--- title: "Facebook Proud of New Glasses That Let You Record People Without Them Knowing" description: "Meta-formerly-Facebook just unveiled its new model of Ray-Ban smart glasses, and as you might expect, they're a privacy nightmare waiting to happen. Awkwardly announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, these new pieces of facewear, officially called an unwieldy \"Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses,\" are a follow-up to the dismal flop Ray-Ban Stories, and with its […]" date: "2023-09-29" modified: "2023-09-29" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-glasses-record-people" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "facebook" - "Meta" - "smart glasses" - "the digest" --- # Facebook Proud of New Glasses That Let You Record People Without Them Knowing ![The new Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses look like regular shades, but can record and livestream video with little warning to those around it.]() *\Image: Meta\* ## Spy Glasses Meta-formerly-Facebook just unveiled its new model of Ray-Ban smart glasses, and as you might expect, they're a privacy nightmare waiting to happen. Awkwardly announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Meta Connect event on Wednesday, these new pieces of facewear, [formally called]() an unwieldy "Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses," are a follow-up to the dismal flop Ray-Ban Stories. With a 12 megapixel camera, the specs can snap photos and record video at a solid 30 frames per second at 1080p. In addition, the shades, which'll officially be released next month, can now livestream up to 30 minutes at a time to either Instagram or Facebook, allowing anyone willing to shell out for its $299 asking price to play the part of being a tech-hip influencer. ## Lights, Camera, Action Of course, for anyone that isn't keen on shamelessly broadcasting away their lives and feeding it to Meta's algorithms, the idea that anyone wearing these could be recording you might be disturbing, especially since Meta's glasses look almost exactly like regular Ray-Bans, and aren't the painfully unstylish giveaways that were Google's Glass or Snapchat's Spectacles. But don't worry, the minds at Meta have a solution: the glasses are supposed to light up when they're recording, and unlike when this feature was used in its dud predecessor, it now flashes on and off to make the effect more noticeable. "Yes, the pattern was more noticeable in person," Victoria Song [wrote at *The Verge* ]()in her hands-on test of the glasses, "...but I was also indoors, and direct sunlight has the tendency to wash out any kind of LED or screen." "It's hard to say whether this slight tweak is actually enough to address privacy fears when the device itself is so discreet," she added. ## Easy Workaround Needless to say, it doesn't sound like a foolproof solution. The indicator light, in fact, [has already been hilariously foiled by whoa-dude podcaster Joe Rogan](), who in an interview with Zuckerberg last year smartly asked, umm, "couldn't you just put a piece of tape over the light?" "I guess in theory," was all Zuckerberg could stammer in defense. Who's to say someone dedicated enough couldn't just remove the light, either? Adding to privacy fears, a software update to the glasses is coming down the pipe that will equip them with Meta AI, which the company claims will be able to get information on what you're looking at, like looking up and identifying landmarks, hands-free. God help us all if this tech starts parsing human faces. **More on Meta:** *[Losing Human Users, Facebook Releasing Chatbots for Lonely to Talk To]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()