The last time I was in a starbucks (in Tokyo) well over 50% of the people were holding highres video cameras in their hands, swiping away in solitude. I couldn't see what they were looking at, nor could I know if they were recording — but who gives a shit? It's a public place. If I cared about that, I'd have to play it safe and assume they all were.
So I think you have it backwards. It's 2022; if you want to make sure you aren't recorded while out in public, then you stay home. (That starbucks also has its own cameras, mounted on the ceiling.)
P.S.
Google Glass failed because it didn't provide sufficient utility and value to its users. Not because it freaked out a certain subset of the population, or because John Gruber called them glassholes.
If it had provided real enduring value, then tons of people would wear them and nobody would give a shit about some subgroup's Luddite anxieties — my great grandpa and some of his buddies had similar feelings about the Sony Walkman. But nobody stopped using walkmans because those old guys didn't like them shutting out the outside world with their headphones; they stopped because eventually minidisc players and ipods were invented.
Well, dude, not every nation is like Japan, when it comes to technology I dare to say no country is like Japan, nor it strives to be (maybe South Korea but not even them). So taking the most extreme example (and not really the same example by any stretch of imagination) and stating whole mankind across whole globe is like that is not even stretching it, its a plain lie.
Since you seem completely oblivious about other cultures - there are still whole cultures where taking a picture without asking for permission is highly offensive. We talk about billions of people. And even in other places, like most Europe, you try something like that in cafe and you will be asked to put it down. I also mentioned current decade, things change but not that fast as some kids project it to be.
I think it would benefit tremendously to basically everybody to actually travel a bit like backpackers as far culturally as possible to challenge themselves and their worldviews a bit.
OK, but I'm originally from California and was there just a couple months ago. Same story at starbucks there: cameras on the ceiling, camera phones in tons of peoples' hands.
Sorry if you don't like it, but smartphones are everywhere now, and that's not gonna change. You might feel like sitting alone wearing a headset is somehow fundamentally different than sitting alone using a smartphone, but it really isn't. It is precisely the same in all respects that matter — you just aren't used to it yet.
However, we might be talking about a different kind of "coffee shop". I'm talking about corporate coffee shops like starbucks. They mainly offer industrial coffee and food, wifi, and a place to work, while you are in between things or in transit. I haven't been to Europe since before COVID ,but IIRC it was already pretty much the same there, too, even three years ago. I saw hundreds of people using iPhones, and pretty sure I didn't see anybody get asked to put it down.
Completely different. Your face and ears are covered, so the staff or anyone else can't interrupt your special virtual bubble. Not without tapping you on shoulder.
Perhaps you could place a doorbell on the table. When pressed it gives you a notification in your eye screens. You could rig up automated contextual replies "yes you can borrow the sugar". Saving you the bother of being human.
Sitting there with laptop or phone, you are not faceless like you are with VR headset.
Anybody could walk up and ask me a question, and I'd both see and hear them. In fact, that is one of the main points of today's announcement. The new "mixed reality" feature means exactly that.
(You could always hear people around you in VR (if you wished), but seeing your surroundings didn't work well at all, unless you used developer mode hacks, and even then the cameras were bad.)
With Meta's previous headset, I wouldn't contemplate using it in a starbucks.
Not because I prioritize people walking over and interrupting me, or them being able to see every inch of my face, but because I want to be able to see them.
Sitting in public without being able to hear and see what is going on around me does seem like a very weird thing to me. But that's not what's being talked about here.
The last time I was in a starbucks (in Tokyo) well over 50% of the people were holding highres video cameras in their hands, swiping away in solitude. I couldn't see what they were looking at, nor could I know if they were recording — but who gives a shit? It's a public place. If I cared about that, I'd have to play it safe and assume they all were.
So I think you have it backwards. It's 2022; if you want to make sure you aren't recorded while out in public, then you stay home. (That starbucks also has its own cameras, mounted on the ceiling.)
P.S. Google Glass failed because it didn't provide sufficient utility and value to its users. Not because it freaked out a certain subset of the population, or because John Gruber called them glassholes.
If it had provided real enduring value, then tons of people would wear them and nobody would give a shit about some subgroup's Luddite anxieties — my great grandpa and some of his buddies had similar feelings about the Sony Walkman. But nobody stopped using walkmans because those old guys didn't like them shutting out the outside world with their headphones; they stopped because eventually minidisc players and ipods were invented.