Facebook will launch Ray-Ban ‘smart glasses’ at its next hardware event. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of the social network, has confirmed the display of his AR glasses in the latest earnings call. The smart glasses are being made in collaboration with Ray-Ban owner Aceler Luxotica. The glasses will have the iconic frame of Ray-Ban and will have AR features.
“Looking ahead here, the next product release will be our first smart glasses from Ray-Ban through a partnership with Aceler Luxotica,” said the Facebook CEO. “Glasses have their iconic form factor, and they let you do pretty much anything,” he added.
Although the CEO was secretive about ‘neat things’, the company had previously mentioned that glasses would not be classified as augmented reality devices. Moreover, it will not have an integrated display. Although the functionality has not yet been revealed, Zuckerberg says Ray-Ban glasses have been introduced as part of Facebook’s “journey towards fully enhanced reality glasses in the future.”
Facebook has not provided a specific launch timeline for its new smart glasses, but Zuckerberg noted that AR glasses are an integral part of Facebook’s new plan to create ‘Metavers’, a multi-model technology platform where users will be able to ‘teleport’ to the digital space. Among other options, work will be used for socialization. He even stressed that advertising would be an important part of the revenue going forward.
“[A]The social media part of what we do is going to be an important part of the DS strategy across, and it will probably be a meaningful part of the metavers as well, ”Zuckerberg noted in the earnings call.
Significantly, Facebook has been working on smart glasses for a long time and has created a few prototype AR glasses. Reports in the past have suggested that the company’s Project Area Research Unit is continuing its efforts to make such glasses effective. Although the timeline and technical features are not yet known, it will still be exciting to see if Facebook applies a whole new product or sticks with the Snapchat method.
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