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Facebook Launches Smart Glasses

kevinw729
Honored Visionary
kevinw729_0-1631221383380.png

 


Facebook finally reveals their Ray-Ban Stories video, image and phone supported Smart Glasses. Direct competitors to the Snapchat Spectacles2 - let battle commence!
 
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959
33 REPLIES 33

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Nice, but can they run Alyx? 😁 😎

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

It's great to see this innovation happening so quickly, our lifetime. To think that I started with an Atari 2600 and now I will likely get some AR Glasses for Christmas in 2021. 😎

 

I figure I'll try to get the positive comments in before this thread goes business as usual😋

 

This quote really seems to capture the true impact that all smart-glasses will have on society:

You won't have to choose between interacting with a device or interacting with the world around you.

 

So many commercials over the years are targeted at Couples who spend more time on their Smart Phones than with each other, or Parents whose children spend more time on their devices than interacting with the family.

 

This meme also comes to mind, mocking the age of our heavy device dependency:

 

 

Zenbane_1-1631223024529.png

 

Letting our eyes reflect back on the world around us is a great step towards "looking up" again. I also feel that this is going to help humans slowly move away from our dopamine-heavy addictions and finally start balancing things out with some much needed serotonin. 

 

Lastly, I am certainly looking forward to multiple competitors in this domain. The nano-tech and smart/AI potential here is incredible.

 

Anonymous
Not applicable

Wow unbelievable...

Ryanality
Community Manager
Community Manager

@Zenbane wrote:

I figure I'll try to get the positive comments in before this thread goes business as usual😋


I'm certain this time we will all be able to have a great discussion about a new announcement without any antagonizing, attacks, or thinly veiled insults. 

 

I'm pretty excited to hear what you all think about the new product announce and what sorts of possible applications you might find for it. A friend of my already asked if he could use them to stream himself living his life to friends watching in VR. 

Help others find great discussions and answers by adding kudos and marking solutions to your questions.

kojack
MVP
MVP

Calling them AR Glasses is wrong though, since they don't actually have any AR. There's no display, it's sunglasses with cameras and speakers that tethers to a phone. The Facebook AR glasses are coming later, this isn't them.

 

One thing that's a shame here is the camera placement. Being on the far corners, they are too far outside of average IPD, so they wouldn't be as useful for recording stereo video for VR. I guess they needed the extra depth of the side arm support to house the cameras, rather than putting them on the top of the frames at around 64mm IPD.

While it's possible to try to correct IPD like the Quest does, you've all seen the visual glitches that causes due to incorrect parallax.

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kevinw729
Honored Visionary

Agreed - we have been making this point since the Snapchat glasses were labeled  AR.

Rather than AR, they should be labeled Mix Reality - as in mixing a capture technology with a conventional glasses, and smart phone system. It becomes a difficult one for some media as they use the press release unchallenged. And being contradicted can cause issues in themselves.

I would say this technology is testing the water for FB - this is a very low bar smart-phone peripheral that has been developed separate of the FB AR labs project that is still scheduled for 2022. Also if this can take some of the glory away from the Apple announcement in a couple of days then all the better. 

https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

An understanding why this is suddenly a gold-rush moments for such products is the ubiquity of projects in development or being Kickstarted.

 

Here is another system hot on the heals with a more realistic AR credentials.



Just a side note - the Ray-Ban Live system in its official announcement has stayed clear of using the AR term, but seems that others were keen to add this as a hock to coverage, (if others agree I may remove the term from the title). 

https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959


@kojack wrote:

Calling them AR Glasses is wrong though, since they don't actually have any AR. There's no display, it's sunglasses with cameras and speakers that tethers to a phone.


Yeah, that is where the industry terms start to get rather loose. The term AR became rather mainstream with that whole Pokemon GO App, where people used their phones to find Pokemon in the real world. It was really just a filter that required your device to put GPS Tracking set to "on." Because of that, filters and AR became synonymous in the mainstream consumer market.

 

After which Snapchat became the most widely used "AR" application due to it being centered around a plethora of filters.

 

And to be honest, if I set aside the software engineer in me that is a stickler for terms, the mainstream consumer isn't entirely wrong here. Augmented Reality is defined by anything that uses digital technology to enhance something in the real world.

 

Filters do exactly that.

 

I agree that these Facebook "camera glasses" are a far cry from what the full breath of AR entails. However, users will be able to add filters to the images captured by the glasses. So I fear that the term AR will stick.

 

Similar to how 360 Video experienced in a VR Headset is still called "VR" despite the lack of 3DoF or 6DoF.


@kevinw729 wrote:

Rather than AR, they should be labeled Mix Reality 


Hmm, no that wouldn't work either because Mixed Reality is a term that is already used to describe being able to go between:

  • The real world
  • Augmented Reality
  • Virtual Reality

 

Since these glasses have no VR functionality whatsoever there is no "Mix Reality" present.

 

 


@kevinw729 wrote:

It becomes a difficult one for some media as they use the press release unchallenged. And being contradicted can cause issues in themselves.


Very true. And this is what AR is likely going to stick as a term. Because at the end of the day, these glasses are similar to something like Snapchat, in that there is a device that takes pictures with a companion app that applies filters.


The fact that the camera is integrated directly in to glasses vs a phone or tablet likely isn't enough of a difference to warrant a new term.

 

I believe the term Smart Glasses does make the most sense overall; as these glasses do have intelligent design with integrated computer technology.

 

Overall, Smart Glasses makes the most sense while AR Glasses makes less sense. But due to the "visual filters" aspect, we are likely stuck with calling all flavors of these glasses, "AR Glasses."