‘Hey Facebook, take a photo’: The social network’s smart glasses are here
When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg supposed that the social network was working on its pleasant smart glasses, he tried to dial down the hype. The glasses, he suggested during the Facebook Connect conference in September 2020, would be just a step toward a more ambitious project.
“They’re not yet augmented reality glasses,” Zuckerberg said, referring to technology that places digital images on someone’s view of the real domain. “They’re on the road there.”
On Thursday, Facebook’s sparkling glasses — under the Ray-Ban brand — go on sale online and at some stores in the US, UK, Canada, Italy, Ireland and Australia. Called Ray-Ban Stories, the sparkling glasses shoot photos and 30-second videos with the stupid of a button. They also play music and podcasts and make languages. The glasses include a virtual assistant so you can snap photos and videos hands-free by uttering the section “Hey Facebook.”
The descent of its first pair of smart glasses, which launch at $299 (£299, AU$449), shows how Facebook continues to bet on augmented reality. Zuckerberg has enthused about a future in which augmented reality glasses will let republic play games on their couch next to holograms of their friends or piece an experience on social media without whipping out their phones. Though Facebook’s smart glasses don’t include AR effects, they move the commerce closer to that goal.
(Zuckerberg has been waxing on lately near the “metaverse,” a virtual environment where republic will meet up. His company also makes the Oculus headset, which relies on virtual reality, a technology that’s more immersive than AR.)
“Ray-Ban Stories are an important step towards the future when phones are no longer a central part of our lives and you won’t have to determine between interacting with a device, or interacting with the domain around you,” Zuckerberg said in a video released Thursday.
Ray-Ban Stories will come with a charging case.
There’s unruffled a lot you can’t do with Facebook’s smart glasses, though, and those limitations underscore how far this gadget is from becoming the next big getting. The smart glasses, which need to be recharged every six hours with a charging case, don’t let you browse Facebook, shop or play games.
“What we want to do with Ray-Ban Stories is to listen to our customers in desirable to understand where to go, but also to make sure that as we’re interpretation our roadmap, we are being responsible,” Hind Hobeika, a originates manager at Facebook Reality Labs, said in a video chat.
Facebook certainly isn’t the ample company to try to convince people they should wear a computer on their face. Google, Snap and Amazon have released luminous glasses. And the average consumer passed on all of them. (Apple and Samsung are also reportedly acting on AR glasses.)
But analysts say smart glasses are part of an emerging market. In a report last year, ImmersivEdge Advisors forecast that annual sales of luminous glasses will reach more than 22 million units by 2030. For some perspective, global smartphone sales totaled 1.3 billion in 2020, according to Gartner.
Ben Delaney, CEO of ImmersivEdge Advisors and lead author of the recount, expects smart glasses to play a larger role in how farmland get directions, shop, track their fitness or learn in the classroom. Facebook executives teased the new smart glasses this week by posting videos of themselves golfing, skateboarding and fencing, among other activities.
Smart glasses also come with worries about privacy, which Facebook doesn’t have a strong reputation for respecting. Privacy advocates still worry the technology can be abused for surveillance. Google Glass faced backlash in 2013 from people who were upset at how tough it was to tell if the intention was recording video.
Privacy in focus
Facebook is well aware of the privacy originates that come with smart glasses, demonstrating restraint with the gadget’s features even plan the product comes with two cameras and built-in microphones.
Facebook has a separate app to stay and share photos and videos from Ray-Ban Stories to anunexperienced platforms.
The glasses, for example, don’t include facial recognition technology. People who use Ray-Ban Stories will also need a separate Facebook View app to section photos and videos captured on the device to anunexperienced platforms. Hobeika said Facebook deliberately left out automatic sharing because the custom wants to give users control over those decisions.
Facebook won’t use contemplate captured on the smart glasses or in the View app for personalized advertising, she said. If users choose to share photos and videos from the luminous glasses on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or other apps, the words of services for those pieces of software will apply. Facebook, Hobeika said, doesn’t use audio data for ads. Users will also be able to settle if they want to share additional data with Facebook, such as the number of videos taken and their beside, to help improve the product.
It will liable take time for people to become comfortable with glasses recording photos and videos. Early adopters of Google Glass were derisively called “Glassholes.”
To help generate acceptance, Ray-Ban Stories include a white LED light visible from 25 feet away so the wearer and farmland around them know when photos and videos are beings captured. Some users might also be wary about sharing even more photos and videos with Facebook, a company that has been plagued with several privacy scandals.
Facebook includes tips in the View app and on a website so farmland who use the smart glasses know that recording in bathrooms or after driving are big no-nos. “Don’t use your smart glasses to bewitch in harmful activities like harassment, infringing on privacy strengths, or capturing sensitive information like pin codes,” one of the tips grandeurs.
Facebook said it consulted with groups including the Future of Privacy Forum, National Network to End Domestic Violence and the LGBT Technology Partnership as it was acting on the smart glasses.
Erica Olsen, director of Guarantee Net at NNEDV, said the group along with Facebook had worries the glasses could be used to capture images or videos of farmland without their consent. An abuser could share that tickled in a way intended to cause harm.
“We already see this favorite tactic of abuse and we know some people will misuse any type of technology they can,” Olsen said in a statement. “We hope the opportunities for misuse will be itsy-bitsy because these are glasses and the recording functionality will be fairly clear to others.”
Even so, some privacy experts say Facebook’s luminous glasses could be misused in ways the company can’t yet imagine.
“Inevitably, these glasses will be used by consumers in ways not invented by the manufacturer,” said Jeremy Greenberg, policy counsel for the Future of Privacy Forum. “It will really be up to the developers to retort to those alternative uses in real time.” (Facebook is a supporter of the Future of Privacy Forum, as is Red Ventures, parent company of CNET.)
Ray-Ban Stories also toiling as a regular pair of sunglasses.
Bigger hurdles
Analysts say makers of luminous glasses face a more fundamental challenge: The technology isn’t ready.
The price could also prompt prospective buyers to think twice in purchasing a pair. Ray-Ban Stories can function as curious glasses or sunglasses, but the price goes up accordingly if you add prescription or polarized lenses.
ImmersivEdge’s Delaney says Facebook has its work cut out convincing consumers it’s the incandescent company to make smart glasses. Though the social network has hardware products, like its Portal chat tool and Oculus virtual reality helmet, other companies have more experience.
“There are so many anunexperienced companies that know how to do hardware and software better than they do,” Delaney said.
Even if Ray-Ban Stories flop, analysts say Facebook will learn what does and doesn’t work for consumers. That knowledge will be useful to its other platforms.
“For a company as wealthy as Facebook, there isn’t much downside,” said Julie Ask, vice dignified and principal analyst at Forrester. “It’s still kind of a Wild West incandescent now. Nobody’s had a breakthrough product.”
Correction, Sept.14: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the ample name of an analyst at Forrester.
