META is partnering with Ray Ban to make VR glasses to be worn constantly to replace smartphones and smartwatches

This is Meta’s AR / VR hardware roadmap for the next four years – The Verge

” The key difference from VR is that the company intends for AR glasses to eventually be worn throughout the day as a replacement for smartphones. Zuckerberg has called them the “holy grail” device that will “redefine our relationship with technology” by the end of this decade.” (Because smartphone addiction isn’t enough of a problem as it is.)

“The first launch will come this fall with the second generation of Meta’s camera-equipped smart glasses it released in 2021 with Luxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban.” (Say goodbye to laws prohibiting filming of another person without their knowledge or consent.)

“Meta’s first true pair of AR glasses, which the company has been internally developing for 8 years under the codename Orion, are more technically advanced, expensive, are designed to project high-quality holograms of avatars onto the real world.” (After long enough of this, deepfakes, etc, people are going to be even more divorced from reality than ever before.)

But these holograms are there to help cure loneliness

…not to encourage it, really. 

“We should be able to run a very good ads business,” he said. “I think it’s easy to imagine how ads would show up in space when you have AR glasses on. Our ability to track conversions, which is where there has been a lot of focus as a company, should also be close to 100 percent.” (They are going to mine your neurological responses to determine what ads to target you with, and you may not even realize it’s happening. There are ads designed to appear as “scientific” discoveries dressed up as news articles now – it’s especially used in purported health-related materials. Once you’re immersed in VR, a seemingly innocuous conversation from someone nearby could, in fact, be a targeted ad designed to appear as background noise. This presentation means your guard is down, so you’re all the more susceptible. Now, change “advertisement” to “propaganda” and see how much greater power this gives them to manipulate. You won’t even know whether the conversation is by other users or by AI, so they can skew perceptions of what appear to be common beliefs to sway you.)

For those who want the more immersive/gaming experience, there will be several new headsets of varying mixed – to – fully immersive capabilities

but don’t worry, they’re going to make sure you can wear these throughout the course of your normal day, too:

“there will be a new “smart guardian” to help wearers navigate the real world while they are wearing the device. “The main north star for the team was from the moment you put on this headset, the mixed reality has to make it feel better, easier, more natural,” he said. “You can walk effortlessly through your house knowing you can see perfectly well. You can put anchors and things on your desktop. You can take your coffee. You can stay in there much longer.”

Facebook, now Meta, showed an impressive demo of its Codec Avatars – The Verge – shows the realism they’re already capable of.

The article closes by the company’s VP for AR musing about how successful the marketing will be. If they intend these to replace cell phones, which seems to be only the start – ““We want to make it higher resolution for work use and really nail work, text and things like that” –  that seems a no brainer, as they will just need to phase out the old tech same as they do now, and if you want to stay connected, you won’t have a choice. 

So, own nothing, eat bugs, 15min smart cities, tiny apartments with all the people interacting with nonpeople inside their own VR bubbles…the future’s so bright, you’ve gotta wear shades.