Meta Connect is coming up later this year. Ahead of the event, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, spoke to a YouTube content creator to reveal many details of the firm’s roadmap from AI to XR, giving a window into what Meta may have planned for its upcoming showcase event.
During the conversation, Zuckerberg spoke about the lessons Meta learned during the Ray-Ban partnership, the future of smartphones, neural interface wristbands, and powerful new AR glasses.
Apple’s debut earlier this year caused a shift in the XR device marketplace. Apple’s market approach saw more eyes than ever turn towards XR for enterprise and productivity usage.
With a big splash on the market, Apple took some wind away from Meta’s sails, which Meta is clearly trying to get back. Like last year, when Meta timed its Quest 3 MR headset announcement in the same month as the Vison Pro announcement, Meta is using Connect 2024 and its lead-up to prove its authority on the market.
It appears that leading into Connect, Meta is taking lessons learned and driving forward with an XR vision for consumers and businesses.
Zuckerberg on Meta’s Current Smart Glasses Success
The development and ubiquity of smart glasses are not based on an overnight tipping point. Instead, the journey is slow, with XR technology and its leaders needing to jump through a series of hoops to communicate the effectiveness and necessity of XR to businesses and consumers.
Zuckerberg noted that the XR industry needs to reach the point where it can efficiently distribute “full holographic AR” solutions before AR can become “the main platform that people would use.”
The CEO went on to explain that the Ray-Ban Meta product portfolio came from a goal of taking “the best form factor for [smart]glasses today” and seeing how much technology Meta could “pack in there without compromising the form factor.” The CEO noted that “AI has made such big leaps,” which should soon lead to a “simpler product” that has increased appeal.
Speaking on the success of its current Ray Ban smartglasses product and accompanying R&D, Zuckerberg said:
The Ray Ban Meta product, the demand for it has been so much higher than we expected, which, on the one hand, you love to see. On the other hand, it’s sort of a bummer that we haven’t made enough of them and it’s sold out in most of the styles – We’re ramping up production and ramping up the factory lines and all that to be able to make more.
Zuckerberg also noted how smart glasses already hold massive potential due to integrated technology such as microphones, speakers, and AI, “even before you have any kind of [AR] display in the glasses.”
Smartglasses are not solely reliant on AR technology. With integrated hardware and software considerations, the professional use cases for such a device skyrocket. Naturally, AR adds value to these products, but Zuckerberg argues that smart glasses still have vast value even before AR enters the technology stack.
The CEO noted:
The display itself may not be for everyone immediately because it adds some weight to the glasses; it makes them a lot more expensive. But if you add all this, like a full holographic display, it’s going to cost significantly more, even when it’s possible. I think they’re basically going to be three different products.
Zuckerberg went on to explain that he forecasts a future where there could be “display-less glasses” that leverage AI and can capture content, listen to audio books, play music, and take phone calls. He also notes how smartglasses can come with lite-AR visualisations, “where it’s not going to be full-holographic display in the sense that it’s not going to be your full field of view as a hologram, but a little bit of a heads up.”
Finally, Zuckerberg expects the market to gain a “premium version” product for smart glasses with many smart features and a full AR display.
Will Smartglasses Replace Smartphones?
The argument that smart glasses will replace, or at least change, modern-day smartphone interaction and reliance is common. With smart glasses already presenting standard smartphone applications as AR services, one could argue that the interaction with smart glasses compared to a smartphone is slightly quicker, seamless, and more immersive.
If smart glasses do go on to challenge smartphone use, then the hardware still has a ways to go. However, the prospect may not be far away; Zuckerberg explained:
When is this going to replace phones? I don’t think in the history of technology. The new platform usually doesn’t completely make it so that people stop using the old thing. It’s just that you use it less, a lot of people do tasks on their phone today that they would have used to have done on their computer because it’s more convenient. You just don’t open your computer as much. You don’t go to your desk, you just do it-I think that’s going to happen with glasses too.It’s not like we’re going to stop having a phone. It’s just that it’s going to stay in your pocket. You’ll take it out when you really need to.
To secure the firm’s broad vision of changing human-computer interactions, the firm is spending billions on researching new emerging technologies via its Reality Labs firm, which lost $4.65 billion across the entirety of 2023
Meta Announce Neural Interface Wristband and Powerful AR Smartglasses
Meta Connect 2024 is coming up this year. With it will come new technology announcements and hype-building. Like years before, Meta is expecting to announce market-shifting technology from all legs of its technology umbrella.
One of these technologies is a neural interface wristband that translates body signals into a computer input. Zuckerberg explains:
When people hear neural interface, the first instinct is it must wire into your brain. But I think most people are not going to want something wired with their brain. But your brain sends signals to your body through your nervous system. – So you can have a wristband that gets trained to pick up different signals and pathways of your brain communicating to move your hand.
Zuckerberg notes that workers, for example, could use a neural interface for typing documents or controlling a curser, “so that coupled with the glasses is going to enable a bunch of pretty amazing use cases.” The CEO also noted that neural interfaces won’t just become part of Meta’s roadmap; the technology will soon be on the radars of firms working on different APIs.
Alongside big interface advancements, Meta is also working on a new pair of AR smartglasses, which the firm hints at being more powerful and paradigm-shifting than the Ray-Ban device.
Zuckerberg said:
I think the glasses are a big deal. We’re almost ready to start showing the prototype version of the full holographic glasses. We’re not going to be selling it; sadly, we’re focused on building the full consumer version of it rather than selling the prototype, but we’re going to start demonstrating the prototype to people.
While Meta may not release the new smart glasses or neural interface accessories this year, Meta will most likely use its upcoming Connect event to highlight these technologies, an attempt to draw a new shift in interest towards its technology and away from Apple’s big year in XR.
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Meta's Zuckerberg Reveals Info on New AR Smart Glasses and Neural Interface Wristbands - XR Today
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