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Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the F8 Developers Conference in San Jose in 2017.
Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Smart glasses planned by Facebook Inc. will arrive “sooner or later” in 2021, but will not feature the type of digital overlay technology associated with augmented reality, according to chief hardware officer Andrew Bosworth.
The glasses, which are built in partnership with Ray-Ban and his parents Luxottica Group SpA will connect to a device – although users cannot overlay digital objects over their view of the real world, a fundamental part of AR.
“They are certainly connected glasses, they certainly offer a lot of features, [but] we’re pretty shy about the specific features we provide, ”Bosworth said. “We’re excited about it, but we don’t want to overdo it. We don’t even call it augmented reality, we just call it ‘smart glasses’, ”he added.
Facebook first announced its AR glasses projects in 2017, and has since built a handful of camera features that allow people to project digital images onto the physical world, like face-distorting photo filters. The company has invested substantial resources in hardware development in recent years, acquiring virtual reality startup Oculus and launching a home video device called Portal. Facebook’s VR, AR and hardware teams have more than 6,000 employees, according to a person familiar with its staffing. It’s a bigger group than Facebook that works on apps for one billion Instagram and WhatsApp users.
Read more: Facebook and Ray-Ban team up to make smart glasses cool
Smart glasses are part of a long-term effort within the company to capture the next big computing platform after the smartphone. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a big supporter of AR and VR, although this first iteration of Facebook’s glasses does not offer the eventual promise of augmented reality, which is the ability to blend the digital and physical worlds across. a lens. Bosworth was unwilling to disclose the full functionality of the upcoming glasses, but said they align with Facebook’s broader AR philosophy of making technology peripheral to human interactions in order to ” improve “presence”.
A common situation cited by Bosworth is that parents try to record memories with their young children: “By the time you pick up the phone, not only have you probably missed it, but if you don’t miss it, you are probably watching. the real event but via your phone, ”he said. “If you have the right technology, it can get away from you.”
Facebook is the latest tech company to attempt to create a pair of smart glasses. Alphabet Inc.’s Google entered the category with Google Glass, which was never a mainstream device, but found a home as a tool to help workers in warehouses and environments. industrial. Snap Inc. has also launched several iterations of its smart glasses, called Spectacles, which allow people to record videos hands-free and transfer them to their phones. Apple Inc. is also building a pair of smart glasses.
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