Meta has announced smart glasses with a screen in the right lens, meaning you can read WhatsApp messages, look at a map or translate a conversation – all from the comfort of your face.
The company describes them as the world’s most advanced AI glasses, and it’s the first time it has put a display in its smart Ray-Bans.
Mark Zuckerberg believes such hi-tech specs are the future of portable computing, telling the unveiling event they’re “the only form factor where you can let AI see what you see, hear what you hear”.
The display is controlled using a neural band that wraps around the user’s wrist and monitors their hand movements.
A twist of the fingers will turn the glasses’ volume up or down or zoom on the camera; two taps of the thumb to the forefinger will close the display and soon, users will be able to write texts by drawing letters in the air.
“The amount of signals the band can detect is incredible – it has the fidelity to measure movement even before it’s visually perceptible,” said a Meta spokesperson.
The company says their glasses are “designed to help you look up and stay present”, a “technology that keeps you tuned in to the world around you, not distracted from it”.
But I tried the tech on at an event with Meta earlier this month and found the opposite.
I was so distracted by the display that during an interview with Ankit Brahmbhatt, director of product management at Meta, I realised I was watching a game I’d accidentally left on in my lens.
I confessed and asked Mr Brahmbhatt if the glasses would actually help enable better face-to-face conversations, or if people would simply look more engaged because they weren’t looking down at their phone.
“I don’t think we’re saying we have all the answers yet, right? Just like when we were first introduced to smartphones or any other new paradigm, there’s a lot of things that evolve over time,” said Mr Brahmbhatt.
“We feel very much that this is already going to make you much more heads up and in the moment. With AI glasses, you actually have the sense of being able to engage.”
But having a screen in your vision can be very distracting – research has repeatedly shown our brains simply aren’t designed to cope with two activities at a time.
In one famous study published in the Applied Cognitive Psychology journal, people walking down a road while doing a task on their phone didn’t even notice a unicycling clown riding in front of them.
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It’s a phenomenon called inattentional blindness.
“People are cognitively distracted all of the time [by devices]. It’s just that in particular circumstances, such as driving, the risks are so much higher,” said Professor Gemma Briggs, professor of applied cognitive psychology at the Open University.
Although the display on Meta’s glasses will turn off automatically when it detects you’re driving, there’s nothing to stop users from switching it back on. This could lead to dangerously distracted drivers, according to Professor Briggs.
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“My research has demonstrated that it really doesn’t make any difference whether you’re touching, holding, manipulating your phone or whether it’s hands-free, you’re still far more likely to be distracted.
“That means you’re four times more likely to be involved in a collision, you are significantly less likely to notice hazards that occur, even if they occur straight ahead of you and any hazards that you do notice, you will take a lot longer to react to,” said Professor Briggs.
Meta insists these glasses will make sure their wearers stay in the moment and engaged.
For some, however, phones are already distracting enough – let alone when you have one strapped to your face.
