Can Real-Life $150 Spy Glasses Make Societies More Transparent? | The Utopianist - Think Bigger - 0 views
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The Roy Orbison looking Eyez will feature a 720p HD recording camera, microphone, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, 8 GB flash memory, and three hours of battery life. Using an iPhone or Android app you can transmit what your Eyez record directly to the web, or you can save and upload it later using a microUSB port. Here’s a promo clip of the glasses from ZionEyez, the start-up company developing them:
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At $150 a pair, these glasses are cheap enough to become invaluable tools for journalists in volatile regions, especially those living under regimes who restrict free speech and press — where being seen recording video can be dangerous
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the notion of more and easier surveillance will draw the inevitable comparisons to Big Brother — and certainly, the notion that our deeds could be surreptitiously captured by strangers, even friends, without our knowledge is an uncomfortable one. But some would argue that given the amount of surveillance we now face by the state, the amount of information we willingly volunteer about ourselves to corporations and on social media sites anyways, pervasive video-taking goggles seem like a natural stage in the evolution towards something like David Brin’s transparent society.