On July 19, 2022, Google announced tests for new smart glasses with augmented reality technology. Inevitably, the question that has been popping up in the tech industry since 2013, when Google released its first smart glasses, is back: will smart glasses replace smartphones?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes smart glasses will replace smartphones by 2030. Microsoft Hololens inventor Alex Kipman agrees, saying Bloomberg that “smartphones are dead”, but people don’t know it yet. Even the major smartphone makers agree that something big is inevitably coming.
Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that 6G will be a reality by 2030, but users will not connect with their smartphones, they will connect with smart glasses. CNBC informed.
Glasses such as Toshiba’s dynaEdge, Magic Leap One, Microsoft’s Hololens, and Google’s Enterprise Glass Edition have all sold and work well, but are primarily aimed at the industrial and commercial sector. They are used in smart factories, to train technical workers, conduct inspections, run digital twins, and even use NASA astronauts.
On the other hand, smart glasses aimed at the mass consumer audience are slowly gaining ground. Glasses like Lenovo ThinkReality A3, Amazon Echo Frames, Bose Frames, Snap Spectacles 3, Nreal Air glasses and Oculus Quest 2, produced by Meta, are promoted as the gateway to the Metaverse. However, there are several technical and legal reasons why consumers have not fully embraced smart glasses.
Smart Glasses: Technical and Legal Challenges
Mounting a fully operational microcomputer on a pair of glasses is a journey fraught with technical challenges. The processor chip and hardware must be smaller than those found inside a smartphone, yet stable and powerful enough to provide the data-intensive augmented reality features that even smartphones don’t offer.
In addition, the size and duration of the battery, control options, connectivity, sound, video and especially micro-displays, prove to be the main barriers that stop the technology from taking off.
On the other hand, smart glasses for personal use have sparked controversy due to the tracking of personal data and the abuse of individual privacy rights by recording videos, taking photos or taking audio and other data without consent.
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In September 2021, the Italian and Irish privacy watchdogs DPC and Garante pointed out Meta’s Rayban smart glasses. The CPD and the The Italian data protection regulator demanded Goal to demonstrate how smart glasses notify other people when they capture audio and video.
Amazon, Google, Meta and even Apple have historically faced lawsuits over privacy and data management. Legal processes in Europe have the power to pause or modify new products or services. Tech companies can even be ordered to cancel the product launch in the region.
Data and privacy policies continue to be in high demand by global consumers and various regulations are in place to ensure them. Companies developing smart glasses must meet the requirements set by laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an important European data protection and privacy law. And in the US they must also comply with federal and state data and privacy laws.
These complex technical, ethical, and legal issues are undoubtedly holding back the mass adoption of smart glasses globally. It could also be one of the reasons why Apple hasn’t revealed its smart glasses yet. The Cupertino company could be perfecting its product to meet these challenges.
The Google Metaverse: Reality versus Virtuality
Unlike Apple, Microsoft, and especially Meta, Google’s Metaverse project has historically kept a low profile. Recently, however, the company has started to take a more aggressive approach to building the hardware and software behind its immersive reality experiences.
In December 2021, Google hired mark lukovsky—former general manager of Oculus-Meta OS—as senior director of the newly created operating system team for augmented reality. The team was created to develop the operating system for what Google described as an “innovative augmented reality device.” Fast-forward eight months and Google announced the trial of a new smart glass technology.
“Augmented reality is opening up new ways to interact with the world around us,” Google said in its announcement blog post. Google’s vision for the metaverse is one in which “technology helps people perform everyday tasks.”
With these new smart glasses, users can get instant real-time translation when having real-world conversations by overlaying text in their line of sight. Google is also testing augmented reality navigation features for its new smartphones and text translation apps, for example when a user reads a menu.
WATCH: Metaverse Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need to Know (Free PDF) (Republic of Technology)
Google’s new smart glass prototype is neither bulky nor heavy. They look like regular glasses with a screen on the lens and visual and audio sensors. The smart glass prototype is moving from laboratory tests to real-world tests to determine the limitations it has. Google also wants to know how real-world factors like weather or busy streets affect your AR experience.
A few dozen trusted Googlers and testers were selected for small-scale testing. The prototypes include lens displays, microphones, and cameras, but do not film, record, or take photos to avoid privacy issues related to smart glasses.
Google explains that most of the images used during the experience are later removed. Some image data may be stored for analysis and scrubbing, but sensitive content such as faces and license plates is removed. Like Meta’s Rayban smart glasses, this new prototype from Google warns other users that the camera is active via a visible LED indicator mounted on the frame of the glasses.
Google appears to be moving into an augmented reality metaverse, building functional digital features for everyday life on the foundations of reality. This sober take on the metaverse stands in stark contrast to the colorful take on VR being developed by Meta, Roblox, Decentraland, and Microsoft, to name a few. If smart glasses are going to replace smartphones, they will surely have to provide the real-world features that smartphones provide today, giving augmented reality glasses a clear market advantage over reality headsets. virtual.