In an apparent effort to get tanned meatheads excited about products that were invented by a bunch of pasty-faced nerds, Meta is teaming up with sporty sunglasses firm Oakley to make a new breed of smart glasses.
Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the two companies had teamed up on a smart glasses partnership. The glasses will be marketed to athletes, according to the report. Citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” the news outlet lays out some of the ways in which Meta plans to diversify its smart glasses product base in the coming years:
…First, the company is planning to introduce its current Ray-Ban glasses to new markets. Second, Meta is broadening its smart glasses technology to other fashion brands owned by partner Luxottica Group SA. That includes a new version — dubbed “Supernova 2” — that is based on Oakley’s Sphaera glasses. This model, which shifts the camera to the center of the glasses frame, will be aimed at cyclists and other athletes.
What could help you ride a bike better than a pair of sunglasses that take pictures and field phone calls? While details about how such glasses would actually function are currently slim, the whole idea seems somewhat ridiculous. Bloomberg notes that though Meta’s glasses don’t currently provide a true AR experience, this is something that the company is working overtime to achieve. A newer model is currently being developed that will “include a display on the bottom portion of the right lens that projects information into a user’s field of view,” Bloomberg writes. Users will be able to “run simple software apps, view notifications, and see photos taken by the device,” it adds. Right, because that’ll really help you ride a bike.
God knows why Zuck wants to make these things happen so badly but clearly it is the way of the future. Meta has already had a reasonable amount of success in the smart glasses market via its partnership with Ray-Ban. Now, as it seeks to expand its audience, it makes sense that the company is trying to reach different segments of the public. I guess as long he’s sucking up to Trump, he probably thinks he should suck up to Trump’s base too (which is to say, cops).
Bloomberg notes that Meta’s push into the smart glasses market may also be a way for the company to find useful applications for the other product line it has spent years developing: metaverse stuff and its virtual reality software, which it has spent metric fucktons of money developing. Since full-blown goggles and headsets haven’t worked out so well, the next best thing is to convert everybody’s sunnies into little metaverse conduits.