Facebook Announcement Today: Ray-Ban Launches Smart Glasses in Partnership with Facebook

Source: Ray Ban

Did you ever try the Google Glasses? I did, and after a month of having fun with them they ended up in my drawer. By the time I wanted to use them again, they were not supported by Google anymore.

For a brief time in the early 2010s, Google Glass looked like the future of consumer electronics. Now, it's practically out of sight. What happened? The product, extremely quickly, went from very cool to very uncool.

But it didn't take long for a sizable backlash to emerge against Google Glass. First, observers began to realize that since Google Glass had a camera, users could film those around them without their consent, even in places like public bathrooms. Bars and restaurants, because of the filming and at least one public brawl, began banning users who were wearing the devices. The self-explanatory neologism "Glasshole" was soon coined.

Google Glass grew out of what was then known as Google X, which was Google's special products division. Consisting of a pair of eyeglasses supplemented by a head-up display, the product, more than one person stated at the time, made its users resemble the Borg from Star Trek.

However, Google isn't entirely finished with its Glass ambitions. In May 2019, the company released the second version of its Enterprise Edition model. ... As a result, while it's no longer commercially available as a retail product, Google Glass still does exist.

Facebook lives in your pocket, on the web, and, if you’ve bought the company’s Portal video-calling device, even in your kitchen. Now, it wants to find a home on your face.

The company has created its first “smart glasses”, with a pair of cameras to take photos and videos, a microphone and speaker to listen to podcasts, and a voice assistant to let you do the whole thing hands-free.

If the whole thing sounds, and looks, familiar, it’s because the concept bears a heavy resemblance to Snapchat’s Spectacles, now in their third generation. It’s not the first time Facebook has been heavily inspired by the younger company, and even the name of the glasses feels sure to rub salt into the wound: they’ve been named Stories, apparently in homage to the social media format invented by Snapchat founder, Evan Spiegel, and adopted to revolutionary effect by, first, Instagram, then countless other sites on the internet.

There’s one final wrinkle to the pitch: the glasses don’t actually come from Facebook at all. Instead, the company is working with Ray-Ban, on whose classic Wayfarer designs the hardware has been modeled, and the device will be branded as a Ray-Ban product first and foremost.

Andrew Bosworth, the Facebook executive who heads up Reality Labs, said the glasses were “designed to help people live in the moment and stay connected to the people they are with and the people they wish they were with. [Ray-Ban] has been nothing short of stellar in this partnership and through their commitment to excellence we were able to deliver on both style and substance in a way that will redefine the expectations of smart glasses.

“We’re introducing an entirely new way for people to stay connected to the world around them and truly be present in life’s most important moments, and to look good while doing it.”

Facebook said on their website "Today, we’re excited to launch Ray-Ban Stories: smart glasses that give you a new way to capture photos and video, share your adventures and listen to music or take phone calls — so you can stay present with friends, family and the world around you. Built-in partnership with Facebook and EssilorLuxottica, Ray-Ban Stories starts at $299 USD and will be available for purchase in 20 style combinations online and in select retail stores in the US, as well as Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy and the UK."

Would they have issues with privacy when using them in the public like Google and Snapchat had?

Would these type of Glasses ever become popular and affordable to everyone?

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Mili Ponce

Former Computer Engineer, Tech, EdTech and eCommerce Entrepreneur, Keynote Speaker on Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Social Media Strategist, eCommerce Business Mentor, Trainer, Writer, Blogger, Mother, Daughter, Dreamer.

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