Facebook: 'We are building AR glasses'

It's happening.
By Sasha Lekach  on 
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Facebook: 'We are building AR glasses'
See a virtual world through AR glasses. Credit: oculus / screengrab

Augmented reality glasses from Facebook are actually happening. But we still don't know when you'll be able to wear a pair.

At the Oculus Connect 6 event Wednesday, the Facebook-owned company confirmed AR glasses are in the works, and showed how live mapping can blend the physical world with digital imaging.

The glasses were first mentioned in 2016, but later Facebook said they were five to 10 years off. Earlier this year Facebook laid out more details about how it would incorporate brain-reading in the future spectacles.

Based on the LiveMaps sneak peek, the AR glasses would also do more mundane things like project calendar events and reminders in front of you as you run out the door or show you detailed information about a bird you see while on a walk.

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In a blog post, Oculus shared more about the LiveMaps world where you could use the glasses and other devices for an augmented experience.

"Rather than reconstructing your surroundings in real time, these AR glasses will one day tap into existing 3D spaces that were previously saved to the cloud. That means drastically reduced compute power, so that this tech can run on a mobile chipset. With these 3D spaces, your avatar could teleport anywhere in the world, giving you the ability to stay connected to the people in your life while you’re on the go.," the blog states.

It's still in the research stage, so this is more ideas and concepts that could eventually exist in some way.

The research behind LiveMaps is part of a plan to "build the core infrastructure that will underpin tomorrow’s AR experiences."

UPDATE: Sept. 25, 2019, 5:39 p.m. PDT Updated to include more details from Oculus' blog post about LiveMaps and AR.

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Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.


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