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posted by martyb on Friday September 10 2021, @09:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the glass-holes-part-due dept.

Ray-Ban Stories: These are Facebook's first mass-market smart glasses

As previously rumored, Facebook has partnered with EssilorLuxottica to produce Ray-Ban Stories, one of the first potentially viable attempts at mass-market smart glasses. They are similar in some ways to early iterations of Snapchat Spectacles but with a more stylish aesthetic that looks right in line with other Ray-Ban glasses.

The glasses have two front-facing cameras, each at 5 megapixels. Users can take a photo either with a touch gesture or with a "Hey Facebook" voice command. So people in the room can tell that pictures or video are being taken, a white LED on the front of the frames will light up. Videos can be as long as 30 seconds.

[...] The Ray-Ban Stories are equipped with a Snapdragon processor, but they don't have displays in the lenses. So these are by no means augmented reality (AR) glasses.

Also at Wccftech.

Related: Snapchat Takes a Second Shot at Wearable Camera "Spectacles"


Original Submission

Related Stories

Snapchat Takes a Second Shot at Wearable Camera "Spectacles" 10 comments

Despite disappointing results for its first (test?) run, Snap(chat) has released a second generation of its Spectacles wearable camera:

Snap today released the next generation of Spectacles, its wearable camera, with new features for taking photos and water resistance. The sunglasses, which have the same striking form as the first-generation model, have been slimmed down and now come in three jewel tones: onyx (black), ruby (red), and sapphire (blue). They're available to order starting today at Spectacles.com for $150 — $20 more than the previous model.

If you've followed the story of Spectacles so far, you know that the first version proved to be a costly misstep for Snap Inc. Although reviewers were generally impressed with their whimsical design, Snap made far more units than the 150,000 or so that it ultimately sold. The company wrote down nearly $40 million in merchandise, and laid off about a dozen people.

Even worse, from the company's perspective, is that people who bought Spectacles didn't use them for very long. According to Business Insider, less than half of users continued to use Spectacles a month after buying them. They were presented as the future of communication, but the first iteration of Spectacles felt more like a toy — a relatively cheap novelty that people used a handful of times before stuffing into a drawer.

Also at TechCrunch, The Guardian, Adweek, and Macworld.


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:44PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:44PM (#1176802)

    Without a selfie camera, who's the target market? People taking pictures of their food without posing next to it? iow: Nobody?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:50PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:50PM (#1176806)

      You use your pocket mirror.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by istartedi on Friday September 10 2021, @11:36PM

        by istartedi (123) on Friday September 10 2021, @11:36PM (#1176831) Journal

        "Where do I get the pocket mirror app?" --Somebody Forsure.

        --
        Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:03AM (#1176873)

      Without an input device, they are just toys. Something like the Tap Wrist which was recently announced (not yet publically) would work nicely to turn AR glasses into usable displays for mobile computing.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:45PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:45PM (#1176803)

    "hey glasshole, get out" again

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @09:49PM (#1176805)

      NO, it's different this time! This is Facebook, the company that ruined the Oculus, not Google, the company that ruined itself.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by istartedi on Friday September 10 2021, @09:52PM

    by istartedi (123) on Friday September 10 2021, @09:52PM (#1176808) Journal

    You don't think she's a spy, do you?

    "No. We're sincerely in love. Her face literally lights up every time I do something important."

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:35PM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:35PM (#1177021) Journal

    So they looked at Google Glass, took away the useful part (AR), but kept the obnoxious part (front-facing camera). Why would anyone want this?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday September 11 2021, @05:13PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday September 11 2021, @05:13PM (#1177029) Journal

      You don't have augmented reality without some kind of sensor, usually a front-facing camera (preferably two). Remove the "obnoxious" part and you also don't have AR, unless the device uses infrared, LIDAR, etc. for niche uses.

      This product and Snap(chat)'s Spectacles are for recording short videos and taking photos hands-free. Something the target demographics are already doing all the time, all over the place, except with smartphones. Since there are two front-facing cameras, presumably it should be able to record VR180 content from the user's eye level.

      Also, looking at the press release [fb.com], it has speakers, so you can take calls with it.

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      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by progo on Saturday September 11 2021, @09:43PM (2 children)

    by progo (6356) on Saturday September 11 2021, @09:43PM (#1177106) Homepage

    So people in the room can tell that pictures or video are being taken, a white LED on the front of the frames will light up.

    A little bit of nail polish matching the frame color will take care of that.

    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday September 12 2021, @12:31AM (1 child)

      by acid andy (1683) on Sunday September 12 2021, @12:31AM (#1177135) Homepage Journal

      What, you mean you really believe Farcebook won't want to slurp up all that delicious, juicy data whether the user is interested in the pictures or videos at that time or not?

      --
      If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 12 2021, @03:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 12 2021, @03:08AM (#1177164)

        Just imagine all the facial recognition software that will be run. You think you can avoid a FB shadow account for you by not going online? Ha!

  • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday September 13 2021, @06:06AM

    by crafoo (6639) on Monday September 13 2021, @06:06AM (#1177371)

    I thought Snapchat uses most commonly took video of themselves talking or doing something, or video of them alongside something, posing. I think they are most interested in posting video of themselves. I think a hand mirror with embedded video would serve that market better. Maybe a pocket makeup mirror?

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