In a week where gadget enthusiasts around the world are captivated by the Vision Pro, a young and brave startup is trying to carve out a space for augmented reality devices that feature a completely different form factor than Apple's devices. is.
Today, Singapore-based Brilliant Labs announced Frame, a new line of lightweight AR glasses powered by a multimodal AI assistant called Noa. The glasses caught the attention and investment of his CEO, John Hanke, of Niantic, the augmented reality platform that powers games like Pokémon GO. Brilliant Labs declined to disclose the amount of funding it received from Hanke.
In a video demo seen by TechCrunch, one of Brilliant Labs' founders asked Noa to introduce himself via audio. After about 3 seconds, the agent generated an answer in text and projected it onto the lens.
In addition to voice commands, Noa is capable of visual processing, image generation, and translation thanks to several integrated AI models. Stability AI text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. OpenAI's latest text generation model GPT4. and the voice recognition system Whisper. Frame's lens has a resolution of 640 x 400 and can display videos and photos.
With these features, mall shoppers can ask Noa to check the online price of the shoes they're looking for, for example through Frame.
“The future of human-AI interaction will be enabled by innovative wearables and new devices,” said Perplexity CEO and CEO, “We are excited to bring Perplexity's real-time response engine to Brilliant Labs' Frame.” says founder Aravind Srinivas. said in a statement.
The question is whether Frame is responsive enough for the AI-generated responses to be useful. Brilliant Labs' Bluetooth-enabled devices currently utilize smartphones to access various AI models. But the founders eventually want to do away with the phone host and embed a lightweight machine learning model directly into the glasses.
Co-founder of Brilliant Labs. Image credits: brilliant lab
Frame came after Brilliant Labs' debut product, Monocle. Monocle is a single-lens AR device that has attracted a loyal following in the open source hardware community thanks to its programmability and affordability. A group of students at Stanford University once turned the device into a dating assistant that suggests what to say to a date in real time.
Frame, like its predecessor, remains open source. This means developers will have access to resources such as living documentation, open source codebases, and hardware schematics. You can also adjust the parameters of AI models supported by Noa.
Unlike the bulky Vision Pro, the Frame is meant to be worn every day and comes with prescription lenses. Weighing 39 grams and featuring thick round frames made of nylon plastic, the glasses are said to be “inspired by the groundbreaking innovations and ideas introduced by historical figures such as John Lennon, Steve Jobs, and Gandhi. It is said to be an homage to.
The frame is available for pre-order starting today and will retail for $349, the same price as the monocle. These devices will begin shipping in April.
Since its founding in 2019, Brilliant Labs has successfully attracted high-profile angel investors. In June we reported a $3 million investment from Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe. Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri. Eric Migicovsky, founder of Pebble and former partner at Y Combinator. others. The new capital injection from Hanke brings the company's total funding to $6 million.