(Credit: Meta)
Meet Project Orion, a pair of smart glasses that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pitching as the future of computing and the "most advanced glasses that the world has ever seen."
The technology, which debuted today at the Meta Connect conference, promises to offer the mixed-reality features found in Meta's bulkier Quest 3 VR headsets, but in a more lightweight and fashionable piece of eyewear, without any wires.
(Credit: Meta)To pull this off, the glasses swap traditional displays for a new kind of "display architecture" that harnesses tiny projectors in the glasses to beam light into custom lenses that refract the light into images, according to Zuckerberg.
This will display digital icons and windows across the lenses, enabling the wearer to watch a video, play games, or read text messages. The lenses remain transparent, allowing the wearer to view both their real-world surroundings and the digital programs at the same time.
(Credit: Meta)
(Credit: Meta)Project Orion can receive inputs through voice commands, hand- and eye-tracking, along with the ability to sense specific hand and finger gestures through a wrist band, which can detect neural signals.
The glasses are still an internal prototype and not quite ready for sale. Nevertheless, the device represents the culmination of a near-decade of R&D and billions spent to create a next-generation computing platform to rival the PC and smartphones.
“A lot of people have said this is the craziest technology that they’ve ever seen,” Zuckerberg said before showing off a video clip of various people, including the CEOs of Nvidia and Reddit, trying out the device.
(Credit: Meta)
(Credit: Meta)Zuckerberg said Meta still needs to refine the prototype before any type of launch. That includes fine-tuning the holographic lenses for better image quality, making the glasses more compact, and trying to ensure the technology is affordable. The current prototype also features a puck-shaped device that helps the glasses perform computing.
The other challenge is developing the software for Orion. So for now, Meta plans on using the current prototype as a development kit internally for Meta staffers and eventually third-party developers. Still, Zuckerberg is bullish on the device’s prospects. “These glasses exist, they are awesome and they are glimpse of a future that I think is going to be pretty exciting,” he said.