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Facebook’s next hardware launch will be its long-awaited Ray-Ban “smart glasses”, CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed on a call for results this week. When exactly the glasses will arrive is unclear. We’ve heard the least of them launching sometime in 2021, but the pandemic has changed a lot of business plans, and Zuckerberg hasn’t commented on a timeline.
“In the future, the next product release will be the launch of our first smart glasses from Ray-Ban in partnership with EssilorLuxottica,” said the CEO of Facebook. “Glasses have their iconic form factor, and they let you do some pretty neat things.”
We don’t know what these “cool things” are, although Facebook has previously confirmed that the glasses will not have a built-in screen and are not classified as an augmented reality device. Will they be able to make voice calls? Will they have access to a smart assistant? It’s not clear. Although without a built-in display, they’ll likely rely on a paired smartphone app for controls, similar to Amazon’s Snap Spectacles or Echo Frames.
Zuckerberg framed the launch of the Ray-Ban glasses as part of Facebook’s “journey to augmented reality glasses in the future.” The company has been working on such a device for a long time, channeling its efforts through its Project Aria research unit and even producing prototypes of AR glasses, seen above.
Augmented reality glasses are a key part of Facebook’s new plans to create the “metaverse” – a multimodal technology platform meant to blend virtual and physical spaces and be used for shopping, working and socializing. Facebook, of course, will use it to sell more advertising. As Zuckerberg noted on the same earnings call this week: “[A]ds is going to continue to be an important part of the strategy through the social media parts of what we do and it will likely be a significant part of the metaverse as well.
This is something to remember when you start to wear a Facebook designed computer on your face every day.
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