As wearable cameras migrate from pockets to faces, HTC enters the smart glasses arena with its $499 Vive Eagle, arriving at a moment when the entire category is wrestling with a question older than any gadget: how much surveillance can a society absorb before trust erodes? The company's answer is technical—LED indicators, voice commands to stop recording, sensors that halt the camera if the glasses are removed—but the deeper question is cultural, about whether transparency in design can quiet anxieties that are, at their root, about power and consent. HTC steps into a space already bruised by