recording and actually *are* interested in.
The only caveat to this I would suggest is that without clear signage to the effect that states that an area is being monitored or recorded, a person doing the monitoring or recording must be physically at the location the recording is occurring... I do not think it should necessarily be externally obvious that they are recording anything, however... any more than it should be required that if a person is simply observing people as they go by should be carrying sign saying that they are watching you.
Re:Why do people care... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because currently a memory is only usable to the witness, and is often forgotten. It cannot be saved in perfect detail, duplicated (only described), or packaged and sold for monetary gain. When wetware comes to be, as you point out, these issues will need to be dealt with at an ethical and legal level, but the that's not coming as soon as you believe, I think.
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+1
I love how clueless these "if you have nothing to hide people" or "you are in a public place people" are. One day it will come back and bite them and they won't know what hit them.
Just because one is a "public" place doesn't mean everyone should have everything they do and say documented for all time, to be shared with anyone at any time. Sitting at a table with someone at a restaurant, one should reasonably expect their conversations are not being recorded or have close-up video being stored, secretly.
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The people who take exception to this should note that they,. like most other people around them, are not likely to be interesting enough for other people to even *want* to document everything they do or say in a public place for all time in the first place.
The brain is a recording device too... the fact that we happen to consider it fallible is immaterial... you can record something us
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It doesn't matter if wetware is not coming as soon as I supposedly think... I mention it to point out that if it were even hypothetically a thing, our existing objection to being recorded with devices should mean that it would be equally objectionable to simply have people *observing*... clearly this is absurd, even in an age where mind-machine interfaces are viable, and so by extension, it must be equally absurd to object to the idea of being recorded in the first place when you are in an area where someo
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If a person wants or expects privacy, I believe that the onus is upon them to take measures to sufficient degree
They do. They beat the crap out of glassholes. Sufficient measures thus taken, effective privacy is restored.
)there's no rational basis to be worried about it
Says you. Most people see it differently.
When I want privacy, I go somewhere private. I step outside, however... and it's fair game.
Says you. Most people see it differently.
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If a person wants or expects privacy, I believe that the onus is upon them to take measures to sufficient degree
They do. They beat the crap out of glassholes
This is assault, and illegal. Your so-called "right to privacy" does not extend to the right to beat up anybody who you think may be infringing upon it. If someone is breaking the law to infringe on your privacy, your course of action should be to report the crime, not to beat the person up.
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You'll find that, throughout most societies, throughout most of history, blatantly breaking core social expectations will get your ass kicked. Complaining about it to the police after the fact (who likely won't care or act) won't change that.
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Beating someone else up just because they offended you is breaking a pretty core social expectation too.
But might does not make right. There are those who believe that it does, but I'd argue that is symptomatic only of a failure in those people to use higher reasoning to draw their conclusions, and not founded on any actually morally justified grounds.
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I prefer not to be carried away, thinking "but I was right" as I lose consciousness. Better to just not be a titanic asshole in the first place.
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I'd think it's better to not be resorting to violence to resolve a violation of social protocol.
A person with smelly armpits might make you uncomfortable to be around too... would you beat him up if he didn't just go away when you asked him to?
Somebody recording their surroundings of which you just happen to be a part does not in any way suggest that the person was ever interested in anything you were doing or saying, and it is undesired *eavesdropping* that is the violation of social protocol, not ind
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I'd think it's better to not be resorting to violence to resolve a violation of social protocol.
You seem to be missing the entire point here. It's not about what you think. It's about what the guys at that bar you walk into wearing a camera think. And they're not reading Slashdot.
But they do act predictably. If you go out in a storm with no rain gear, you're going to get soaked. Don't do that. If you insist on bringing a camera around people who don't think that's reasonable, it's not going to end well. Don't do that.
How you feel about that is about as important as how you feel about the weathe
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Only because people believe themselves to be more important to other people than they actually are... the hypothetical wetware situation illustrates that perfectly, where it is clear that even it were possible to upload everything that person sees with their own eyes into a computer, people would not immediately take offense to other people being around them... the problem isn't really recording,
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Let us invoke a hypothetical situation, however, to briefly consider why recording you in a public place should not be a problem. imagine that wetware is a real thing, and it is possible to transfer memories to a computer with full and vibrant video and audio... Lossy digital recording is possible today, so any imperfections in human memory are immaterial. In such a socieity, if you didn'
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This, they will then make a meme out of.
With no permanent record, that 0.5 sec would be totally unremarkable, not noticed, or long forgotten. With a potential continuous recording (even if only 10 secs at a time), they can review later, and extract those 2 frames where you look absolutely ridiculous.
These glasses just move the recording from a camera
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Maybe a 555 on the trigger button?
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it won't be covert because they look flippin rediculous.
Socialmedia is a third-person camera thing (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing with social media is that people seem to post a lot more pictures of themselves (third person camera) than they post about experiences they were having (first person camera). Meaning video glasses point essentially in the wrong direction, as they show what the user sees, but not the user itself. Selfiesticks seem to be more in tune to how people actually use social media.
Either way, the 10sec restriction makes those glasses a rather limited gadget without much use outside of Snapchat.
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I thought the main function of images in social media was showing everyone a picture of your lunch.
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Either way, the 10sec restriction makes those glasses a rather limited gadget without much use outside of Snapchat.
Since they're entirely built with Snapchat as the exclusive use case, that's not really a design flaw.
You've got an interesting point with the 3rd-person versus 1st-person experience, but it's not impossible to make engaging 1st-person content, assuming you're doing things a person would want to watch in the first place. Google Glass was an abomination, but some of the fashion-shoot footage that came out of the early demos was still pretty fun to watch. If you're out at a party with friends (who I might a
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Is 10 seconds long enough? (Score:1)
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Yes
How could this go wrong (Score:1)
opportunity (Score:2)
Before we were born there was a fascinating industry around stereoscopy. Stereographers would travel the earth snapping 3D images of interesting sights that could be viewed back home in a simple device similar to Google Cardboard. Stereo projections of still images are fun, but moving images in stereo can be breathtaking.
This Spectacles device should have two cameras for stereo. This is a public announcement of the idea, so don't try to patent it subsequently.
Why? (Score:2)
Why is that guy in the photo wearing women's glasses?
Gargoyle (Score:2)
Something new in gargoyle fashion, coming our way.