The “anti-zuck smart glasses detector” app was hands down the best part of that article. That’s great to see visible pushback to these devices. We cannot become too complacent, consumer choice and behavior over the next decade will dictate how much of these mass “ambient” surveillance products will infiltrate our everyday life.
So can this link show where these glasses are near me? Do I have to download the app for it to work? (The link just brings me to a list of files that I’m not sure how to use)
Earlier this month, Apple announced that its new Apple Watches will have the ability to continuously listen to every spoken word they detect and create summaries of whatever’s going on around you. The privacy blowback was immediate and inevitable: Experts warned of the legal risks of using the features, especially in nonpublic spaces and states where eavesdropping laws require both parties to consent to being recorded. Many others called the tech “creepy.”
Apple, prepared for the backlash, launched an entire page of technical details in an attempt to reassure people that no, it’s not spying on them. The company claimed that one feature, Live Rewind, uses a rolling buffer that only transcribes the last 15 seconds of speech, and another, Siri Recap, only provides “high-level summaries” of what it captured throughout the day — both without identifying individual speakers. There’s even an audible chime that warns people nearby when the device is transcribing to prevent surreptitious eavesdropping! At least, in theory.
To many, these supposed privacy safeguards are cold comfort at a time when widely hated surveillance tech like Flock cameras cover rural and suburban communities, subway walls advertise always-listening AI “Friend” pendants, and predatory influencers use Meta RayBan glasses to harass women in public. It’s 2026, and the number-one consumer technology trend seems to be devices that constantly listen to and record everything and everyone around us at all times — with or without consent — subjecting people to a new kind of surveillance where they’re responsible for spotting subtle lights and beeps to know that they’re being spied on. And it’s not surprising that many people have simply had enough.
WTF with this handwringing helplessness? Many---most---things don't spy on you, but if you wear surveillance gear and use surveillance software, then yes they will spy on you. And, as others have pointed out, there are defenses against many things that do spy on you.
For example, here's your clickbait without trackers: https://www.theverge.com/tech/999889/spy-creep-tech-meta-glasses-apple-watches-surveillance
The point is that we are increasingly subjected to other people's creepy surveillance trackers, of which the Meta glasses are a prime example.
That's not my choice and I cannot opt out and I should not have to enhance my defences to the point that I never talk with people in glasses and put a bag over my head in public.
I am in a two party consent state. The phone system they put us on told us that because it's transcribing and not recording then that technically doesn't count as an illegal wiretap.
my guy, The microphones are getting so good that your neighbors devices are recording you. Your office is recording you. All of this is making digital twins of you. And you can't stop it.
Surveillance capitalism, a rough beast, slouching towards Bethlehem.
In the Iraq war, it was total information awareness on the battlefield, and in the streets. Civilian and combatant tracked and scrutinized under the same lens. In China its social credit, the ministry of state security- domestic surveillance in the phones, cars and cameras at the corner. The west is privatizing the enterprise to avoid the poor optics, and legal scrutiny, of state surveillance of the citizens… and why not make a buck while we’re at it?
Yesterday it was behavior monitoring to facilitate behavior modification. turning your browsing and viewing into targeted ads, motivating purchases or behaviors that you never knew you needed.
Today it’s for labeling thought crimes and designating citizens of conscience as domestic terrorists.
Do we want the tomorrow that they are building for us?
Laughs in looped antenna and high drain capacitor /s
They say we have no ability to opt put however there is always an option. We must regain control from those who seek to profit from spying on everyone.
It's nuts how editors will rather slander the entire universe and invent nutty conspiracies, rather than specifically call out apple for their products (and I'm not even talking about this totally optional feature of the watches, if anybody else had made airtags you would have seen lawmakers move to avoid the widest surveillance network of human history).
theshadowofself | 8 hours ago
The “anti-zuck smart glasses detector” app was hands down the best part of that article. That’s great to see visible pushback to these devices. We cannot become too complacent, consumer choice and behavior over the next decade will dictate how much of these mass “ambient” surveillance products will infiltrate our everyday life.
kjlsdjfskjldelfjls | 7 hours ago
"Nearby glasses" is open-source, think this is the one everyone should really be using https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
FrankRizzo319 | 3 hours ago
So can this link show where these glasses are near me? Do I have to download the app for it to work? (The link just brings me to a list of files that I’m not sure how to use)
Foxxie | 3 hours ago
Scroll down below the file list, the download links are the store/source icons.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.nearbyglasses&pli=1
[OP] theverge | 8 hours ago
Earlier this month, Apple announced that its new Apple Watches will have the ability to continuously listen to every spoken word they detect and create summaries of whatever’s going on around you. The privacy blowback was immediate and inevitable: Experts warned of the legal risks of using the features, especially in nonpublic spaces and states where eavesdropping laws require both parties to consent to being recorded. Many others called the tech “creepy.”
Apple, prepared for the backlash, launched an entire page of technical details in an attempt to reassure people that no, it’s not spying on them. The company claimed that one feature, Live Rewind, uses a rolling buffer that only transcribes the last 15 seconds of speech, and another, Siri Recap, only provides “high-level summaries” of what it captured throughout the day — both without identifying individual speakers. There’s even an audible chime that warns people nearby when the device is transcribing to prevent surreptitious eavesdropping! At least, in theory.
To many, these supposed privacy safeguards are cold comfort at a time when widely hated surveillance tech like Flock cameras cover rural and suburban communities, subway walls advertise always-listening AI “Friend” pendants, and predatory influencers use Meta RayBan glasses to harass women in public. It’s 2026, and the number-one consumer technology trend seems to be devices that constantly listen to and record everything and everyone around us at all times — with or without consent — subjecting people to a new kind of surveillance where they’re responsible for spotting subtle lights and beeps to know that they’re being spied on. And it’s not surprising that many people have simply had enough.
Gift link: https://www.theverge.com/tech/999889/spy-creep-tech-meta-glasses-apple-watches-surveillance?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IlRCMllBWU03QWMiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTk5ODg5L3NweS1jcmVlcC10ZWNoLW1ldGEtZ2xhc3Nlcy1hcHBsZS13YXRjaGVzLXN1cnZlaWxsYW5jZSIsImV4cCI6MTc5MDY5Mzk4NiwiaWF0IjoxNzkwMjYxOTg3fQ.wvzmSmCmaHiXO57xEvSNCLWmHQ3-Mzjx4WUEkHZ9Mdw
notproudortired | 6 hours ago
WTF with this handwringing helplessness? Many---most---things don't spy on you, but if you wear surveillance gear and use surveillance software, then yes they will spy on you. And, as others have pointed out, there are defenses against many things that do spy on you.
For example, here's your clickbait without trackers: https://www.theverge.com/tech/999889/spy-creep-tech-meta-glasses-apple-watches-surveillance
Brawldud | 4 hours ago
You helpfully stripped the gift token that actually allows you to read the article if you are not a paid subscriber.
ThoughtsonYaoi | 4 hours ago
No.
The point is that we are increasingly subjected to other people's creepy surveillance trackers, of which the Meta glasses are a prime example.
That's not my choice and I cannot opt out and I should not have to enhance my defences to the point that I never talk with people in glasses and put a bag over my head in public.
It's ridiculous.
DHFranklin | an hour ago
I am in a two party consent state. The phone system they put us on told us that because it's transcribing and not recording then that technically doesn't count as an illegal wiretap.
So that's fun.
DHFranklin | an hour ago
my guy, The microphones are getting so good that your neighbors devices are recording you. Your office is recording you. All of this is making digital twins of you. And you can't stop it.
Tavernknight | 6 hours ago
Last week my wife was showing me some Silent Hill plushies on our computer. This week I'm getting ads for them on Reddit.
RocketshipRoadtrip | 6 hours ago
Surveillance capitalism, a rough beast, slouching towards Bethlehem.
In the Iraq war, it was total information awareness on the battlefield, and in the streets. Civilian and combatant tracked and scrutinized under the same lens. In China its social credit, the ministry of state security- domestic surveillance in the phones, cars and cameras at the corner. The west is privatizing the enterprise to avoid the poor optics, and legal scrutiny, of state surveillance of the citizens… and why not make a buck while we’re at it?
Yesterday it was behavior monitoring to facilitate behavior modification. turning your browsing and viewing into targeted ads, motivating purchases or behaviors that you never knew you needed.
Today it’s for labeling thought crimes and designating citizens of conscience as domestic terrorists.
Do we want the tomorrow that they are building for us?
.
OptimisticSkeleton | 7 hours ago
Laughs in looped antenna and high drain capacitor /s
They say we have no ability to opt put however there is always an option. We must regain control from those who seek to profit from spying on everyone.
VarietyMage | 2 hours ago
"You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?"
Perhaps the old ways need to come back.
mirh | 4 hours ago
It's nuts how editors will rather slander the entire universe and invent nutty conspiracies, rather than specifically call out apple for their products (and I'm not even talking about this totally optional feature of the watches, if anybody else had made airtags you would have seen lawmakers move to avoid the widest surveillance network of human history).
Miserable-Sun-393 | 4 hours ago
Actually that’s not entirely true there has to be a way to opt out at least partially