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Zuckerberg on Facebook’s AR Initiatives – Baby Steps
During a session at the Paris Viva Technology conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered a bit more detail on what the company has planned for VR/AR. The Zuckerberg session followed the opening chat from Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he talked up the future of AR products. Like Cook, Zuckerberg didn't flat out announce a new product, but he did deliver a bit more color to help understand what kind of wearable to expect this year from Facebook Reality Labs.
"For virtual reality, there are a few there are fewer constraints there because you tend to be doing it in your home or in an office, and you're not sitting in a meeting with another person. But for augmented reality, … it gets really tough because we're basically going to have to deliver all this technology in what will end up being a normal-looking pair of glasses."
For augmented reality, that's where it gets really tough, because we're basically going to have to deliver all this technology in what will end up being a normal-looking pair of glasses. "We're trying to fit a supercomputer into a pair of glasses that can do things like put holograms into the world and do all this 3D rendering that hasn't really ever been done before in this tiny form factor. And we have to deal with problems like getting enough compute power to be able to make that work, having it not get so hot that it becomes uncomfortable on your face and having it so that in a pair of glasses we can fit a battery that will last all day." Zuckerberg offered a road map that helps fill in a couple of blanks that AR insiders have been wondering about.
During a session at the Paris Viva Technology conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered a bit more detail on what the company has planned for VR/AR. The Zuckerberg session followed the opening chat from Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he talked up the future of AR products. Like Cook, Zuckerberg didn't flat out announce a new product, but he did deliver a bit more color to help understand what kind of wearable to expect this year from Facebook Reality Labs.
"For virtual reality, there are a few there are fewer constraints there because you tend to be doing it in your home or in an office, and you're not sitting in a meeting with another person. But for augmented reality, … it gets really tough because we're basically going to have to deliver all this technology in what will end up being a normal-looking pair of glasses."
For augmented reality, that's where it gets really tough, because we're basically going to have to deliver all this technology in what will end up being a normal-looking pair of glasses. "We're trying to fit a supercomputer into a pair of glasses that can do things like put holograms into the world and do all this 3D rendering that hasn't really ever been done before in this tiny form factor. And we have to deal with problems like getting enough compute power to be able to make that work, having it not get so hot that it becomes uncomfortable on your face and having it so that in a pair of glasses we can fit a battery that will last all day." Zuckerberg offered a road map that helps fill in a couple of blanks that AR insiders have been wondering about.
- "While AR glasses of the type that I'm talking about don't exist yet—all the technology challenges haven't been worked out yet, I think we're still a few years away from this—one of the things that I am excited about is we're partnering with EssilorLuxottica to ship a pair of smart Ray-Ban glasses this year. "
- "They're not going to be augmented reality glasses, but they're going to be smart glasses that basically look and feel like Ray-Bans but can add a lot more technology and interesting use cases that we'll get into at some point over the over the next couple of months. I'm really excited for that collaboration; I think that that's going to be a great product that's on the path to the future that we're building here."
Essentially, it's confirmation that while the Project Aria demos do in fact exist, the product this year’s product may not be representative of what Facebook will release via Ray-Ban. More likely, the device will be a notification, photo-taking, and audio device—think Amazon's Echo Frames meets first-generation Snap Spectacles.
Finally, Zuckerberg, in a roundabout way, addressed the recent flurry of criticism leveled at Facebook over its decision to insert advertisements into its VR experience (a move that is likely a precursor to how it will subsidize its smart glasses offerings as well). "To support the type of development and talent that is going to exist in virtual and augmented reality they are going to need to be a lot of different business models," said Zuckerberg. "I didn't mention advertising, but of course that's an incredibly important part of this and an area where we have a lot of strength that we can bring to helping creators and developers monetize. Right now, if you compare the size of virtual and augmented reality to mobile phones, or even game consoles, it's a lot smaller, which means that if you're a developer and you're choosing today 'where should I go develop to make the most money,' we really need to make the monetization work in order to earn the time and attention and focus of the best developers to build content for these new platforms."
Finally, Zuckerberg, in a roundabout way, addressed the recent flurry of criticism leveled at Facebook over its decision to insert advertisements into its VR experience (a move that is likely a precursor to how it will subsidize its smart glasses offerings as well). "To support the type of development and talent that is going to exist in virtual and augmented reality they are going to need to be a lot of different business models," said Zuckerberg. "I didn't mention advertising, but of course that's an incredibly important part of this and an area where we have a lot of strength that we can bring to helping creators and developers monetize. Right now, if you compare the size of virtual and augmented reality to mobile phones, or even game consoles, it's a lot smaller, which means that if you're a developer and you're choosing today 'where should I go develop to make the most money,' we really need to make the monetization work in order to earn the time and attention and focus of the best developers to build content for these new platforms."
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