Smart glasses offer the rare opportunity for a computer to be at eye and ear level and be embedded into an accessory a majority of folks already wear. The problem is, much like Private Eye, the very first wearable computer, companies are still struggling to figure out how to make smart glasses look cool while also making them of use to us. In this video Becca takes a look at the history of smart glasses in order to figure out what might be coming next.
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00:00 In the August 1990 issue of Popular Mechanics, past the article on juiced-up roads to power
00:05 electric cars, you'll find "A New Way to See" on page 48.
00:09 This was the $795 Private Eye, one of the world's first wearable computers.
00:14 Once tethered to a computer, its display shot light through a magnifying lens into a small,
00:19 stabilized mirror that provided a 720x280 red and black screen in front of a user's
00:25 eye.
00:26 As the article states, "Sometimes a company develops something so nifty that it takes
00:30 a while before anyone figures out how to use it effectively."
00:34 And that sentence, written in 1999, would continue to be true about smart glasses for
00:39 nearly 30 years after it was written.
00:42 There were companies like Cybernaut with the mobile assistant in 1995.
00:45 That had an entire IBM-compatible computer that sat on your waist, followed up by the
00:50 MA5 in 2001.
00:52 Then there was the Microvision Nomad in 2004, the Vuvix RAP1200 in 2010, and Epson's Moverio
00:58 BT100 in 2011, to name a few more.
01:02 But in 2012, when Google Glass was announced, it felt like smart glasses might actually
01:06 become a viable product.
01:08 I had just moved to New York City at the time of Google Glass' launch, and I remember
01:12 actually seeing people on the street wearing them.
01:14 It was mind-blowing at the time.
01:16 And with their launch came a flurry of more capable, more polished smart glasses as well.
01:22 There was Magic Leap and Microsoft, who were revolutionizing AR.
01:25 There were companies like Oakley embedding real-time fitness coaching into sporty frames.
01:30 Snapchat brought cameras to your temples with spectacles.
01:33 And there was even a hint that Apple was going to get into the game when it released its
01:36 own AR toolkit.
01:37 Not to mention Tim Cook's continual talk about the technology.
01:40 I think AR is one of these very few profound technologies.
01:45 I'm super excited about augmented reality.
01:48 I'm excited about AR.
01:50 There's virtual reality and there's augmented reality.
01:53 Both of these are incredibly interesting.
01:56 But my own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far.
02:03 But what quickly became clear from these next attempts at smart glasses is that the experience
02:07 they were giving us wasn't more useful or any better than the experience we were having
02:12 with our phones.
02:13 Until...
02:14 Hey everyone.
02:15 We've believed for a long time that glasses are going to be an important part of building
02:19 the next computing platform and unlocking a whole new set of experiences for people.
02:23 That video is from 2021, at the launch of the MetaRayBan Stories.
02:27 And it wouldn't be until this second generation that these smart glasses actually gained a
02:31 following.
02:32 These are the MetaRayBan Smart Glasses, small name change, and they have one very important
02:37 feature.
02:38 A very crisp POV camera that I have heard best described as a GoPro for influencers.
02:45 It's this camera that made these glasses so popular.
02:49 You see, like every tech reviewer I know fell in love with these glasses, including myself.
02:53 But what has kept them in love with the glasses, because there's so many smart glasses that
02:58 also have decent cameras, speakers, mics, is the fact that these glasses kept getting
03:02 smarter.
03:03 Hey Meta, what am I looking at?
03:05 Through firmware updates, Meta's AI assistant can now describe a scene in front of a user
03:09 by taking a photo and then analyzing it.
03:12 You are looking at a snow covered landscape with trees and what appears to be a building
03:16 or houses in the distance.
03:18 What am I holding?
03:19 Sadly, though, the assistant cannot yet read or interpret physical objects, so the magic
03:23 fades quickly.
03:24 You are holding a smartphone, specifically the most popular brand in the US this month
03:29 with a 34.6% market share.
03:32 But Meta is promising that this tech is going to evolve and be able to do more complex tasks.
03:38 It's this slow trickle out of tech that has both kept folks talking about these glasses,
03:43 but also getting them more used to using a pair of smart glasses.
03:48 Kind of think of them as like training wheels for something bigger and better and more capable.
03:52 And they represent a different type of computing, one that Google references a lot.
03:57 With ambient computing as our North Star.
03:59 Most notably at Google I/O 2022.
04:02 And ambient computing.
04:03 New ambient experiences.
04:05 Building on our ambient computing vision.
04:07 Back in 1991, Mark Weiser, who was CTO at the prolific research center Xerox PARC, wrote
04:13 that the most profound technologies are those that disappear.
04:17 They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from
04:21 it.
04:22 He called this idea ubiquitous computing, or what is more commonly known as ambient computing.
04:27 He thought that our tech should eventually blend seamlessly into our natural environment,
04:30 so that we don't see it, we aren't sucked into it, but we can still utilize it and gather
04:34 information from it without losing touch of each other and the physical world.
04:39 The theory of ambient computing is so beautiful and smart glasses are kind of a perfect pair
04:45 of hardware to make it happen.
04:46 If you need to make a call, you already have a pair of headphones by your ears.
04:50 If you have to ask a question, there's mics waiting for you on your nose bridge.
04:55 And the promise of AR is that when you need a screen, it can be right in front of you
04:58 to see notifications or translation.
05:01 It's right there when you need it and gone when you don't.
05:04 The problem is, much like Private Eye, companies are still trying to figure out how to make
05:08 AI or tech that they can fit into glasses useful and also make the glasses themselves
05:15 nifty enough that you'd want to wear them.
05:17 So here's where we are now.
05:20 The smart glasses that look the most normal are still typically focused on getting one
05:24 feature right.
05:25 There are wearable displays like X-Reals Air 2 Pro, wearable cameras like Snap Spectacle
05:30 3, or wearable smart speakers like that Echo Frames.
05:33 A step further from those are the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses that are able to bundle a few
05:38 of those features together.
05:40 It's a rare device that is somewhat useful and visually appealing.
05:44 And beyond that are AR glasses, but the most compelling devices we have seen in that space
05:48 are still reserved for developers or enterprise customers, like Magic Leap 2, Snap's AR
05:54 Spectacles, or X-Reals Air 2 Ultras.
05:57 Although recently Brilliant Labs launched Frame, which are open-source AR glasses with
06:01 an integrated AI assistant in a package that looks sleek and compact.
06:05 Those will be available April 2024, so make sure you stay tuned for when we get our hands
06:09 on those.
06:10 Of course, there are many XR headsets like the Apple Vision Pro or MetaQuest 3 that pack
06:15 really impressive spatial computing abilities into a pair of goggles, but those are nowhere
06:19 near looking like glasses.
06:21 And they're certainly not ambient.
06:23 And then there's of course what's to come.
06:25 Google showed off a real-time translating pair of smart glasses at I/O last year.
06:30 Oppo has teased the Air Glass 3 that will integrate an AI voice assistant like Meta's
06:35 into glasses with a heads-up color display.
06:38 Apple hasn't demoed anything, but is reportedly now exploring the idea of smart glasses.
06:43 And then there is Meta, who is the loudest about their investment in making smart glasses
06:47 a reality.
06:48 There have been two rumored pair of AR glasses dubbed "Project Azzuray" and "Hypernova"
06:53 and a third generation of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses that will reportedly have a small
06:57 viewfinder for notifications or translating text.
07:01 It may also include hand-tracking technology.
07:03 We're expected to see that in the next few years.
07:06 Smart glasses will be a part of our more ambient future.
07:09 So one question remains.
07:11 What company can convince the masses that its microphone, its speakers, its AI systems
07:17 can be trusted with all of the data we see and hear every day?
07:21 I mean, think about a computing system, like the most intelligent computing system that
07:26 we've ever had, sitting on the bridge of your nose.
07:30 That opens up a treasure trove of privacy concerns.
07:33 So ultimately, the winner of the smart glasses race is likely to be the company that we all
07:39 trust the most.
07:40 I want to give a shout out to Popular Mechanics and The Private Eye.
07:44 Truly, this video got jump-started when I found that August 1990 issue.
07:50 What an incredible publication.
07:52 I miss it so much, but I also hear that they're doing great things on YouTube these days.
07:57 So go check that out for sure.
07:58 Anyway, bud, I appreciate you.
08:02 Let me know what you thought of this down below.
08:04 And of course, I'll see you in the next one.