14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is working on a cool pair of augmented reality glasses, much like the rest of the tech world, but don't start planning on buying them just yet.
During Facebook's F8 conference, the company revealed its vision for the future; one where you won't be tied to your smartphone, but you'll still be connected to the digital world.
The AR glasses Facebook dreams about overlay digital graphics on top of what you already see in front of you. Kind of like what Google did, but in a much classier way, since that project tanked for the Mountain View giant.
The glasses, the company said, would show you a person's name above their head when meeting with them. This, while creepy on the one hand due to the use of the facial recognition software, is cool on the other hand because most of us have a problem remembering names.
The glasses could also be used for other things, like telling you if your child is running a fever, or giving you access to your workspace when on a flight, muting background noise when talking to a person and so on. It sounds extremely far-fetched and out of a sci-fi movie, but Facebook strongly believes it can make everything happen.
Glasses are coming, just not right now
The company's CTO Mike Schroepfer confirmed the company was actively working on these AR specs, but didn't expand beyond saying that they were an extension of the world they're doing on VR.
Michael Abrash, chief scientist of Facebook's Oculus, however, is trying to tame down the excitement, admitting that full AR is at least five years away. "We put this pretty deep in the 'R' part of R&D. We're building core technologies at every part of the path," he added.
This is an extremely cool project, and if it ever hits the shelves, it will clearly be a game changer. Maybe in the next five years the market will be ready for AR specs, not like when Google presented its own Glass specs.