Meta To Add Display To Ray-Bans as Zuckerberg Bets Computing Shift (ft.com) 22
Meta plans to add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses as soon as next year, Financial Times reports, as the US tech giant accelerates its plans to build lightweight headsets that can usurp the smartphone as consumers' main computing device. Financial Times: The $1.5tn social media group is planning to add a screen inside the $300 sunglasses it makes and sells in partnership with eyewear group EssilorLuxottica, according to people familiar with the plans. The updated Ray-Bans could be released as early as the second half of 2025, the people said. The small display would be likely to be used to show notifications or responses from Meta's virtual assistant.
The move comes as Meta pushes further into wearable devices and what chief executive Mark Zuckerberg hopes will be the next computing platform, as rivals such as Apple, Google and Snap also race to develop their own similar products.
The move comes as Meta pushes further into wearable devices and what chief executive Mark Zuckerberg hopes will be the next computing platform, as rivals such as Apple, Google and Snap also race to develop their own similar products.
New Zuckerberg Biz to Lose Mere Billions per Year (Score:2)
Looking forward to this (Score:3, Interesting)
What I've been waiting for (Score:2)
What is the motivation? (Score:2)
Re:What is the motivation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Having a HUD in your glasses could be a very useful thing, if not abused or enshittified. But because it's Meta, we know it's going to be abused and enshittified at launch.
Example: Google Maps directions when walking somewhere in a city, with distance and next turn in the corner of your vision so you don't have to be walking around with your phone in your hand, prone to dropping it, or having someone snatch it and run.
Now if it obscures your vision with advertisements and junk notifications, it will be a worthless product that just annoys the shit out of the user.
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It really ruins the market for writing down directions and address on a piece of paper.
Who needs to hold a phone the hole time. Look at it once, and start walking, Maybe in a couple blocks, look at it again. Ok, maybe in Japan where house numbering is bizarre, or in Italian medieval areas, then you look at it more often.
On sunglasses? The focal distance seems like it's a loss for anyone who'e not 20/20 and 20 years old.
Re: What is the motivation? (Score:1)
For walkers, I agree it's not that useful.
For cyclists, it's potentially much better. But then I want Oakleys and not Ray-Bans. Both owned by luxottica, ugh. They bought gargoyles too, and ruined them, but Oakleys were always cheap plastic and the magic is in the design instead of the materials so they are still basically what they were.
What I want from smart glasses is real-time translation of text including signs.
Mark Zuckerberg thinks it's cool (Score:2)
It doesn't really matter if it's useful or not there's two major problems with it. First of all a large percentage of the populations eyes don't really work with things like this. It's the same reason you don't see 3D TVs anymore. You can't have a mass market product that a quarter of the population or more can't use.
The second problem is The classic gargoyle problem. Wearable computers sounds cool but it's basically impossible to have them and n
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Does Zuck know anybody who needs to wear corrective lenses? His obsession with products like this seems to indicate ``no". Or has he lined up frame manufacturers to use his ``smart frames''. (Jeebus they're expensive enough now with Zuck having anything to do with them.)
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I can't see how this would be really beneficial to anyone
We looked into this technology several decades ago. Wearable computer screens for technicians troubleshooting aircraft systems in the factory and flight line. Imagine being able to call up engineering specs, functional tests, even equipment location and wiring diagrams with both hands free. No laptop or tablet to lug around. And nobody cares if technicians walk around the factory looking like dorks.
Problem: Engineering automation to capture and/or author suitable content was isolated into different silos b
Quest 3 VR headset technology (Score:4, Interesting)
New technology often has unexpected uses.
I've had an opportunity to play around with a Quest 3S recently by strapping it to a robot and transmitting it's spatial position to the robot for localization purposes. This was surprisingly simple (someone posted an example elsewhere, and I just followed their instructions). The localization data is pretty solid.
What's amazing is that for $300 this thing is doing visual-inertial odometry (i.e. continuously tracking and mapping its position in space based on both visual cues for absolute positioning, and inertial data for fast response times) and it's doing it in a busy environment with people walking around, and with some of the cameras obscured, etc.. The update rate is surprisingly good at around 100 Hz (and it needs to be good to prevent you from getting nausea).
There's nothing on the market for mobile indoor robotics that compares to this technology, and if there was it would be tens of thousands of dollars. I realize the VR headsets are sold at a loss to encourage you to buy games, but even so, this technology will be a game-changer for indoor robot odometry & localization.
I'm not a huge fan of VR, but for robotics, the technology Meta is developing is amazing.
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I realize the VR headsets are sold at a loss to encourage you to buy games
Are you sure? Some game consoles have been sold at a loss upon launch, but only because they knew the production costs would lower enough to become profitable over the console's lifespan. Low profits, for sure, but I can't think of a successful console that didn't make money on the hardware.
Your professional robot tools are sold in lower volumes with the expectation of requiring more, and more expensive, support. That's why you can get a HMD for $300 while the whirlygig for your robot is $1000+.
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It'll just be a fad for a season (Score:3)
Look, you can go with the sonic sunglasses, but we all know you'll be back to screwdriver before you know it.
I think the last lenovo spam I recieved (Score:2)
Meta: directly competing with lenovo's clearance stock
do they work with perscription lenses? (Score:2)
Intrusive ads (Score:2)
Let's not forget what Meta is (Score:2)
Meta is an advertising company, same as Google. Of course they want a screen that is as close to your eyes as possible so you cannot look away from it when they serve you ads. Their holy grail is ads served directly into your brain - after all, you can still take glasses off.
ft sucks (paywall) (Score:2)
stop slash-vertisements
the original device had no display? WTF was it then? A meta branded regular sunglasses?
or do you mean accepts external video signals now? showing anything the user wants to feed it