Created by Facebook in collaboration with the trendy Ray-Ban brand, they're fitted with tiny cameras and microphones – what some might call spyware.

According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the spy-specs are a 'milestone' along the road to merging reality with the internet. Glasses such as these, he believes, will soon be equipped with 'augmented reality' which involves overlaying visual, auditory or other sensory information on to the world to enhance one's experience.

By projecting images from the web right before your eyes, Zuckerberg believes the new generation of glasses will be unleash the full potential of the 'metaverse', a bizarre – and heavily hyped – digital universe, which encourages people to live out their private and professional lives on screen.

Ray-Ban Stories, in contrast, are discreet and attractive, thanks to the partnership with Ray-Ban, the luxury Italian-American brand that famously designed Tom Cruise's aviators in Top Gun. The result is desirable glasses embedded with five mega-pixel cameras, three microphones and tiny speakers.

Tellingly, the Facebook logo appears nowhere on the glasses or their case. The only mention of the tech behemoth – now branded Meta – is on the cardboard packaging they come in.

The Facebook View app, linked to the glasses, offers just one page prompting the wearer to 'respect people's privacy'. Whether this friendly advice will be followed remains to be seen.

A spokesman for Meta admitted that 'with any new technology it's important to recognise there will unfortunately be instances where people will look to use it inappropriately. As the technology evolves we'll continue to add to our privacy and safety protections.'

The film and audio I'm recording is stored on Facebook's giant servers and, as ever with secretive Silicon Valley corporations, few of us know what, exactly, they will do with my data – and that of the hundreds of people I come across.

The app is said to be capable of collecting all kinds of information, from health and fitness to location, contacts and finances.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10455279/Facebook-379-glasses-video-camera-hidden-inside.html