Meta expected to preview first true AR glasses at Connect conference
26/9/2024 6:17
Facebook
owner Meta Platforms kicked off its annual Connect
conference at its California headquarters on Wednesday, where it
is expected to preview its first augmented-reality glasses and
announce updates to its existing virtual-reality and
artificial-intelligence products.
Among those AI updates is an audio upgrade offering users
the option to select a voice for Meta's ChatGPT-like chatbot,
including the ability to make it sound like celebrities
including Judi Dench and John Cena, Reuters reported on Monday.
The augmented-reality reveal is a long time in the making
for Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who positioned AR
technology as a sort of magnum opus when he first pivoted the
world’s biggest social media company toward building immersive
“metaverse” systems in 2021.
However, Meta has struggled to overcome technical challenges
with its AR project since then, prompting the head of the
company’s metaverse-oriented Reality Labs division to
acknowledge last year that a product it could viably bring to
market was “still a few years away - a few, to put it lightly."
The company has been plowing tens of billions of dollars
into its investments in artificial intelligence, augmented
reality and other metaverse technologies, driving up its capital
expense forecast for 2024 to a record high of between $37
billion and $40 billion.
Its metaverse unit Reality Labs lost $8.3 billion in the
first half of this year, according to the most recent
disclosures. It lost $16 billion last year.
The social media giant is planning for the first generation
of the AR glasses this year to be distributed only internally
and to a select group of developers, with each device costing
tens of thousands of dollars to produce, according to a source
familiar with the project.
Meta aims to ship its first commercial AR glasses to
consumers in 2027, by which point technical breakthroughs should
bring down the cost of production, the source said.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to discuss company plans.
Zuckerberg appeared to confirm that approach, describing the
AR work and telling an audience at a live taping of the Acquired
podcast in San Francisco that Meta was “pretty close to being
able to show off the first prototype that we have of that.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on
the plans.
In the meantime, Meta has leaned in to an unexpected interim
success on the road to AR with its camera-equipped Ray-Ban Meta
smart glasses.
Riding a wave of excitement around emerging generative AI
technology, the company announced at last year’s Connect
conference that it was adding an AI-powered digital assistant to
the glasses, turning a once-forgotten device into the most
popular AI wearable on the market.
Although Meta has not disclosed sales numbers for the smart
glasses, the CEO of Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica
said this summer that more of the new generation sold in a few
months than the old ones did in two years. Market research firm
IDC estimates that more than 700,000 pairs of the glasses have
shipped since the update last year.
Meta recently extended its partnership with EssilorLuxottica
and contemplated a possible investment in the eyewear company,
prompting speculation that the AR glasses may also bear the
Ray-Ban name. More immediately, Meta’s road map for the smart
glasses includes plans for a next generation that will feature a
viewfinder capable of displaying basic text and images through
the lenses.
It has been shipping software updates this year enhancing
the AI assistant’s capabilities on the existing glasses,
including an update in April that enabled the agent to identify
and converse about objects seen by the wearer.
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