Augmented Reality Glasses, Facebook has some plans?
Facebook and Oculus, Augmented Reality Glasses and more
We know all about Facebook and its acquisition of Oculus, a company which had huge investments in virtual reality programs, now Facebook wants to enhance these innovations. The world’s largest social media platform has announced it will be working and developing augmented reality glasses.
It is an interesting concept for the social media giant to get to grips with such an idea; particularly as it is still reeling from the privacy issues and security breaches that dogged Facebook in early 2018.
Facebook Portal, a device being marketed by the company, has received a rather frosty reception in technical review journals. The tardy record this company has with privacy and security issues, must frighten potential customers away.
After all, who wants a pair of augmented reality Facebook glasses that will advertise your whereabouts in the room, house or public place where you are? It needs to deal with its trust issues before it can alter its reputation.
However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not one to listen to criticism if it gets in the way of a great new idea. Rather than shelve plans to bring out AR glasses, it intends to win the battle of the hearts and minds of its huge customer database.
The thing is: Facebook knows bad memories don’t last too long when it comes to technology. Remember how we all eventually forgave Microsoft for bringing one dodgy operating system after another? XP, ME, 200 and Windows 7 were not fit for purpose at the best of times. But when they do eventually get it right (as we have seen with Windows 10) we can all accept and move on.
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Facebook has wanted to make these Augmented reality glasses for a long time now. It has been anticipated that the glasses would appear just like a normal pair of spectacles you’d buy in a store within 10 years from now.
So why would Augmented Reality Glasses, from Facebook be any different? Think about how Facebook works today: you take an image or video with your smartphone, then post the file to your wall or a friend.
The Augmented reality glasses will allow you to see everything layered with information within the visuals of the glasses. So, I could be looking down a street and see a link to a pub/ coffee shop/ restaurant which would move around as the field of vision alters.
You can then snap your fingers to take an image which will fire off your post to your Facebook wall or friends’ feeds. But the vision for Facebook to get to this point is at somewhere around 2029.
So, why are we going to have to wait so long? At present, the technology is just not there for Facebook to launch and market a pair of AR glasses that will be fit for purpose.
It wants to avoid the failure of Google Glass, and a technology that really was rushed out too quickly, before it had been developed as workable. This is the sole reason why this pair of AR eyewear is going to take its time to get out there on the market.