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Meta Unveils 'Orion' Augmented Reality Glasses

MacRumors said:


Facebook parent company Meta today unveiled "the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made," called Orion. Meta claims Orion looks and feels like a regular pair of glasses, but with augmented reality capabilities.

meta-ar-glasses-interface.jpg

The glasses have been in development for the last five years, and Meta describes them as lightweight and great for indoor and outdoor use. Unlike a VR headset, AR glasses augment the real world rather than shutting it out, providing digital experiences that are not constrained by the display of a smartphone or headset.According to Meta, Orion is a "feat of miniaturization," featuring components that are sized down to a fraction of a millimeter. The glasses have clear lenses that allow the wearer to see other people's eyes and expressions.

Orion includes built-in contextual AI that is able to "sense and understand" the world around the wearer to "anticipate and proactively address" the wearer's needs. Meta AI can do things like craft a recipe from what's inside your refrigerator, or phone a friend while the user washes dishes.

meta-ar-glasses-design.jpg

Orion is not a consumer focused product, but it is also not just a research prototype. Meta is providing its employees and "select external audiences" with access to Orion, so that it can use the data to "learn, iterate, and build" toward a consumer AR glasses product line.

Going forward, Meta wants to improve the AR display to make visuals sharper, optimize for a slimmer form factor, and work to build at scale to make the AR glasses more affordable.

Apple too is rumored to be working on AR glasses, but the product is still many years away from launching at this point. Apple has struggled with getting the power of an iPhone into a device that uses only a fraction of the power to prevent overheating.

Along with AR glasses, Facebook today introduced new AI features for its Ray-Ban Meta Glasses and unveiled a super cheap $300 Meta Quest 3S mixed reality headset that is a successor to the Meta Quest 3.

Article Link: Meta Unveils 'Orion' Augmented Reality Glasses
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When they are ready for consumers, tbe ads will NOT say:
What you see, is what we get …
😊
 
baryon said:
Anyone know how it works? Last time we saw AR glasses, it was with Google Glass that used a small prism in the corner. But these don't seem to have that, but how do your eyes focus on something so close without any optics? I mean I'm sure there are optics but where?
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Waveguides, it seems. Here's an article from Nature about it. And another more digestible article from The Verge.

As for the input and compute aspects, these glasses use a wristband to (electrically) detect hand gestures and a "compute puck" for all the processing. The glasses just provide the sensor array and the displays.
 
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These glasses will track your eyes and what content you look at more and then serve you ads. in essence with these glasses Meta will already be inside your brain because controlling your eyes is much harder
 
meta-ar-glasses-interface.jpg


Still with people sitting on the couch, doing boring ass regular computer things.

At least Meta's models aren't confined to a 100th-floor modernist solitary confinement apartment.
 
everybody is chasing the same thing. Virtual Reality.

Who will win? Who will come out with the better product? Best Price?

 
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And to use these technical marvels you’ll certainly need a Facebook account. Therefore Zuck can Zuck off.
 
THIS is what I was hoping Apple’s glasses would have been. Imagine going to a foreign country and having glasses that automatically translate everything you see. Glasses that give you information on every landmark you look at. Glasses that gives you directions as you walk. The possibilities are endless.
 
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MacRumors said:


Facebook parent company Meta today unveiled "the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made," called Orion. Meta claims Orion looks and feels like a regular pair of glasses, but with augmented reality capabilities.

meta-ar-glasses-interface.jpg

The glasses have been in development for the last five years, and Meta describes them as lightweight and great for indoor and outdoor use. Unlike a VR headset, AR glasses augment the real world rather than shutting it out, providing digital experiences that are not constrained by the display of a smartphone or headset.According to Meta, Orion is a "feat of miniaturization," featuring components that are sized down to a fraction of a millimeter. The glasses have clear lenses that allow the wearer to see other people's eyes and expressions.

Orion includes built-in contextual AI that is able to "sense and understand" the world around the wearer to "anticipate and proactively address" the wearer's needs. Meta AI can do things like craft a recipe from what's inside your refrigerator, or phone a friend while the user washes dishes.

meta-ar-glasses-design.jpg

Orion is not a consumer focused product, but it is also not just a research prototype. Meta is providing its employees and "select external audiences" with access to Orion, so that it can use the data to "learn, iterate, and build" toward a consumer AR glasses product line.

Going forward, Meta wants to improve the AR display to make visuals sharper, optimize for a slimmer form factor, and work to build at scale to make the AR glasses more affordable.

Apple too is rumored to be working on AR glasses, but the product is still many years away from launching at this point. Apple has struggled with getting the power of an iPhone into a device that uses only a fraction of the power to prevent overheating.

Along with AR glasses, Facebook today introduced new AI features for its Ray-Ban Meta Glasses and unveiled a super cheap $300 Meta Quest 3S mixed reality headset that is a successor to the Meta Quest 3.

Article Link: Meta Unveils 'Orion' Augmented Reality Glasses
Click to expand...
They look like real glasses finally some good VR
 
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Timo_Existencia said:
Every product has to be for the masses?
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No, but Apple didn’t unveil Vision Pro as something for a small, niche audience. I mean just the other day Tim Cook was promoting it on Jimmy Fallon’s show. He wasn’t doing that with a Mac Pro.
 
Unregistered 4U said:
He’s got a point. For example, Apple doesn’t have a folding product because no one has shown that they’re able to reliably manufacture them in the numbers that would be required for an Apple phone. Only 16 million folding phones were sold last year, Apple would need that many packaged and ready to ship on day one for any release they’d do.
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I didn’t watch Meta’s event. But from what I’ve read it seems they were pretty upfront that this is not a product that will be in the hands of consumers any time soon. At the same time it sure doesn’t seem like vaporware. Seems to me he’s just salty because Meta is actually challenging Apple in this space. I’d also point out that Apple is marketing the new iPhones with Apple Intelligence even though none of them have it yet and probably won’t have everything announced at WWDC until next year. Is that vapor ware because it hasn’t shipped yet?

Here’s a couple tweets from people who have tried Meta’s AR glasses:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839065543766429926
https://twitter.com/x/status/1839071504384012796
 
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rafark said:
Except Apple is more of a hardware company. Facebook is more of a software company. I think it’s fine for a software to announce prototypes…
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If Apple had announced Vision Pro as a prototype and released some dev kits to get developers on board he would’ve said that was the right strategy. People complain about John Gruber (and used to complain about Rene Ritchie) as being Apple fanboys but this guy is like no other. And he’s getting invites to Apple’s events so he’s not just a rando posting on Twitter.

Incidentally I’m seeing more comments that Apple needs to go back to doing live events. I don’t know if they will but I’m kind of over these highly polished pre-recorded videos. The recent one was too long and kinda boring. And if they’re actually going to invite press to Apple Park might as well do it live.
 
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“looks and feels like a regular pair of glasses”

We can see that’s obviously not the case 😆🥸🥸
 
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I’m glad companies are pushing forward with AR glasses.
One huge problem that they all seem to have though is they all tint the glasses. They do this to make virtual content more visible, which is fine if you want to focus more on the virtual content and less on reality, but in my opinion that’s not the spirit of AR. AR is about focusing on reality with virtual content just there to supplement (or augment) it. This means glasses ultimately need to be clear, not tinted. If you’re working on a hardware project and want to see supplemental virtual elements, you don’t want your vision to be hampered by tint making it harder to see what you’re working on.
I don’t know how they can make the glasses totally clear and still have virtual content very visible (a big reason why I think Apple went with a headset instead of glasses), but it’s a crucial technical barrier that needs to be overcome for AR glasses to be successful at what I think is its ultimate goal.

Edit- until they can make the entire glass clear, one thing they might be able to do is have no bottom frame, and have the glasses get progressively clearer toward the bottom. That way you can tilt your head slightly up and look slightly down to see reality unobstructed, and head slightly down eyes slightly up to see augmented (and tinted) reality.
 
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Think|Different said:
Pretty interesting, cool to see, even if not for me. I just can’t look back, after Quest etc, on any of these products that don’t work natively with Apple’s ecosystem. It’s like night and day, using AVP with all my Apple subs, content, etc. I am afraid, just like their Ray Bans (damn, they must be salty about these), it halts my interest, full stop. And that’s not even touching the FACEBOOK of it all.


Lots of info on it here: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/blog/quest/orion-ar-glasses-augmented-reality/
Click to expand...
$300
You listening apple.

Making your next generation of ecosystem AFFORDABLE makes its far more accessible.
 
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surferfb said:
:rolleyes:

I am sure if Apple were to show you their Vision prototypes that aren't constrained by cost they would blow you away.
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Sure.
But this thing is supposed to be in the $300 range.

Apple could sell a much better setup for $499.
And make an entirely new ecosystem.
The Vision Pro is amazing.

But when you’re trying to sell the world a Bentley and they have a Kia budget……

Things move slow.
 
Think|Different said:
"While Orion won’t make its way into the hands of consumers"

A *key* detail in any conversation that ultimately tries to compare these with AVP, Quest, Ray Ban Meta glasses, etc...
Click to expand...

Yeah these are more in line with Microsoft‘s HoloLenses. But if so, these are way behind. The original HL’s were released in 2016 and v2 in 2019.
 
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