Idea

Meta has quietly embedded face-recognition technology for its smart glasses into an app downloaded to millions of phones, according to a WIRED analysis of the company's software. Code discreetly added to Meta’s AI app over multiple updates this year shows that the feature, internally called “NameTag,” identifies people captured by the glasses’ camera and, when activated, alerts the wearer when it recognizes someone.

Note that this is system wide, for ANYONE Meta can identify via facial recognition. Users could theoretically walk down the street and learn the names of complete strangers.

The feature's not yet activated but has been quietly downloaded to 50 million devices in preparation for... something. Meta isn't saying.

It works about as well as you expect.

There are cart returns throughout the parking lot, and I’d say about 80% of people return them there or back to the store. This still requires an employee to go and fetch the carts every so often (sometimes with a motorized cart pusher so that they can get the whole group), and that last 20% is also just scattered around the lot waiting for someone to fetch it and taking up parking spaces in the meantime.

(Side note: Lidl has also shown up in my town. They do the American-style cart returns, but (at least at first) I saw the part on the cart where they clearly decided not to do the quarter deposit.)

So with a heavy heart I must say: USians, you win on this one.

Resulting in small herds of shopping carts outside of apartment complexes.

But also, imagine I am your trans mom for a moment. I am gently grabbing your face, telling you I care about you and your body and your health, and that tucking can be very dangerous and hurt you and that I care very much if you get hurt and I do not want you to be hurt.

So here’s just a small (non-comprehensive) rundown:

Testicular Torsion which can cause even more complications and health risks and requires immediate medical attention/surgery to fix. If not fixed quickly it can cause tissue death/necrosis and do even worse damage to the entire area surrounding it.

Permanent skin irritation and tearing that can lead to infection which can, again, if left untreated turn into way worse things that will quickly turn life threatening.

It can also cause inguinal hernias, which increases additional risks, and must -again- be handled with surgery. And if you’re looking to get bottom surgery down the line you -cannot- get bottom surgery until all the inguinal hernias are handled and you recover from them. AND once you get a hernia you are now predisposition to get more at an increased rate afterward even IF you’re careful from then on.

Tucking can also cause urinary tract infections, which can lead to a kidney infection if left unchecked or improperly handled. Which, even if it doesn’t lead to kidney infection, will greatly increase your risks of bladder and prostate cancer.

… and again, these are just the tip of the iceberg, there’s lots of lower risk issues and other things and depending on preexisting conditions AND even if you’re even able to see a doctor, you have no guarantee that they’ll know how to or even care to examine you properly due to their own biases.

As for the final question I got, “What about safe alternatives for those of us with major dysphoria?”, I don’t really have a good answer… the best I can say is get breathable but slightly tighter underwear or light compression shorts… but even THEN wearing those for extended periods (even just a couple hours, 4 or less) can lead to risk of heath issues or problems. There really isn’t a “good solution or alternative” that is actually fully safe-safe.

Their emails are clearly written by an ai chatbot because they usually talk about how they think I’d be a great fit for their brand since I talk about AI. I specifically make anti ai content, but they don’t seem to know this.

Here is my new standard email response when these weird geeks reach out to me.