The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media’s coverage of how people are using Meta’s Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to be a tiny part of resistance against surveillance tech.”
more at: @feed@404media.co
Wasnt there a ton of outrage and such incl people not being allowed on planes, back when google glass was released?
Why is it all OK now?
Many years of indoctrination. When Google glass was introduced, it was just ‘a neat idea’. Now it’s a product, and therefore it’s clearly more trustworthy because someone is profiting from it. (/s)
I remember Google Glass itself receiving a ton of outrage actually: People hated it and anyone wearing one was made fun of (“glassholes” was a popular insult at the time).
You know what sucks?
In that AR glasses, in theory, are such an interesting technology with lots of potential, and certainly a piece of tech I would love to have and work with and on. Not to secretly record people, but to, well… augment my field of view with whatever digital tools or displays I would like. It would be so useful
It’s honestly kinda saddening to me that it most likely will get completely ruined by our current toxic relationship to technology. A step towards our ever increasing cyberdystopia, and not towards enchanting our limited lives
Obviously either way I don’t trust Meta, but an open-hardware device running a FOSS AR system? It would be nice…
I still hold out hope that this somehow could be resolved, and I would love to contribute to open software for these devices. Maybe one day soon-ish I will. My expertise should be well applicable, after all
Drop the cameras and microphones and replace them with a couple accelerometers and gyros. Paired with your phone’s GPS tracking, the glasses can tell where you’re looking without actually seeing anything. You can get handy features like a floating ‘turn here’ sign over your exit while driving with GPS navigation without recording anyone or anything at any time.
Tbh I don’t even mind cameras that much if they were entirely controlled by the individuals themselves. I have a much bigger issue with it when you’re streaming my facial recognition data to Evil Megacorp 2™ servers that also feed directly to the “Not Spying… Again” agency, though.
Except that one cool thing with AR is being able to have it tell what you’re looking at is. Not just positioning things in space. A lot of cool shit that could be done with AR needs some kind of camera, even if it just sees IR light.
I don’t think that would work particularly well with AR: People get sick if movement isn’t synced up properly, not having any sort of cameras or sensors at all would exacerbate that problem.
If you are talking about a simple HUD, then that might be a lot more viable, but for AR and the tech we currently have, some sort of camera or sensor array is kind of a requirement practically speaking.
It would be incredibly useful in construction. Having a digital overlay telling you exactly where to put up the framing for a separating wall, or an overlay showing the correct distance between screws, or where wires and pipes are inside a wall? There are so incredibly many awesome possible uses for AR in construction.
I agree, it would be nice.
Paywalled article. Here’s the link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jetzt
That license looks like Creative Commons Non-Comercial, which is not an open source license.
This is an unpopular opinion, but using licenses to actively prevent commercial exploitation of voluntary communal labor is not a bad thing. I would even argue that allowing commercial exploitation of free, communally-maintained software is downright unethical. I don’t tolerate this pejorative “it’s not open source unless the rich and powerful can exploit it” bullshit.
I know, and yet the code is open source. Confusing.
No, the code is available, which is not the same as open source.
They do call it “open source” in the docs though.
True, but I have no issue preventing commercial use. I view that as just as good if not better than traditional open source.
That’s called “source available”. FUTO basically did the same thing with their stuff after the community rightfully got angry over their use of “open source” in their docs.
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Yeah I noticed it in the favicon too. Bad aftertaste.
I’d fork this just to name it more appropriately: “Glasshole radar”
Now if they can just notify you that some asshole is recording you on their cell phone instead of reading reddit. probably 0.001% of people out there stalking are using smart glasses.
Now if they can just notify you that some asshole is recording you on their cell phone instead of reading reddit.
If you’re out in public, always assume you’re on someone’s camera. That isn’t really new either.
Hmm… I wonder if there’s any solid way to detect a camera lens being in active focus or use. This app works by parsing Bluetooth traffic, but a person locally recording on their phone wouldn’t have such a trail. Is there any reliable way to detect a camera lens reading exposed light?
Presumably the sensor’s data lines would be detectable, but probably more like laboratory conditions.
Perhaps a physical shutter would be a good happy medium. Put 'em on the damn cell phones, too.
Shoot, I should 3d print one for mine. I don’t use my camera for much anyway, and better protection from impacts would be nice.
I wonder if you could run it on a dedicated piece of gear like FlockYou…
Admittedly, this is cyberpunk as fuck.
Should not be needed… but it’s a fucking cool solution.
Install this on kali nethunter and make glassholes pay for their crimes.
Would love to know when the iOS app is coming out.
Open season on meta wearers when?
Green light!
It sucks that it seems like as time goes on the best thing my phone will be good for is alerting me to other nearby tech to avoid.
Now you need a powerful laser pointer to ruin the glasses camera. Careful not to blind the wearer.
https://xkcd.com/1251/ (there is always an xkcd about it)
That was way more on point than I expected.
Apparently the lidar in some cars can damage cameras and are safe for eyes.
Removed by mod
why did mods remove this
how is mentioning that cars are dangerous a “call for violence”
deleted by creator
Doesn’t work 😮💨 push “start scanning” and nothing happens.
It’s supposed to ask for Bluetooth access at that point, did it?
Yes I did. I don’t know what a foreground service is or how to enable it…
Sorry - edited my comment as you were replying. It’s in the app’s settings menu.
Oh I couldn’t access the settings menu previously…
Working now, thanks
It worked for me after I looked at the settings screen. I’m not sure why. If it is working, though, the debug box will fill up with a ton of text.
Turn off “debug” in the app settings to stop that & have it only report suspect devices instead of everything it sees.
None of those buttons at the top work either. Possibly because they’re behind my notifications bar.
For me it worked to rotate the screen, then the buttons worked.
Same here.
Go to Android Developer Settings > Display Cutout, set it to one of the other options and it should shift the app down a bit so you can access the buttons. (change it back after ofc)
I used “waterfall cutout” but others might work depending on your phone model. Afaik no other fix is possible without the app’s code itself being modified.
Ditto
I think you need to give it a sec or hold. The button down. The same thing happened to me. But it was scanning within a min of downloading
No such luck
Lmao it’s just BLE radar.
yep, theres a few apps like that nowadays. Bluetooth is VERY vulnerable. At least from my understanding.
Bluetooth is a result of corporate, Microsoft types, giving a list of requirements. It’s honestly amazing it sits on top of the 2.4GHz 802.11 standards.
