Latest news with #Himel
Los Angeles Times
8 hours ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Meta launches $399 Oakley AI Glasses with 3K video recording
Meta Platforms Inc. is going up-market with its surprise hit smart glasses, rolling out new models with Oakley that are aimed at athletes and include improved video recording. The company on Friday launched new models based on Oakley's HSTN design, marking the company's first expansion away from Ray-Ban for its display-free glasses. Like the original models, the Oakley versions can make and take phone calls, play music, take pictures and video and use Meta's artificial intelligence to answer questions about the surrounding environment. The new versions, which start at $399 and go up to $499 for a limited edition model with gold-colored accents, include about double the battery life, video-recording at 3K resolution and water resistance. 'We are increasingly seeing performance use cases with the Ray-Bans like people wearing them on roller coasters, cycling and being around water, so we're trying to lean into that,' says Alex Himel, the company's vice president in charge of wearables, in an interview. Arriving at its second glasses brand was far from a sure thing. Meta's first glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories, flopped in 2021. But its follow-up version in 2023 was a massive success, giving the social networking giant a real potential hardware stronghold in the artificial intelligence race. 'It was crazy. Popularity caught us by surprise a bit,' Himel said. The Ray-Bans were 'going to be the last display-less pair of glasses. We said we'll take two swings at it, and if it doesn't work we'll go all-in on augmented reality.' Instead, beyond the latest Oakley model, the company has a multi-year road map for the display-less category and is planning a follow-up pair of Oakley glasses based on the Sphera design for later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That pair will be aimed at cyclists and have a centered camera. Friday's model has a camera positioned in the upper corner like the Ray-Ban version. The display-free glasses are one component of the overall Meta AI hardware strategy. The company is planning to introduce higher-end glasses with a display to view notifications and the camera view finder later this year, Bloomberg News has reported. In 2027, it aims to roll out its first true augmented reality glasses, which will blend digital apps with the real world. Meta's form-factor has caught on, with several other technology companies working on competitors. Apple Inc. is planning to introduce its first glasses product at the end of 2026, Bloomberg News has reported. That device will operate similarly to the Meta product but better synchronize with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Inc. also sells glasses, but their current models lack cameras. Himel, who said Meta has sold millions of glasses and has a 'nice, increasing multiple' of purchases on a year-over-year basis each week, attributed the increased popularity to the Ray-Bans improving across a large number of 'small things.' He said the audio quality and microphones started to surpass standalone earbuds, while the camera and AI quality also improved. Still, Himel said battery life remains the 'number one complaint' about the Ray-Ban versions. The new Oakley models can run for 8 hours on a single charge, with the charging case holding 48 hours of juice. 'You should expect a 40% bump with these' he says, attributing the improvement to new battery chemistry and software optimizations — not larger battery packs. Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is owned by EssilorLuxottica SA, which calls Oakley its second most popular brand after Ray-Ban. Himel said Meta will roll out new brands under the EssilorLuxottica portfolio 'as fast as we can. 'We're going to have to move very quickly because in the world of fashion, stuff moves very quickly,' he says. 'The stuff that is a hit right now might not be a year from now. We need to be fast to hit all the brands that we'd like to.' The first Oakley model, becoming available for pre-order on July 11, will be the $499 limited edition pair. The $399 versions — which come in grey, black, brown and clear colors — will be released in the coming months. There will be versions with clear, transition and polarized lenses. Like with the Ray-Bans, users can swap the lenses for prescription optics. The glasses will be available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, according to Meta. (Updated with availability of new smart glasses in several countries. A previous version corrected the name of Meta executive Alex Himel.) Gurman writes for Bloomberg.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Smart glasses will be future of computing, Meta executives say
The future of computing will revolve around smart glasses and headsets powered by AI and able to help users with everything they do throughout the day, Meta executives have suggested. Last year, Meta teased a new pair of augmented reality smart glasses named Orion, which it said it had been working on for around 10 years and which overlay digital icons and content on to a user's field of vision – technology normally only found in larger mixed reality headsets. Currently, the tech giant offers a range of virtual and mixed reality headsets in its Quest range, and has its Meta Ray-Ban glasses, which include a camera, microphones and speakers for content capture, audio playback and some voice control. Mark Rabkin and Alex Himel, two vice presidents at the tech giant who work on wearables and its virtual and mixed reality products, said the future of this technology, and indeed computing itself, could be these two product ranges coming together. Mr Rabkin is leaving the company this month. 'We're going at it from both ends,' Mr Rabkin told the PA news agency, in reference to the Quest virtual reality headset range, and the Meta glasses which currently are 'a device that's frankly a fashion item'. 'I think eventually, in some long number of years, these will meet in the middle, but we're really trying to cover the whole spectrum of devices to help people augment their life and improve their life in the best way possible, given what they need,' he said. Orion was Meta's proof that it could fit all the technology needed for true augmented reality capabilities into something as small as a pair of glasses for the first time. Now Mr Himel said artificial intelligence (AI) was becoming a key factor powering the future of what Orion and similar devices could do in years to come, including being able to take action on something simply by having the user look at it. 'The thing about AI right now is that it feels like something that is infinitely capable, but people often don't know where to start – it's an empty text box or a microphone you can say anything into and it's like, 'where do I start?',' he told PA. 'The announcements we had last year are really meant to take specific use cases and make them work great – for example you can look at a phone number and say, call it. 'AI is probably the thing I'm most excited about, it has the ability to open up a session with AI where you're constantly chatting back and forth and it's constantly aware of what you're looking at. 'I feel like the potential of AI is pretty huge and we're excited to really lean into it.' Highlighting the potential of such technology going forward, Mr Himel said relying on virtual versions of physical items such as televisions or picture frames could eventually become normal. 'I think with Orion, we also demonstrated that true augmented reality glasses are going to be available earlier than we had previously thought, I think we demonstrated that we were able to build a pair of glasses that have a large field of view – 70 degrees plus – in a glasses form factor, where you can render virtual content on top of the world that you're physically looking at,' he said. 'When we talk about augmented reality, we talk about looking at the physical world and seeing digital stuff on top of that, whether that's digital television instead of having to buy a real one, whether that's a virtual picture frame on your desk, and we showed that it was possible – which I think is a major milestone.' But on the ultimate aim of such devices, Mr Himel said Meta's overall aim remained focused on connectivity. 'I think fundamentally, we're trying to connect people, and in order to connect you with everyone who matters to you and all the interests you have, the devices need to be accessible broadly,' he said. 'If you go to use the device and you can't connect with one of the most important people to you, then I think we failed at the job. 'But for us, accessibility also means we believe we're building wearables which you need to like how they look on you. They need to be comfortable.' Last year saw a noticeable spike in tech giants focusing on mixed, virtual and augmented reality headsets, with Google announcing plans to build new devices in this category – confirming a headset built with Samsung is on the way – while Apple rolled out its Vision Pro 'spatial computing' headset in the UK for the first time. On a potential increase in competition, Mr Himel said: 'The more people enter the space, the most consumer choice – that's great. 'We all want more selection of things we can buy, but it should also decrease the cost and make it easier to manufacture these devices, which is good for everyone.'
