That was the point of Horizon Worlds. They were trying a (very expensive) social play for VR.

The problem is that the intersection/suitability of VR and social media is rather low, while as a counterexample the intersection of mobile and social media is very large. I have no desire to chat with old classmates when I "suit up" with VR goggles, I'm there to game.

I work on products that feature live monitoring capabilities. There's no connection to the monitoring side's microphone (or camera) — why would there be? I'm not sure why there would be for their products.

Whatever the cause, it sure sounds like it was a strange and unnerving experience.

Repossessing cars isn't societally harmful, quite the opposite in fact.

If it was not possible or even just much harder to repossess a car, lenders would be much less willing to grant loans to people in order to buy a car.

What are you saying? Do you think my claim was that all US research programs have closed up shop?

No search results for "Salt Typhoon" as the query. This nation really is fucked.

Some are installed by private entities. Home Depot installs Flock cameras in their parking lots.

I assume their primary use case is combating organized retail theft rings, as companies like Target spend a great deal on this problem (to include famously having their own accredited crime lab).

Billionaires For Bush did it first, and better.

Here, among other vendors:

https://southbendreplicas.com/

That's not true. They have millions of digitized 4473s. They are banned by law from creating a searchable registry of gun owners but they digitize paperwork on a daily basis.

https://medium.com/statute-circuit/the-atfs-quiet-digital-tr...

Thanks for the clarification. I knew there was limitation placed on them to hamstring their operations under the auspices of preserving the 2nd amendment.

Not all harm is physical.

What is the harm?

I don't know anyone in tech who enjoyed watching gangs mark their territory with tags in their neighborhood.

Sometime in the last 30 years I realized the "gang territory marking" thing is mostly made up and basically not to take anyone seriously when they say this.

I lived it when I lived in West Oakland. Tagging, violence, hell a neighbor was shot in the face in front of her family over a gang beef. I'm still exposed to it now working with people reentering society after being incarcerated.

You haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years, perhaps because you only circulate with people just like you in insulated echo chambers. I can tell you from having lived it: tags are not funsies and diversity and inclusion. They are male-cat-pissmarks-on-the-wall from gang members establishing, defending, and expanding turf, and they are unwelcome for very good reason.

Gang enhancements are mostly a falsehood that cops and prosecutors use to get heavier prison sentences for racial minorities and to justify their budgets.

Also, you seem to have mixed up prison gangs with street gangs in this latest comment. The former are pretty different from the latter. You also have mixed up the general concepts of crime and violence with somehow proving a gang.

The idea that gangs are fighting for turf is very outdated. Even 30 years ago it was exaggerated. But today, after 30 years of falling crime rates, it's especially ridiculous.