They were labelled ‘pervert glasses’. Will a camera-free version transform their image?
And other companies are trying to address privacy concerns in different ways – without getting rid of the camera.
The Taiwanese firm HTC recently launched Vive Eagle glasses, which cost less than a quarter of Snap’s.
Thomas Dexmier, a vice president at HTC Vive, says that if anyone near an Eagle specs wearer says “stop filming” or “stop recording”, and it is picked up by one of the four microphones, the camera will deactivate.
And he adds that all recordings captured by the glasses are encrypted, and the firm itself cannot see them – though this also means HTC cannot flag harmful content.
“We acknowledge that there are some challenges, potentially becoming a real problem, especially for women,” he said.
He said HTC Vive was working to make it as difficult as possible for the tech to be misused but said it was “too early to comment” on whether the firm would consider a version without cameras.
Ultimately, Wood thinks that camera-enabled glasses are “not going away”.
He says the current moment reminds him of the 2000s, when some people said that mobile phone companies couldn’t install cameras in their devices because of similar concerns over privacy. “There’s an inevitability there,” he says.
“We will have to find a societal norm, a framework for the use of these products.”
Top image credit: Getty.