XR Industry News

Meta announced it’s partnering with Lightstorm Vision, James Cameron’s 3D film studio, to produce spatial content across multiple genres, including live events and full-length entertainment.

The agreement includes the production of live sports and concerts, feature films, and TV series featuring “big-name IP,” Meta says in a recent blog post, noting that Quest will be Lightstorm Vision’s the exclusive MR hardware platform.

Meta says the collaboration with Lightstorm Vision will include the co-production of original stereoscopic content, but also be geared towards “improving content creators’ ability to make high-quality stereoscopic content through the use of advanced tooling, including employing AI.”

The multi-year partnership was struck after Meta CTO and Reality Labs head Andrew Bosworth demoed some of the company’s latest hardware to Cameron.

“I was amazed by its transformational potential and power, and what it means for content creators globally,” Cameron says. “I’m convinced we’re at a true, historic inflection point. Navigating that future with Meta will ensure ALL of us have the tools to create, experience, and enjoy new and mind-blowing forms of media.”

Cameron is best known for his writing and directorial work on a slew of box office hits, including The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Titanic (1997), as well as Avatar (2009) and its sequels.

The filmmaker is also a long-time supporter of 3D, having helped kickstart the rash of 3D films in the 2010s with the development of the Fusion Camera System, which was used to capture stereoscopic 3D for a number of films, including Avatar, Tron: Legacy (2010), and Life of Pi (2012).

A recent report from South Korea’s Yonhap News maintains Samsung is set to unveil a pair of XR glasses at its annual Unpacked product event, which is expected to take place sometime next month.

Samsung promised back in July we’d be hearing more about its forthcoming “XR platform” before the end of this year, which it’s developing in partnership with Google and Qualcomm.

We still don’t know precisely what form its “XR platform” will take, with previous rumors suggesting work on an Apple Vision Pro competitor in addition to a Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses competitor, as reported in October by The Information.

Now, a Yonhap News report (via Techradar) maintains Samsung is expected to unveil some sort of device on stage, coming in the shape of “regular glasses or sunglasses, and weigh[ing] around 50g.”

The report notes the device is expected to have a payment function, gesture recognition, and facial recognition, and further maintains industry insiders expect the product to launch around Q3 2025. Its Android-powered XR software is also expected to be unveiled sometime this month.

While Yonhap calls the device “AR glasses” (machine translated from Korean), the rumored weight and the lack of any mention of built-in displays suggests it may be closer in function to Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses instead of something like Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype.

You can read more about the difference between AR glasses and smart glasses in our handy primer, although here’s the short of it: smart glasses don’t overlay immersive imagery, instead providing the user with access to data you might otherwise use on a smartphone or smartwatch, be it a visual heads-up display, or audio output, such as the case of Ray-Ban Meta. AR headsets on the other hand do overlay immersive imagery, like HoloLens 2 or Meta Orion, and are consequently more expensive and difficult to build as a result.

Provided Samsung is indeed releasing a pair of smart glasses and not a full-fledged AR device, it would be in good company. According to Meta, its smart glasses partnership with Ray-Ban has been very successful since the product’s initial release in 2021, prompting Meta to extend its smart glasses collaboration with parent company EssilorLuxottica into 2030. China’s Xiaomi is also reportedly preparing such a device with the help of long-standing ODM Goertek, which is reported to “fully benchmark” against Ray-Ban Meta.

Notably, this follows a string of Samsung trademarks ostensibly geared towards the next generation of XR devices. In mid-2023, the South Korean tech giant filed the name ‘Samsung Glasses’ with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office. In early 2024, Samsung filed a similar trademark request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for ‘Galaxy Glasses’.

Whatever the case, Samsung hasn’t intimated when Unpacked will kick off, which typically takes place in January or February. An Android Police report suggests however the date has leaked: January 23rd in San Francisco, California.

Xiaomi makes everything, from phones and vacuum cleaners to massage guns and even electric cars. Now, according to a report from Chinese media 36kr, Xiaomi may be developing a device that goes toe-to-toe with Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses.

The report maintains Xiaomi is planning to launch a new generation of AI-assisted smartglasses, which will be built in collaboration with Goertek, the China-based ODM behind a bevy of XR parts, reference designs, and finished white-label hardware.

The rumored Xiaomi smartglasses are said to “fully benchmark” against Ray-Ban Meta, which includes AI functions, integrated speakers, and camera modules. Notably, Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses aren’t officially available in China.

Citing insider sources, the report maintains the device is slated to arrive in Q2 2025, with 36kr noting it may launch in time for the Mi Fan Festival, which is typically held in April to mark Xiaomi’s founding anniversary.

The report further maintains, Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun expects to ship more than 300,000 units.

Xiaomi has dabbled in XR hardware in the past, although it really hasn’t entered full force. The Chinese tech giant hyped a widely reported AR glasses prototype at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2023. A year prior, the company launched a pair of smartglasses, called Mijia Glasses Camera. Much like the now defunct Google Glass, the device featured a single heads-up display.

All of that is changing though, it seems. Next year is shaping up to be a big year for smartglasses in China, as the country’s largest brands may be hoping to replicate Meta’s success with Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Baidu announced at its Baidu World Conference on November 12th its own co-product with Xiaodu, the Xiaodu AI glasses, which is launching in China in the first half of 2025.

The 36kr report also notes that Chinese heavy-hitters OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Tencent, and ByteDance are also currently evaluating their own smartglasses projects.

Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses are already pretty fashionable, as they look nearly identical to a few of EssilorLuxottica’s best-selling sunglasses, albeit with the inclusion of neatly integrated cameras, speakers, battery and onboard AI driven by a positively tiny Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 processor. With the launch of a new pop-up store in Los Angeles today, Meta is hoping to test out whether it can move the needle with broader adoption.

Meta calls the LA pop-up store “experiential retail,” having modeled it after the Meta Lab pop-up at Connect 2024 in October, which allowed event-goers to try on a pair of Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses to capture photos and videos and keep the resultant files, or even buy a customized pair of the $300 glasses right then and there.

Ultimately, the idea with its first publicly available pop-up in LA is to increase word-of-mouth marketing, which Creative Director Matt Jacobson hopes will make its users into the “best salesperson ever.”

Adorned with a giant pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses on the outside (with the glasses’ LED privacy light), the flagship pop-up in LA is only going to be around until December 31st, although it won’t be the last.

The company’s next pop-up is planned to hit Phoenix, Arizona in January, which the company calls a “real shop-in-shop,” the exact location of which is still a mystery.

“Can we build a store inside somebody else’s business? Can we drive traffic to it, and can we leverage their marketing as well as ours? By the end of January, we will have tested all three expressions of our experiential first-party retail.”

To boot, the Meta Lab location is doing more than just letting people try on and buy Ray-Ban smartglasses. The company says it will have “regular programming,” which includes stand-up comedy with Desi Banks, a live podcast with Madeline Argy, a ‘paint and sip’ night with Tinashe, a Ray-Ban Meta-focused workshop with Director Drex Lee, and a cooking class with Cassie Yeung.

From there, Meta hopes to share its findings with EssilorLuxottica, which operates over 17,000 stores worldwide, as well among third-party partners. Meta announced in September it was expanding its smartglasses partnership with the eyewear conglomerate into 2030.

As pop-ups go, the LA and Phoenix locations may be a limited engagement, but it may also spark more to come.

“We can’t scale a hundred of these, but we can build a few of them at locations around the country, and then fill in if we decide we want to do more first-party retail. This is aspirational, inspirational. They’re not easily scalable in terms of what they look like, but in terms of experience, they are,” Jacobson says.

If you’re in the LA area, you can find the Meta Lab pop-up over at 8600 Melrose Avenue, open from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm PT seven days a week beginning November 8th through December 31st.

Posted holiday hours are 10:00 am – 3:00 pm on Black Friday and Christmas Eve, with the location closed on Thanksgiving, December 3rd, and Christmas Day.

Canon today announced a more affordable lens option designed for social media creators and videographers interested in VR and 3D content creation.

Back in June, Canon announced its RF-S3.9mm F3.5 STM Dual Fisheye lens, which was designed to allow its line of cameras to take spatial video and photos—priced at $1,099.00.

Now the company is widening its line of dual lens optics with an even more affordable VR lens system with the introduction of RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens, which is going on sale this November for $449.99.

As the name suggests, the lens offers a 7.8mm focal length, as well as a 60-degree angle of view. Like the previously released Dual Fisheye lens, the new lens is also compatible with Canon’s latest cameras that support RF mounts, which includes EOS R, R5, R6, RP, and the R7.

While admittedly offering a lower field-of-view (FOV) than the 144-degree FOV of its bigger brother, it’s also less than half the price.

Previewed at Apple’s 2024 WWDC, Canon intends to use the new lens to meet the growing demand for accessible spatial video creation.

Notably, the new RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens is said to operate like a traditional 2D RF lens, enabling easy setup for newcomers, and allowing anyone with its latest RF mount cameras to create immersive content for headsets like Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.

According to Hiroto Kato, Canon’s vice president of Imaging Products & Solutions, the RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens is “an exciting step” in making 3D content creation accessible.

“With the RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens, Canon is not only providing a new visual tool but also enhancing the way creators communicate using emerging VR, spatial and 3D technologies,” said Kato says. “This lens allows users to capture immersive content, bridging the gap between traditional content creation and the latest in VR and Spatial imagery. It’s an exciting step forward in making high-quality 3D content more approachable for everyone.”

The new dual lens is scheduled for release in November 2024, priced at $449.99. Check out the specs below:

Microsoft’s contract with the U.S. Army to build a combat-ready AR headset is worth up to $22 billion, but only if the company can deliver the goods at “substantially less than” the projected $80,000 per unit, the Army tells Bloomberg. Requirements also include definitively positive field testing, set to take place early next year.

Based on HoloLens 2, Microsoft’s specially-built Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) has faced multiple challenges since being awarded the Army contract in 2019, including poor field testing results due to reliability and ruggedness issues. Despite recent improvements in the 1.2 version, such as better reliability and display clarity, and a flip-up design, the Army hasn’t scaled up orders yet.

While the contract stipulates the Army could order up to 121,000 of Microsoft’s IVAS, that’s pending further field testing—set to take place from April to June 2025. Price is also a “key factor,” Army acquisition chief Doug Bush says.

At the annual Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference last week in Washington D.C., Bush said testing is “going much better than the first time around,” adding that “a lot of the problems have been fixed.” The Army still needs to “something that’s affordable” in order to cue up full production, however.

Unit cost is “a key factor next year when senior leaders make decisions about going into production,” Bush said. And the pricing goal should be “substantially less than $80,000,” an Army statement obtained by Bloomberg maintains.

Around half of the bill of costs can be chalked up to the system itself, which includes the AR headset—modified with sensors and thermal imaging—a battery, and chest unit for displaying information, such as the location of overhead drones. The remainder includes increased expenditures, such as Army program management to Microsoft engineering and software support, as per the Bloomberg report.

“We are going through the program to identify where we can reduce costs,” Microsoft’s Mixed Reality and HoloLens chief Robin Seiler told reporters last week. “It’s a fairly complex system, so when you look at cost reduction you have to look at it from a component level, from a labor level and from your supply chain.”

Despite best efforts, Microsoft’s contract may actually be at risk. The Army is reportedly preparing to hold ‘IVAS Next’ later this year, a new open competition that could see Microsoft replaced entirely as the prime contractor of IVAS.

Meanwhile, in an apparent bid to boost Microsoft’s chances at keeping the contract, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey’s defense startup Anduril has partnered with Microsoft to provide the combat-ready headset with its Lattice platform, which integrates real-time threat detection to improve battlefield awareness and survivability by sourcing data from drones, ground vehicles, and aerial defense systems.