Close Menu
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI
  • Apps
  • Crypto
  • Security
  • Startups
  • TechCrunch
  • Venture

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

What's Hot

The court denied requests to suspend awards regarding Apple's App Store payment fees

June 6, 2025

Circle IPOs are giving hope to more startups waiting to be published to more startups

June 5, 2025

Perplexity received 780 million questions last month, the CEO says

June 5, 2025
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI

    OpenAI seeks to extend human lifespans with the help of longevity startups

    January 17, 2025

    Farewell to the $200 million woolly mammoth and TikTok

    January 17, 2025

    Nord Security founder launches Nexos.ai to help enterprises move AI projects from pilot to production

    January 17, 2025

    Data proves it remains difficult for startups to raise capital, even though VCs invested $75 billion in the fourth quarter

    January 16, 2025

    Apple suspends AI notification summaries for news after generating false alerts

    January 16, 2025
  • Apps

    The court denied requests to suspend awards regarding Apple's App Store payment fees

    June 6, 2025

    Perplexity received 780 million questions last month, the CEO says

    June 5, 2025

    Bonfire's new software allows users to build their own social communities free from platform control

    June 5, 2025

    x Test to highlight posts that users with dissent

    June 5, 2025

    Google says the updated Gemini 2.5 Pro AI model is excellent at coding

    June 5, 2025
  • Crypto

    Circle IPOs are giving hope to more startups waiting to be published to more startups

    June 5, 2025

    GameStop bought $500 million in Bitcoin

    May 28, 2025

    Vote for the session you want to watch in 2025

    May 26, 2025

    Save $900 + 90% from 2 tickets to destroy 2025 in the last 24 hours

    May 25, 2025

    Only 3 days left to save up to $900 to destroy the 2025 pass

    May 23, 2025
  • Security

    Humanity unveils custom AI models for US national security customers

    June 5, 2025

    Unlock phone company Cellebrite to acquire mobile testing startup Corellium for $170 million

    June 5, 2025

    Ransomware Gangs claim responsibility for Kettering Health Hack

    June 4, 2025

    Former CTO of CrowdStrike's cyber-rivals and how automation can undermine security for early-stage startups

    June 4, 2025

    Data breaches at newspaper giant Lee Enterprises impact 40,000 people

    June 4, 2025
  • Startups

    7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

    March 24, 2025

    AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

    March 24, 2025

    20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

    March 22, 2025

    Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

    March 21, 2025

    Startup Weekly: Wiz bets paid off at M&A Rich Week

    March 21, 2025
  • TechCrunch

    OpenSea takes a long-term view with a focus on UX despite NFT sales remaining low

    February 8, 2024

    AI will save software companies' growth dreams

    February 8, 2024

    B2B and B2C are not about who buys, but how you sell

    February 5, 2024

    It's time for venture capital to break away from fast fashion

    February 3, 2024

    a16z's Chris Dixon believes it's time to focus on blockchain use cases rather than speculation

    February 2, 2024
  • Venture

    Less than 48 hours left until display at TC at all stages

    June 5, 2025

    TC Session: AI will be on sale today at Berkeley

    June 5, 2025

    North America accounts for the majority of AI VC investment despite the harsh political environment

    June 5, 2025

    3 days left: Charge all your locations in stages on TC Expo Floor

    June 4, 2025

    From $5 to Financial Empowerment: Why Stash co-founder Brandon Krieg is a must-see for TechCrunch All Stage 2025

    June 4, 2025
TechBrunchTechBrunch

Meta can be glimpsed through Orion, the alleged iPhone killer

TechBrunchBy TechBrunchSeptember 28, 20247 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Telegram LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Telegram Email


For years, Silicon Valley and Wall Street have questioned Mark Zuckerberg's decision to invest tens of billions of dollars in Reality Labs. This week, Meta's wearables division unveiled a prototype of its Orion smart glasses. This is a form factor that the company believes could one day replace the iPhone. The idea seems crazy…but maybe a little less crazy than it was a week ago.

Orion is a prototype headset that combines augmented reality, eye and hand tracking, generative AI, and a gesture-detecting wristband. Through its micro-LED projector and silicon carbide lenses (which are very expensive), Meta appears to have broken through a long-standing AR display challenge. The idea is that while you can see through Orion like glasses, you can also see application windows projected onto the lenses, which appear to be embedded in the world around you. Ideally, you will be able to navigate your environment using your hands, eyes, and voice.

MetaorionOrion smart glasses require a wristband and wireless computing pack to function. (Meta) Image credit: Meta

Obviously, Meta's Orion smart glasses are thicker than your average reader, are said to cost $10,000 each, and won't be sold anytime soon. This is a few years from now. All of Orion's technology is relatively new, and all of it needs to be cheaper, better, and smaller before it can make its way into smart glasses you can buy at the mall. Zuckerberg said the company has been working on Orion for 10 years, but has yet to find a path to a marketable product.

But Meta isn't the only company trying to offer users an alternative to smartphones.

This month, Snap announced its latest generation of Spectacles smart glasses. It is larger than Orion and has a more limited field of view. One former Snap engineer called the latest Spectacles “obviously bad,” but you can actually order them. Google hinted at its I/O conference in May that it too is working on smart glasses, likely an improvement on the failed Google Glass experiment of the past decade. Apple is reportedly working on AR glasses that are very similar to Orion. And we can't rule out the possibility of Jony Ive's new startup, LoveFrom. He recently confirmed that he's working on an AI wearable using OpenAI (though he's not sure if it's glasses, pins, or something else entirely).

There's a race among Big Tech's wealthiest companies to develop sophisticated smart glasses that can do everything a smartphone can do, and hopefully more. Meta's prototype revealed two things. There's something there, but we're not there yet.

These devices are very different from the Quest virtual reality headsets and Apple's Vision Pro, which Meta has been pushing for years. There are many similar technologies, such as eye tracking and hand tracking, but the experience is completely different. VR headsets are bulky, uncomfortable to wear, and staring at the display can make you feel nauseous. Sunglasses and eyeglasses, on the other hand, are relatively comfortable to wear and are used by millions of Americans every day.

To Zuckerberg's credit, he's been pushing the eyewear form factor for quite some time, but it certainly wasn't common at the time. Meta's CEO has long been reported to hate having to access his company's popular social media apps via Apple phones (perhaps this is what led to the ill-fated Facebook Phone). . Now, Meta's competitors are also making serious inroads into eyewear computing.

Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO and head of Reality Labs, wears clear Orion smart glasses. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Meta's initial investment here seems to be paying off. Zuckerberg's Orion keynote presentation on Wednesday is one we won't soon forget. The room full of skeptical journalists was filled with electricity and excitement. TechCrunch hasn't demoed Orion yet, but initial reviews have been very positive.

Meta's current offering is Ray-Ban Meta. It's a pair of glasses with a camera, microphone, speakers, sensors, on-device LLM, and the ability to connect to your phone and the cloud. The Ray-Ban Meta is much simpler than the Orion, but at a relatively affordable price of $299, it's actually not that different from a regular Ray-Ban. Although similar to the Spectacles 3 that Snap released a few years ago, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses seem to be more popular.

Despite the huge difference in price and features, Orion and Ray-Ban Meta are more related than you might think.

“Orion is the future, and we are ultimately aiming for a fully holographic experience. Consider Ray-Ban Meta as the first step in that journey,” said Meta's Vice President of Products. Li-Chen Miller, who leads the wearables team at , said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We need to really establish the fundamentals: it’s comfortable, people want to wear it, people find value in it every day.”

One of the things Meta is trying to achieve with Ray-Ban Meta is AI. Currently, smart glasses use Meta's Llama model to answer questions about what's in front of them by taking photos and running the images through an AI system in response to the user's verbal requests. The current AI capabilities of Ray-Ban Meta are far from perfect. The lag is worse than OpenAI's natural-feeling Advanced Voice mode. Meta AI requires very specific prompts to work properly. It sees hallucinations. It's also not tightly integrated with many apps, making it less convenient than simply picking up your iPhone (probably by Apple's design). However, an upcoming update to Meta later this year seeks to address these issues.

Lichen Miller, VP of Product during MetaConnect 2023 (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Meta has announced that it will soon release live AI video processing for Ray-Ban. This means the smart glasses stream live video and verbal requests to one of Llama's multimodal AI models, which generate verbal responses in real time based on that input. Basic features like reminders and app integration have also been improved. If it works, the whole experience should be much smoother. Miller says these improvements will be reflected in Orion, which runs on the same generative AI system.

“Sometimes one form factor makes more sense than another, but we're certainly cross-pollinating,” Miller says.

Similarly, she says some of Orion's features may be narrowed down as her team focuses on making AR glasses more affordable. Orion's various sensors and eye trackers are not cheap technology. The problem is that Orion needs to get better and more economical.

Another challenge is typing. Smartphones have keyboards, but smart glasses do not. Before joining Meta, Miller spent nearly 20 years developing keyboards at Microsoft, and she says Orion's lack of a keyboard is “freeing.” She claims that using smart glasses is a more natural experience than using a phone. You can navigate Orion just by talking, gesturing with your hands, and looking at things. All things that come naturally to most people.

Another device that was criticized for not having a keyboard was, ironically, the iPhone. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer infamously mocked the iPhone in 2007, saying its lack of a physical keyboard made it unappealing to business customers. But people adapted, and more than 15 years later his comments still sound naive.

I think making Orion feel natural is more of a goal than a reality at this point. In its hands-on review, The Verge noted that at times the windows filled the entire lens of the glasses, completely blocking the user's view of the world around them. That is far from natural. To get there, Meta will need to improve its AI, typing, AR, and a long list of other features.

“With Ray-Ban Meta, we really narrowed it down to a few things, and it worked out really well,” Miller said. “On the other hand, if you want to build a new futuristic computing platform, [with Orion]we have to do a lot of things, and we have to do them all well. ”



Source link

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

OpenAI seeks to extend human lifespans with the help of longevity startups

January 17, 2025

Farewell to the $200 million woolly mammoth and TikTok

January 17, 2025

Nord Security founder launches Nexos.ai to help enterprises move AI projects from pilot to production

January 17, 2025

Data proves it remains difficult for startups to raise capital, even though VCs invested $75 billion in the fourth quarter

January 16, 2025

Apple suspends AI notification summaries for news after generating false alerts

January 16, 2025

Nvidia releases more tools and guardrails to help enterprises adopt AI agents

January 16, 2025

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Top Reviews
Editors Picks

7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

March 24, 2025

AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

March 24, 2025

20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

March 22, 2025

Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

March 21, 2025
About Us
About Us

Welcome to Tech Brunch, your go-to destination for cutting-edge insights, news, and analysis in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cryptocurrency, Technology, and Startups. At Tech Brunch, we are passionate about exploring the latest trends, innovations, and developments shaping the future of these dynamic industries.

Our Picks

The court denied requests to suspend awards regarding Apple's App Store payment fees

June 6, 2025

Circle IPOs are giving hope to more startups waiting to be published to more startups

June 5, 2025

Perplexity received 780 million questions last month, the CEO says

June 5, 2025

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

© 2025 TechBrunch. Designed by TechBrunch.
  • Home
  • About Tech Brunch
  • Advertise with Tech Brunch
  • Contact us
  • DMCA Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.