[ad_1]
Facebook and iconic eyewear brand Ray-Ban launched their new smart glasses on Thursday, which is the latest effort in a tricky niche market, but the social media giant sees this as a step towards the future.
“Ray-Ban Stories” sunglasses can take photos and videos according to the wearer’s voice commands, and the frame can be connected to the Facebook platform wirelessly through the app.
Fabio Borsoi, global research and design director of Ray-Ban manufacturer EssilorLuxottica Group, said: “We adopted the Wayfarer (mirror frame) born in 1952 and redesigned the design with some cool techniques.”
Facebook is entering a market that has seen Google Glass in 2013, which has triggered a backlash against the privacy of built-in cameras and prompted the tech giant to shift its focus on devices from the general public.
Messaging app SnapChat has also released Spectacles equipped with cameras, but they are expensive and difficult to gain widespread popularity among technology enthusiasts.
It is worth noting that the Ray-Ban Stories glasses will not have augmented reality capabilities-the technology can combine online computing with visual cues (such as maps or face recognition).
On the contrary, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously stated that these shades are an early step in the effort to create futuristic glasses that increase the view of the real world through data or graphics from the Internet.
The company said in July that it was teaming up with experts in its hardware, gaming, and virtual reality departments to build an immersive digital world called the “meta universe.”
Ray-Ban Stories starts at $299 and will be launched in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Italy and the United States.
The camera is built into the front of the frame, while the arm is designed to be used as a directional speaker for listening to calls or streaming audio.
When using the camera, the white light on the front of the frame will light up. This is a privacy feature that reminds people that they might be photographed.
Users can take photos or video clips of up to 30 seconds by pressing the buttons on the temples or using voice commands, both of which can be used as reminders to turn on the camera.
Hind Hobeika, product manager of Facebook Reality Labs, said: “We need users to feel completely in control of their capture experience.”
“And, in the same way, we need people around us to feel comfortable with the presence of these smart glasses and always know when the shooting happens,” Hobeika added, referring to the shooting.
The glasses also have a physical switch to turn them off.
Users use their accounts on social networks to log in to the Facebook View app of the glasses.
The Ray-Ban Stories frame is wirelessly synchronized to the smartphone application, which is specially used to process the images or videos taken by the glasses.
Users can use the app to decide whether to share the pictures or videos they just took, for example to post to Facebook or attach them to emails.
Hobeika said that only the data needed to run the application is collected, and no information is used to target ads.
[ad_2]
Source link