These Ray-Bans Look Great BUT... - Facebook Stories Sunglasses
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
3,022 words · ~15 min read
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♪ Facebook stories ♪ ♪ Ray-Ban glasses ♪
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- A Facebook whistleblower is testifying for a senate committee.
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I'm currently reading "An Ugly Truth", an exposé about Facebook and all their crappy practices
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over the past decade, and look what's here. Do you want a camera on your face
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from one of the most data-hungry and malicious companies in the world
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or at least negligent? I don't, but it comes in a big box.
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(cover thumps) Boom. Ray-Ban stories integrates Facebook technology
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with iconic Ray-Ban eyewear to bring you the new way to capture, share, and listen.
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Cool. - [David] Wow. - And now the actual product box that consumers will get.
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(grunts) So much waste in the world, you know. These magnets here just
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for no reason. A cylindrical prism, Wayfarer, Ray-Ban stories,
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there's actually two styles, I kind of prefer the other type,
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which is the more like club round looking one. I actually own those sunglasses.
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I would have liked to have those, but Wayfarers are safe. They look good on everybody. These look good on me, too,
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but you know, it's riskier to get the rounds. So Ray-Ban, Facebook,
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a normal looking case. Download the Facebook View app.
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There's a new Facebook app that wants to live on your phone.
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And a charging cable, USB-C to shining sea,
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that's about two and a half feet long. Oh,
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oh cool, I didn't know it came with a, aw, I thought this was a string for the glasses
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so you can wear them voting or something. It's actually just a little soft bag.
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But you know what I always say, "On your face or in the case."
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This was not gonna save you from sitting on them. And then there is a little warranty bag.
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Oop, see you later. Oh, wait, one more thing. The hitchhiker's guide to the sunglasses wearable galaxy.
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Now, the glasses themselves,
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this case is a little heavier than normal. There's a light on it, hold on.
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It was just glowing, amber. Yeah, it's a charge case.
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Cool, it's got this kind of foamy, this is not Alcantara, this is like a foamy kind of innered padding
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and there's the glasses. And you can see
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they sit in here and it's actually a magnetic charging case.
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There's some contacts right there. And that is so cool, that these just go
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into a normal seeming case and you can't screw that up. They just kind of have to be
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on the charger when they're in there. This is a little bulky, USB-C charger on the back.
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They are quite low profile. Yes, these arms are thicker than normal,
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but they don't look obviously fat. Like these look pretty good, these are light.
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I will say that, I believe these were $300 (groans)
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and which is what, double the price of Wayfarer's? And they don't feel or look as nice
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as a regular pair of sunglasses. There's no metal on here. They're all plastic.
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They kind of look like what you get in a case of beer. There's no ability
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to articulate the nose piece. And I mean, not all sunglasses have that,
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but my Ray-Bans do.
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Ooh, kinda squishy.
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How you doing Frank? I don't know why I always say that. It's from "Empire of the Sun". (laughs)
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Young Christian Bale says it. The camera's on the front.
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You can see them there, they're on either side. I think the ones on the snap spectacles are larger
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and are like very obvious. These
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are kind of in that uncanny valley where
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they're so small that you might not notice them, but not small enough that no one will notice them,
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which kind of puts you in the whole like "I've been talking to you for 10 minutes
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and now I noticed that you have cameras on your glasses and now I'm creeped out."
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So don't know with that. Now they do have a light that accompanies
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any photo or video that you take.
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It's a white light, we'll see that in a moment. And we'll see if that is sufficient to not creep people out.
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I'm also seeing a little hold or toggle here. There's a switch it's showing red right now,
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like it's maybe off. That's gotta be the power, I'm assuming,
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but why don't I start by opening up the app, and I think you can get these without any tint.
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- [David] Oh, just like glasses? - Yeah, just like clear frame, but I don't know
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what the point of that would be. Let's get your glasses paired enough to date. So you can capture moment, listen to media.
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You can use these as headphones and share memories with those who matter most,
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like the people on my Facebook are the ones who matter most. There's a lot of people on there who are just,
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honestly, I didn't know they were on there until it was their birthday, and now I have to delete them.
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Start by turning on your glasses. Slide and hold the power switch toward the lens
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until the notification LED starts. I want that green light to blink.
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All right, it's blinking blue. RB, Ray-Ban stories,
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there they are connecting. Allow access to your contacts and call history.
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(sighs loudly) I mean, Facebook probably already has all this, but no.
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Imagine this just goes like "New Guy" on me. I suddenly have this awesome HUD, but no,
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despite Facebook owning Oculus, these are not AR glasses.
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I'm not gonna have any cool overlays. I feel like I should disclose that that's what I want.
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Maybe if I think about this long enough and I get scared enough, I won't want this,
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but generally speaking, I want there to be a brain machine interface future,
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where we just are integrated with machines, and I think that wearables with AR
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are a stepping stone to that. These are not that. I want them to be, but they're not.
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These are just a way for me to like, just make more Facebook stories.
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So Facebook needs location access to connect
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your glasses' temporary Wi-Fi network for large file transfers.
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This is used to import, captures, and update your glasses.
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It needs it, dammit. Look at this, capture the moment hands-free.
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Use Facebook assistant to take photos and videos with your voice.
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Hey, Facebook, take a video.
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I'll have to set it up. It's not gonna do that. Okay, so you don't need to use the voice.
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You could just go like this. I don't know what it's doing, but it went du-du-du.
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You guys can't hear this, but I'm getting all sorts of little like, budoops.
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I'm gonna use the Hey Facebook thing 'cause I have a hunch
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that the person that this product is actually for is a hands-free person,
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because I'm guessing that the video and picture quality
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is gonna be worse than your phone. And so this is really about not having
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to take out your phone and I'm probably riding my bicycle
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or something like that. I think I would want the voice. Press and hold to take a photo.
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The white notification LED will blink and make a sound during the capture.
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But first, thanks to Vessi Footwear for sponsoring this video. Vessi shoes are known for being lightweight,
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easy to pack, comfortable, and most importantly, waterproof. Designed to keep you moving,
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I've seen and they're my second pair, pretty cool. With enhanced breathability and added support,
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this style is perfect for the adventurous or those looking for a sportier look.
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Featuring a pull tab to take them off, put them on with ease, vegan suede, lace cages,
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You'll want to wear them everywhere. So get $25 off and keep your feet dry this winter
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by using our code shortcircuit Vessi.com/ShortCircuit.
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(camera clicks) Okay, it did it.
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The sounds are awesome. (camera clicks)
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Record a video is actually just the single press, not the hold, and it will record a...
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(audio plays) Oh, what the hell?
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Elon Musk is talking to me. This isn't a joke. I was listening to an interview
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with Kara Swisher and Elon Musk and on my way in here and it just started playing.
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(laughs) So bizarre.
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I wonder why it did that. Did I hit the touch pad? Oh, I did. (audio plays)
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Play and pause. Now, is this bone conduction or...
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No, there's actually speakers, they're right here. Can you see that?
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It's pretty clear. And it's cool, there's nothing in my ears at all.
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And if, especially if I'm riding a bike or on a skateboard or something like that, I can hear everything around me.
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So good use case for that. We will try music in a bit. Tap once to play audio, double tap to skip forward,
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triple tap to go back, that's very nice. I wonder if I can swipe for volume, that would be cool.
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Adjust volume swipe forward to turn up the volume, back to turn down, yes.
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This light will go orange when the battery is low.
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Now, what the heck was I doing? I'm just trying to take a picture or a video.
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(beeps) So it does a single tone, like beep but I have no idea.
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Okay, the light up here, I do have an idea. This light on the inside is on.
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Okay, so is it gonna just only do 30 seconds, no more, no less? - I don't know.
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- Can I stop it? I can stop it.
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Now Quentin Tarantino is talking to me. God,
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all these deplorables. (laughs) Okay, so let me show you a test here.
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I have paused the podcast. Now I'm gonna try to record a video,
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and when I stop that video, I don't want the podcast to be playing. I want to know if just by hitting record button,
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I'm easily inadvertently playing the podcast.
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That's recording. Stop recording.
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No podcast, we did it. I was being very careful. This button kind of sucks.
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It's not very tactile, it's kind of mushy, and it's easy to feel like I'm only rocking the side of it
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and not the whole thing. I will say that the internal light,
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the notification LED, is really outside of your vision. You kind of have to look up to see it, which is pretty cool.
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It's not like, it's not annoying. You have to glance at it.
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Hey Facebook. (beeps) (laughs) - That was a fun noise.
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- Buwee. Hey, Facebook, take a photo. (camera clicks)
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Cool, and I could see the internal LED blink a bit when it's about to take that.
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That's kind of cool. It takes a few seconds. And I wonder if that's for a creep factor
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or maybe it's a limitation of the technology, but it seems like it would be hard to like
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capture a quick shot of someone's pee pee at the urinal
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or something like that. 'Cause it does take, okay,
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let's say your pee pee's over here, and I'm like, "Yeah."
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(camera clicks) That's about as fast I can do, and that's okay.
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Now, let's say I'm gonna start taking a picture now and move over
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(camera clicks) pretty quick.
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But let's see in our app, if there's like a lot of motion blur or something,
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maybe that didn't work at all. Lets Facebook View import new captures for you.
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Background location... Allow all the time.
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I am not digging the location requirements of this product, man.
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Oh, I guess I had 13 images on the device
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and now I'm downloading, I'm importing them. So you can do that, you can do that
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if you don't want to share a location. Like why do they even have to get imported into this?
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The snapshots, the spectacles from Snap, I believe you just take a capture
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and it goes directly to your account, like you can share it from the glasses.
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Isn't that what a power user wants to do? Isn't that who is gonna buy this?
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Why wouldn't I be able to just share this directly to Instagram or Facebook?
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It doesn't make any sense. Now let's see the quality of what we've captured.
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Okay, the app crashed. Let's try again.
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It crashed again. Let's try opening a different photo.
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(David laughs) I also can't tell from this interface,
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which of these are photos and which of these are videos. Oh, wait, looks like it's importing again.
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I'm hearing ocean noises in here, too. Now I can see timestamps on the videos.
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Okay, they're all done. It appears that my pervert test went well
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(David laughs) and it was easy to take photos with no motion blur.
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Now, what about videos?
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It was already recording. (camera clicks)
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The photo's in here. It looks like, I don't know, a photo from like
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a Pixel 1, 2 or something. I can adjust
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the brightne SS, the sharpen, the saturatio N,
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and the warmth, I can enhance.
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Wow, I actually did a pretty good job enhancing that.
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That's way warmer, and I can crop. If I were trying to export this directly
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to a story on Facebook or Instagram, you'd think that it was gonna be portrait. I can save this to my phone and I can share.
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But what happens if I go to Facebook your story?
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Yeah, so it basically, treats it like any other content when I'm sharing it to Facebook.
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It doesn't really seem to know that this content came from their own product.
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It's really, anyone could have made this it seems. Shall we make a phone call then?
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- [David] Sure. - Hi, Dennis. I'm just calling you using my Facebook sunglasses.
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- [Dennis] Oh my God, I want that. - You want them? - You got it, you got it?
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That's so cool. - Why do you want them? - Just to creep around. - To creep around.
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(David laughs) Okay, wow, you know what? I think I feel you, I'm into it, too.
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I want to take these home this weekend. (David laughs) - You sound good really good,
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like very clear. - I sound good? You sound pretty good, too. Calls are pretty good.
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I think the only last thing I want to try is music. You know what, I'm gonna give it its best shot possible.
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I'm gonna listen to some master tracks from TIDAL, TIDAL HiFi. (David laughs)
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Is it coming on my phone? Yeah, it's coming out my phone.
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Why? What about this?
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Okay, this podcast is coming through here, but TIDAL wasn't, why?
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Okay, let me try YouTube music. (audio playing)
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That was coming out of the phone. Trying to get my mind around this.
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Well, what would it do with YouTube then? - Boy, if I got a fun project for you guys...
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- Phone. what if I use Spotify, which is everything?
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Check out "They're Just Movies". That's coming through. That'll work with your Facebook glasses
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so will our new James Bond review, I'm sure. Well, what happens if I play music through Spotify?
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It's in there. - What the heck? - What is this?
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That sounded bad, I'm out of here. No offense, "Youngblood" fans.
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I don't know guys, hit or miss? Calls worked at least, podcasts seem to work.
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Is Spotify a podcast app and that's why it works?
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I don't understand them. (audio playing) Whoa.
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That is a brutal song, I don't, I'm sorry, but it's weird that I can control
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the music with the glasses, but the music is not coming through the glasses.
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Maybe this is a bug and it'll get worked out, but right now this is broke.
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You're meant to get three charges, (groans)
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three charges out of the charge case. They're meant to last like six hours,
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but I think if you've used them quite a bit or do a long call, you're not gonna get close to that.
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Overall, I think they kind of look cheap. They are not cheap,
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but at least they look like glasses. They don't look like Google glass.
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They look like glasses, so they're good for that. They could be used useful for select cases
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like people who are maybe doing sports,
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biking, skateboarding, snowboarding, but for general people,
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I don't think you're gonna buy them. And I don't think you're meant to buy them. Honestly, I think Facebook did this as an experiment
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to build the products they want to build in the future. Can we partner with the existing Industrial design company?
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Can we scale up? Can we make an app for it?
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Like they just wanted to get their feet wet. And at the end of that, they said,
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"Oh, we might as well sell the few hundred thousand that we make." So good luck to you, Facebook.
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I hope your future products are cooler.
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And I also hope that they come from a business division that is broken up from your core business.
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Regulate Facebook, delete Facebook,
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kiss Zuckerberg for his philanthropy.
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That is all, bye-bye. Sub ShortCircuit.