Songs that the Hyades will sing...

Germany Declares Facebook’s Facial Recognition Illegal

Because the Ministry of Love hates competition.

The German government—which possesses perhaps the world's most adamant privacy laws as a result of Nazi and subsequent postwar abuse—considers The Book's facial recognition a violation of "the right to anonymity," The Atlantic Wire reports. Hard to imagine anyone saying that over here, isn't it?

There's a point to be made about a supposedly tyrant-wary people who allow their government to put up CCTV cameras everywhere but throw tantrums over Google Earth and Facebook. But set that aside.

Facial recognition software exists, and it isn't going away. Reverse image search exists, and it isn't going away. Constant internet access exists, and it isn't going away. No matter how loudly we complain, these technologies will eventually be combined with an eyeglass HUD for effortless augmented-reality viewing, and I'll be adding "remembering people's names" to the long list of things I'm bad at and don't feel the need to work on because a computer does it for me.

If you don't like it, start a street-fashion revival of the Venetian mask, which would also be awesome. You could build HUD lenses into the eye holes, to help with remembering people's masks.