Meta Prototype’s ‘Fully Holographic’ Glasses Could Be A Game Changer For Web 3
Meta Mark Zuckerberg Smart Glasses Holographic displays are slowly replacing the cell phone as humanity's primary communication and computing device.
In a recent interview with YouTuber Ken “Calloway” Sutter, the billionaire tech mogul opened up on a variety of topics, including artificial intelligence and open source. However, when asked by host Calloway what Meta's most exciting future product is, Zuckerberg gave full support for a set of glasses — the kind you wear on your face — that feature cameras, microphones, speakers, and full field-of-view functions. View (FOV) holographic display.
Beyond the Ray-Ban Meta
Researchers in both the advertising world and in tech have had a ringing day behind Meta and Zuckerberg, the company named for “Meta,” Facebook's social media platform, because of its origins in Facebook. That's… working on the metaverse.
But Zuckerberg is bullish on the idea that smartphones are the beginning of the end and that smart glasses will be the next big thing. Wearable holographic displays won't completely replace smartphones, Calloway explained, just as the smartphone won't completely replace a desktop or laptop computer.
However, with the right hardware and software, Zuckerberg believes that smart glasses will be useful for more people to keep their phones in their pockets more often.
Related: More than half of the Fortune 100 use Apple's Vision Pro headset
But first, the company needs to improve its technology. According to Zuckerberg, Meta has three different products in mind. First, a “display-less” eyewear product featuring voice AI (this is already present in the Ray-Ban Meta), second a “small head display” without full holography, and finally a “premium version” holographic display with a full field of view.
With a display-less product, the Meta hopes to bridge the gap between the Ray-Ban Meta and mass-market headsets better suited to virtual reality (VR) than augmented/mixed reality (A/MR).
According to Zuckerberg, the glasses, which feature a full FOV holographic display, will allow for seamless real-time communications, data overlays, a heads-up display similar to what you'd find in a video game or military operator's gear, and more. And they're not much more than regular glasses — “they're anonymous glasses, not headphones,” he insists.
Zuckerberg discussed why people want to access information through a lens instead of just looking at our smartphones when we need it.
The way he and Calloway describe things, it has the effect of constantly checking our smartphones for information relevant to our current situation. Or, as Callaway puts it, it's a habit that “breaks your presence.”
Neurosurgery without surgery
Another interesting use case for smart glasses is as a neural interface main display. The most popular big tech neural interface right now might be Elon Musk's Neuralink, but this has the disadvantage of requiring an invasive procedure to install.
As Zuckerberg puts it:
“I think a lot of people don't want something stuck in their brain.”
Meta is currently working on a nervous wrist. This is a wearable device that measures and interprets neural signals, measuring signals directly from a brain computer interface.
Ostensibly, a meta-neural wrist strap would enable the translation of otherwise inaccessible physical movements, such as finger movements, into digital communications. Combined with Meta Prototype's full FOV holographic displays, this can transform the real world into a limitless Web3 workspace and playground.
When we started seeing these products, Zuckerberg told Calloway that Meta was taking its time to get things right, but early feedback was very positive:
“We are ready to demonstrate the prototype version of the full holographic glasses. We do not sell widely. Instead of selling the prototype, we focus on building the full consumer version. But we start showing people the prototype, and that's wild. To everyone I've ever shown it to… their reaction is, it's… silly.
