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471 points tosh | 2 comments | | HN request time: 1.303s | source
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steelframe ◴[] No.41863798[source]
My concerns are around the normalization of pointing high-resolution cameras at people around you all the time. Perhaps this specific device may have a company behind it that, at least at the moment, will resist handing the video feed with you in it to the data brokers.

Make no mistake though, the data brokers are foaming at the mouth to get access to high-resolution constantly-streaming video content that includes your face, your location, and your activities. Imagine the sorts of things that are going to be sold to whoever is buying.

"Jake Jacobs, who is married, is striking up a lengthy conversation with the young woman seated next to him. His wife might be interested in ads for divorce lawyers."

"Jeff Jones is taking a middle-of-the-week flight to San Jose, and he just finished writing an email to a recruiter from another company who is based out of that city. His company is paying the data broker for intel on employees who may be shopping around, so let's get this info to them stat."

"Jennifer Smith looks to be 3 months pregnant and is flying from Texas to Colorado. She's reading a Planned Parenthood pamphlet. The State of Texas passed a law in 2026 requiring data brokers to report on such activities, so of course we'll let them know."

As competing products come along that are cheaper than the Apple doohickies in part because of the subsidies they get from the data brokers, portable VR headsets are going to bring along a significant deterioration of our already-dismal privacy protections.

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tqi ◴[] No.41864381[source]
This is complete science fiction / FUD. Amazon can't even stop showing you ads for vacuum cleaners after you buy a vacuum cleaner, you think they have the compute for something that sophisticated?
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1. j16sdiz ◴[] No.41865604[source]
Not able to compute that won't stop them reselling or holding it. At some point it will leak, and available for sell to PI or someone will more personal interest on you
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2. tqi ◴[] No.41865702[source]
No one has the storage capacity necessary to store that much audio content, let alone video.

Furthermore, the incremental benefit over traditional ad targeting via search or web history is probably pretty marginal, and not nearly worth the effort/cost. All of these scenarios (Jake Jacobs' wife, Jeff Jone, Jennifer Smith) are already going to show up in a traditional search history, why would an ad company go through all that effort to get data they already have? This is real life not a Mission Impossible movie.