from the can-you-hear^W-see-me-know? dept.
Facebook has been working to develop augmented reality glasses out of its Facebook Reality Labs in Redmond, Washington, for the past couple of years, but struggles with the development of the project have led the company to seek help. Now, Facebook is hoping a partnership with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica will get them completed and ready for consumers between 2023 and 2025, according to people familiar.
The glasses are internally codenamed Orion, and they are designed to replace smartphones, the people said. The glasses would allow users to take calls, show information to users in a small display and live-stream their vantage point to their social media friends and followers.
Facebook is also developing an artificial intelligence voice assistant that would serve as a user input for the glasses, CNBC previously reported. In addition, the company has experimented with a ring device that would allow users to input information via motion sensor. That device is code-named Agios.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snospar on Wednesday September 18 2019, @01:38PM (1 child)
Can you imagine looking at a world that you've allowed Facebook to augment?
I presume every surface and object around you would be overlaid with product placement, advertising and propaganda to direct your vote to the appropriate candidate.
True horror.
Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:51PM
Glassholes. This terminology mustn't be allowed to die.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @01:51PM (4 children)
Ambitious. Will they still be around then?
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:15PM
Will anything non-facebook / google still be around by then?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:42PM (1 child)
Yes, but the primary demographic of their flagship platform will be too blind to use AR and too deaf to communicate with a system via voice commands. WhatsApp user demographics will be slipping into middle age, outpacing the human aging process. The AR system will get rolled out on WeChain, a startup that launches in 2021 and gets acquired by facebook in 2022 at a valuation of $35 billion despite losing $1.2 billion every fiscal quarter. WeChain will appeal to teenagers by claiming to use blockchain technology for secure messaging across the intercloud, but that will just be a technicality in the backend database which nobody outside of the company has access to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:53PM
Just create a second model and slap an Instagram logo on it. Problem solved.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:36PM
AOL is still around. According to Wiki, Verizon bought them for $4.4 billion in 2015.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fishscene on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:05PM (2 children)
if ($facebook)
{
return "No"
}
Here's my guess at what the internal business case for this is:
- Eyeball tracking.
- We can see what folks are looking at, where they are going, who they are talking to.
- We can then display *cough* "Related Content" (*Board members have a chuckle*).
- If we can make cell phones irrelevant with this, no one can communicate online without going through facebook. Basically, 100% user tracking with fake options to disable anything because, well, it's worked out so well for us in the past.
I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:16PM
This hardware + rootkit=actually good tool.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:58PM
I feel like social media is the most obvious use of AR outside of videogames and maybe remote control of robots for work, as in surgery. Facebook can give people way better oxytocin hits if they actually get to see and speak with their friends, video chat isn't as immersive as AR will eventually become. Not that they won't monetize the hell out of it, but if they don't embrace it they'll be outcompeted by somebody who does, so they kinda have to regardless of those plans.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:14PM (1 child)
Facebook really does have a plan [forbes.com] to create a remote controlled army of zombie drones. He's just moving them from the small screen to a constant 24/7 immersive system.
It won't matter if they stumble into fountains. They will relentlessly come after you. Thousands of them. Like ants. Those who fall into fountains simply become a bridge for those following to walk over, until get to you. They simply will not stop until they get you to create an account and click thumbs up and then become one of them.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:16PM
World War F
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:17PM (6 children)
I want the terminal on my glasses. Give me those damned glasses, lazy science bastards, I am waiting for this tech for more than 50 years already.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday September 18 2019, @04:00PM (5 children)
https://learn.adafruit.com/diy-wearable-pi-near-eye-kopin-video-glasses/overview [adafruit.com]
Input is the tough question, I don't want to speak aloud everything I type in a terminal.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 18 2019, @08:26PM (4 children)
I have a folding bluetooth keyboard whose case turns into a stand. I use it with my tablet when I travel and slip it into a pocket when I'm done. Something like that might work well to interface with the display in the glasses.
I've also seen other approaches come and go. One was a divided keyboard with on half on top of each knee, such that you could sit down resting your hands on your knees and type. Another was a little cube that projected the image of a keyboard on a surface; you could type with a finger on the QWERTY images and it could tell which key you wanted to 'press.' The trouble with it, of course, was that you didn't have the physical feedback to know your fingers were in the right position or if they had wandered off.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday September 18 2019, @10:29PM (2 children)
I'd like to use this hypothetical device while walking, so a keyboard that expects to sit on a table is right out for me (no, I'm not using a chest-mounted desk). I've considered a split-bluetoot-keyboard/pocket-liner, touch typing with hands in pockets. It doesn't seem ideal; if the pocket liner was inflexible enough to prevent accidental key presses it would probably take up a good deal of valuable pantsland real estate. I still think it's my best proposal. Using a device you hold would take away much of the percieved benefit of an eye-destroying HUD, as you could just add a screen to the held device (and while the security of the private screen would still be useful, any typed information would be potentially viewable by others).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 19 2019, @12:43PM (1 child)
Typing while you're walking seems a tall order. There's not just losing your finger position instantly but all the hazards of not watching where you're going.
But if that's what you want to do, there are those forearm mounted keyboards that I think you can even buy ready-made (as opposed to DIY projects). There's also a sort of thing that looks like rings on all your fingers, connected by strings to your wrist; it seems to read what letter you want by how you move your fingers.
Lastly, if you want to get really fun and off the wall I saw a talk by a Disney Imagineer (yes, that's his official job title) who decided to turn everything into an interface by using touch capacitance and mapping the different signals to different functions. He demonstrated by hooking up electrodes to a houseplant and then touching different leaves to tell his stereo to play, pause, skip forward, etc. You could wire your shorts and map different signals to keys. Adafruit probably would have the electrical thread and such to make it happen.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday September 19 2019, @03:06PM
I liked AC's suggestion of eight-finger ascii chording, it might pair well with those sewable Arduinos + thread you brought up.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @01:22AM
With 8 buttons (one under each finger) you can type/chord in ascii. Steve Roberts implemented this on his recumbent bike and was typing while cycle touring: https://microship.com/winnebiko-ii/ [microship.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:43PM (1 child)
Who are they kidding? There is nothing holy (Greek Άγιος == holy, sacred) about this. Sounds rather more like Facebook is every day turning into a better and better approximation of Babylon the Great, though perhaps closer to the symbolic sense that Babylon has for the Rastafarians than for Christian fundamentalists. For what does Facebook do but trade in "the souls of men" (Revelation 18:13), as it trades our likes, dislikes, interests, and relationships with others for its own profit? And in so doing it all but "reigns over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18), as heads of state and politicians are made and broken by trends in social media.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 18 2019, @04:07PM
If you are a Facebook acolyte, then 'holy' would be the right word.
Facebook does not appear to trade in all the other extravagant luxury goods immediately prior to "the souls of men" in Revelation 18:13. The fact that the list of extravagant items concludes with "the souls of men" indicates, to me, an outrageous decadence.
Not to ignore the last portion of Revelation 13, I note that Facebook wants to create its own crypto currency. But one should pay attention to Revelation 14, starting about verse 9, I think (from memory). What the third angel says. (yes, I think I have encyclopedic knowledge of Revelation)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.