get why this exists. If you don’t care to read the story, you can also listen, just click on through.
ON EDIT: As I read through, posted, then digested this, I still don’t like it, and am not sure how truly useful this could be. That said, someone somewhere may be able to help it learn to fulfill a need they have, and that would be a reason for this tech to exist, so my apologies for being that strident about it.
I Hate My Friend
The chatbot-enabled Friend necklace eavesdrops on your life and provides a running commentary that’s snarky and unhelpful. Worse, it can also make the people around you uneasy.
The AI-powered Friend pendant is now out in the world. If you live in the US or Canada, you can buy one for $129.
The smooth plastic disc is just under 2 inches in diameter; it looks and feels a little like a beefy Apple AirTag. Inside are some LEDs and a Bluetooth radio that connects you (through your iPhone) to a chatbot in the cloud that’s powered by Google’s Gemini 2.5 model. You can tap on the disc to ask your Friend questions as it dangles around your neck, and it responds to your voice prompts by sending you text messages through the companion app. You can reply to these messages with your voice or via text to keep the conversation going.
It also listens to whatever you’re doing as you move through the world, no tap required, and offers a running commentary on the interactions you have throughout your day. To perform that trick, the device has microphones that are always activated.
If the idea of a microphone-packed wearable that’s always listening to your conversations raises privacy concerns for you, just know that you’re not alone. If your experience is anything like ours, wearing the Friend will likely earn you the ire of everyone around you. Curiously, you might even end up being bullied by the chatbot itself. (snip-see the page for MORE, or to listen.)
Scottie's Playtime 
Speaking of Google, creepy and tracking you…Google Starts Silently Tracking Your iPhone Mrs BDR has made a formal request to the IT department (me) to “Turn this shit off!“
No idea if Google intends to make this turn-offable in Android or not, as they contimnue their long journey away from “Don’t be evil” towards “Evil, fuck yeah!!“
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Hi Bruce. Yes the Google parent company long ago gave up the moral high ground of don’t be evil in favor of the great joy of more money than any company should ever have that makes the executives along with those wealthy enough to own lots of dividend earning stocks. This device is designed to data mine everything a person does for sale to the highest bidders and then again to lower bidders. It was not enough that all the “helpers” like Alexa or Siri listened to everything around then sending it to their corporate masters, now they demand you wear a device that will record every spoke word, act, and somehow get the name of what every product / item used by the wearer. Insidious that they make lonely people want it to have a “friend”. Hugs
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From the article:
Dear ‘someone’, run, run like hell itself is chasing after you.
Because this is an abuser’s wet dream…and you know this dudebro has writtten himself a backdoor into the system.
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… and then there is that, which is a legitimate concern!
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Hi. I think this is a shitty way for the corporate world to get more data on every aspect of our lives to put in a database to be sold over and over and over to anyone with money who wants to get you to buy something. Including politicians trying to fund raise. But what ticks me off is the making lonely people want it because they need a “friend”. With friends like that who needs enemies. The fact we found out that these personal helpers like Alexa and Siri were funneling everything they heard near them to their corporate headquarters for sorting and storing. I remember sitting in the kitchen of a pious woman who had one on her shelf and had to stop it when as she talked it started to reply. Then I informed her that peoples conversations have been released proving that the devices listen all the time and send it all to a place other people can listen to it. She was shocked, went over and shut it off. I told her it was still listening and she took it and put it on the front porch. Even she hated the idea that something was spying on her constantly. Hugs
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