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Facebook Reveals $299 Ray-Ban Stories Smartglasses With Camera And Assistant

From uploadvr

After a week of teases, Facebook and Ray-Ban are finally announcing Ray-Ban Stories, a new line of smartglasses with built-in cameras and Facebook features.

Check out the full announcement video including an introduction to the kit from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Rocco Basilico of Ray-Ban brand owner Luxottica below.

Ray-Ban Stories Specs And Features

As expected (and essentially confirmed in a leak earlier today), Ray-Ban Stories are sunglasses that resemble traditional Ray-Ban models with small cameras embedded in the top corners of the rims. Like the Snap Spectacles before them, you can use these cameras to instantly capture point-of-view footage, as was demonstrated by Facebook VP of VR and AR, Andrew Bosworth, in a tease earlier this week. The glasses don’t, however, feature any sort of VR or AR functionality.

The dual 5MP cameras capture up for 30 seconds of video or images. An LED lights up when the glasses are recording or taking a photo. There’s also built-in Bluetooth support and a 3-microphone audio array allowing you to connect to your phone to take calls or listen to apps.

As for Facebook features, the glasses are integrated with the Facebook Assistant, allowing you to operate the glasses with your voice. You can also use the Facebook View companion app to share media through other services including non-Facebook applications.

Ray-Ban Stories Price And Release Date

Ray-Ban Stories are launching today in the US, UK, Canada, Italy, Ireland and Australia and start at $299 USD, the same price as the entry-level 128GB Oculus Quest 2 VR headset. You can also pick them up with Polarized lenses starting at $329 or Transitions lenses starting at $379. The glasses come in three models named Wayfarer (Wayfarer L), Round and Meteor and are available in five different colors.

Are Ray-Ban Stories AR Glasses?

In a nutshell: no. AR technology has a spatial understanding of the world around you and then uses that information to project virtual images into your environment. Ray-Ban Stories won’t do this, and they won’t even have an overlay interface. They do, however, represent a form factor that Facebook is no doubt keen to one day reach with an AR headset; current devices like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap One are bulky and unfit for all-day use. Facebook Reality Labs, the division of the company responsible for AR and VR technology, is using prototype AR glasses not intended for consumer use, but it will be some time before the company brings a true consumer AR headset to market.

What do you make of Ray-Ban Stories? Will you be picking up a pair? Let us know in the comments below!

Apple Uses AR To Tease Announcements For Sept. 14

From uploadvr

Apple teased its next announcement event for Sept. 14 with an impressive demonstration of AR.

Tapping the Apple symbol on the announcement webpage launches a 3D object that, on an iPhone at least, can be positioned and resized in an AR view while casting a glow into the physical environment. If you move your iPhone closer to the symbol it reveals itself to be a portal with the text 9.14 floating inside. Using the latest iPhone 12 Pro with the teaser provided a pretty impressive demonstration of AR tracking technology — with the system robustly segmenting out people into the background with pretty believable occlusion. We know Apple is working on an advanced VR/AR headset but the company is known for cancelling projects late in development.

The event comes within days of a tease by Ray-Ban that’s expected to detail a pair of perspective-capturing Facebook smartglasses. While the device may be absent advanced AR features, we expect overlap between what the glasses do today and what features will be inside future eyewear from Facebook. In what’s likely a more near-term proposition than slim AR glasses, Facebook is pursuing a so-called “Quest Pro” high-end standalone that’s likely to incorporate more sensors for more robust tracking. Microsoft is already on its second-generation standalone AR headset (and working with the U.S. Army on a ruggedized version) while Google is unlikely to sit out the effort to power robust AR glasses. Pokemon Go maker Niantic is working on AR glasses and Snapchat recently launched an AR development kit.

The Apple announcement event on Sept. 14 will kick off at 10 am Pacific time.

Facebook/Ray-Ban Smartglasses Reveal Coming On Thursday

From uploadvr

It looks like we’ll be getting the first details about Facebook’s collaboration with Ray-Ban on a pair of smartglasses later this week.

Ray-Ban’s official website just posted a tease with the date 09/09/2021, suggesting we’ll get more details this Thursday. We can see what’s likely a silhouette of the glasses themselves but, other than that there’s little in the way of details.

The page does allow users to sign up for a ‘Release Notification’, though it’s not clear if the smartglasses might actually launch this week, or we’ll simply get a date for later down the line. Last year Facebook said the glasses would launch in 2021 and, more recently, CEO Mark Zuckerberg reconfirmed they’d be the company’s next hardware launch.

Yesterday Facebook VP of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, teased a reveal of the glasses by showing off what looks like a point-of-view recording feature while on vacation with Zuckerberg. You don’t actually see the glasses themselves in the video, though.

Despite Bosworth’s tease, we’re not expecting this Ray-Ban collaboration to include any true augmented reality features, instead likely resembling one of the earlier generations of the Snap Spectacles (which, funnily enough, have already evolved into a pretty impressive prototype AR headset). That said, we’ll need to see the official details on Thursday to know what the device is really capable of. Facebook is working on its own, more advanced AR prototypes, but we don’t expect to see those for years yet.

What are you hoping to see out of the Ray-Ban and Facebook smartglasses? Let us know in the comments below.

Facebook Teases Ray-Ban Smartglasses Recording In New Video

From uploadvr

It sure looks like Facebook is teasing its upcoming smartglasses, made it partnership with Ray-Ban.

A recent tweet from the company’s VP of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, features a video of the executive on what looks like a vacation with Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. But Bosworth’s tweet includes an emoji using sunglasses and the video appears to be filmed from his perspective. You can even see in some portions of the video that Bosworth has two free hands, meaning he isn’t holding a phone.

Facebook Ray-Ban Smartglasses Teased?

It’s very likely that this is demonstrating a recording feature on the confirmed Ray-Ban smartglasses, then. Last year we reported that the device would launch in 2021 and, even though the company hasn’t reconfirmed that’s the case, Zuckerberg did recently state that the glasses would be Facebook’s next major hardware launch. The ongoing chip shortage may have pushed Facebook’s plans further down the line of course.

Plus the timing works out for a tease – it’s very likely that Facebook fully reveals the glasses at its Facebook Connect developer conference in October. The company rebranded the event from Oculus Connect last year, noting at that time it would include a greater focus on AR as well as VR.

That said, it doesn’t sound like these smartglasses will feature any real AR capabilities – certainly not on the level of HoloLens or Magic Leap. Instead, features like this supposed point-of-view recording are likely to be the major sells for the device.

There are other possibilities of what could be being teased here, of course. Bosworth could be recording from Project Aria, Facebook Reality Lab’s internal AR smart glasses used for prototyping. But there’s no confirmed consumer plan for that device, so it’d be a strange tease. He could also just not be teasing anything at all, but that seems unlikely.

What for you make of this possible Ray-Ban smartglasses tease? Let us know in the comments below!