DAILY TRIFECTA: If The Future's So Bright Why Do I Have To Wear VR Goggles?
Panopticon Games People Play
TITLE: The Vision Pro Review: I'm running out of reasons to wear Apple's futuristic headset after a week
https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/apple-vision-pro-review
EXCERPTS: I've had the Vision Pro for a week now, and I'm still impressed by the same features shown off during Apple's free in-store demos. The headset ushers in Apple's "spatial computing" era, tracking your hand gestures and eyes to create a new way to control the company's most out-there device yet.
There are some familiar elements. The Vision Pro has a lot of the same functions as an iPad and the UI feels similar. There are apps for entertainment, work, and arcade games, but all of this can be overlaid onto your physical environment for a mixed-reality experience.
All of it feels futuristic, and it is. But, I can't say that the first-generation Vision Pro fits perfectly in the life of someone who prefers to socialize IRL. It also left me wondering if I would truly miss it if I stopped using it after a week or two.
Still, it's a bold bet, and Apple has the potential to usher in a new era of the human experience.
Let's dive in.
My attempt to work inside the Vision Pro all day ended with me desperately needing a nap and some time away from screens. That's an issue for Apple, which is marketing the device heavily as a productivity tool.
As a casual tech user, my mission was to find ways to integrate the Vision Pro into my daily life. I was searching for a reason to reach for the headset instead of my phone, iPad, or MacBook. Ultimately, I don't think I found one that justifies the $3,500 price tag.
I find that wearing the headset while I cook is disorienting when I want to focus on something in the real world, but I enjoyed the sound quality of the speakers blasting my music while I made dinner.
The Vision Pro was the most useful to me during my workday. It gives all of my remote work needs one place to exist. I can seamlessly project my MacBook screen up on the headset while having a comfort show streaming on Disney+ in another window. The trade-off of working in your own customized hub of apps and media spread out before you is the eye strain that comes after hours of usage.
It's become my home office, and I enjoy it. But after 5 o'clock, I struggle to find fun ways to engage with the Vision Pro on my own. The best I could come up with was playing Fruit Ninja in my living room and 3D tours of homes on the Zillow app. Usually, I just want to give my eyes and my brain a rest after using them to navigate a screen all day.
The immersion is great, but it becomes underwhelming to have to experience it alone after a while. For me, half the fun of watching movies is doing it with others and sharing our commentary.
[W]hen it comes to interacting with people around you in your physical space, the Vision Pro isn't like your iPhone, MacBook, or TV — you can't easily bring someone into the virtual world you're viewing to enjoy it together.
That can feel lonely, even with EyeSight, Apple's name for the low-resolution representation of your eyes that the Vision Pro can display on its exterior. The feature feels designed to give an onlooker a slightly less dystopian view when sharing the same room with you. Fake digital eyes aside, there's no way around the fact that using the Vision Pro means wearing a literal barrier between yourself and the real world.
Apple has done what it can to mitigate that through a combination of super-high-resolution screens and cutting-edge cameras and sensors that let you see the world around you in convincing enough detail.
But the view through the cameras is clearly a screen that blurs when you move your head, and your immediate surroundings look dimmer from the inside and your peripheral vision is limited — think ski goggles.
The technology will likely get to a stage where it's more like sunglasses. But in the meantime, I suspect the Vision Pro will be a tough sell to people until there are must-have apps in a form factor that's slimmer, lighter, and feels less solitary.
TITLE: Whoops: ‘Smart’ Helmet Allowed Real Time Surveillance And Location Tracking Of A Million Customers
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/14/whoops-smart-helmet-allowed-real-time-surveillance-and-location-tracking-of-a-million-customers/
EXCERPT: Makers of new “smart” technologies keen on reinventing the wheel keep inadvertently sending the same message: sometimes dumber technology is smarter.
The latest case in point: a company named Livall makes “smart” bike helmets for skiers and cyclists that includes features like auto-fall detection, GPS location monitoring, and integrated braking lights. The problem: the company apparently didn’t spend enough time securing the company’s app, allowing pretty much anybody to listen in on and track the precise location data of a million customers in real time.
Livall’s smartphone apps feature group audio chats and location data. The problem: Ken Munro, founder of U.K. cybersecurity testing firm Pen Test Partners, found that the chat groups were secured by a six-digit pin code that was very simple to brute force (via Techcrunch):
“That 6 digit group code simply isn’t random enough. We could brute force all group IDs in a matter of minutes.”
Munro also noted that there was nothing to alert a group of cyclists or skiers that someone new had entered the chat, allowing a third party to monitor them in complete silence:
“As soon as one entered a valid group code, one joined the group automatically. There was no further authorisation nor alerts to the other group user. It was therefore trivial to silently join any group, giving us access to any users location and the ability to listen in to any group audio communications.“
Whoops a daisy. As with so many modern “smart” tech companies, Munro also notes that Livall only took their findings seriously once they got a prominent security journalist (Zack Whittaker at Techcrunch) involved to bring attention to the problem. Livall finally fixed the problem, but it’s not entirely clear that would have happened without Whittaker’s involvement.
We see this same cycle play out time and time again. Companies get the great idea of launching new, “smart” versions of old ideas (jacuzzis, ovens, pet food dishes, door locks, glasses), but get so enamored with the gee-whizzery involved in selling internet-connectivity, they forget to do basic due diligence when it comes to product quality, security, or privacy.
And the lesson is always the same: if you value your privacy, security, and peace of mind, dumb tech is often the smarter bet.
TITLE: Your Car Is Spying on You
https://reason.com/2024/02/15/big-brother-in-the-drivers-seat/
EXCERPT: If you've searched online about buying a car, you know you're in for a wave of aggressive come-ons and sales pitches. But I found a way to make car sellers clam up: All you have to do is start asking questions about the increasingly intrusive "nanny" nature of automobiles.
"This is more of an industry question," a Ford representative told me. "You may wish to follow up with the Alliance for Automotive Innovation on this topic."
Like automakers, the Alliance, a trade group, ignored me. But I'm not alone in my concerns.
"Ah, the wind in your hair, the open road ahead, and not a care in the world….except all the trackers, cameras, microphones, and sensors capturing your every move," the Mozilla Foundation warned in a report published in September.
With today's computerized vehicles, "whenever you interact with your car you create a tiny record of what you just did," the report authors added. Because many are wirelessly connected to manufacturers, "usually all that information is collected and stored by the car company."
That report prompted Sen. Ed Markey (D–Mass.) to follow up with a letter urging that "cars should not—and cannot—become yet another venue where privacy takes a backseat."
That's nice, but it ignores the government's own role in turning vehicles into tools of control.
The massive infrastructure bill that became law in 2021 contained a mandate for technology that can "passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver" exceeds the legal limit. If it does, it is supposed to "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation."
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) thinks this is a swell idea and endorsed it in 2022.
We'll be required to pay for that nanny technology, of course, whether or not it works as advertised. My guess is that automated DUI sensors monitoring people of varying mass and metabolism will be slightly less reliable than the seat belt interlocks that were briefly mandatory in the 1970s. Those prevented ignition unless passengers buckled in.
"The result was that grandmas, grocery bags and guard dogs alike triggered the no-start unless the belts for the front seats they occupied were fastened first," Mike Davis, who generally approved of nanny mandates, wrote for The Detroit Bureau in 2009.
Memories of my father getting pointers on disabling the interlock came back to me as I shopped for a new pickup truck and found that most of them remain in near-constant contact with automakers. Through the cell network, they receive software updates and hand off data about drivers. That information is used internally, sold to third parties, and surrendered to government agencies.
"There are so many ways for the law enforcement to unlock the treasure trove of data that's collected by your car," the Mozilla report added. "In the United States, they can just ask for it (without a warrant) or hack into your car to get it."
Like many people, I don't want my vehicle tattling on me to the mothership. If you investigate ways to make sure your car reports only to you, you quickly find a subculture of DIY types hacking their purchases to keep Big Brother out of morning commutes.
"My GTI and my wife's new Toyota had the ability to collect data and transmit it over cellular or wifi," I found posted in one forum. "I disabled it in both cars by disconnecting the antenna connections at the telematics module, it leaves the car unable to communicate, as if it's out in the middle of nowhere."
Disabling snoopy tech is an at-your-own-risk venture. You should assume the warranty goes out the window.