On Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a slew of new augmented reality glasses, including what he claimed to be the “first AI glasses with high resolution,” a new $799 version of its Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses that features a tiny screen that’s viewable to the wearer.
But it didn’t take long for the company’s MetaConnect 2025 keynote to descend into chaos. The social media giant’s demos repeatedly failed, leading to awkward stares, deafening silences, and muted laughter.
The poor showing painfully demonstrates that the tech is far from ready, even as companies continue to shove AI into every aspect of our daily lives.
I used a Google glass once. A friend had bought one and we sat around his house kinda playing with it. The display was tiny, only about a fingernail sized portion of the top corner of one eye, and iirc it was text only. Also, the module on the glasses to do that was pretty huge - like “90s-toy dragonball power level eyepiece on top of a normal glasses frame” huge.
He ended up returning it after we all discussed it. I don’t remember that or if the consensus was, but I remember thinking it was neat but really really really really really really really premature and REALLY expensive. I think it was over a grand.
Compare that to the hololens 1 that I played with at some point, and THAT was really cool. Awful gestures, very dark, bigger but still laughably small FOV, but at least the hololens was playing spatial computing games overlayed into your vision. It, too, was really premature, but at least it was forward progress.
I don’t know what’s in Zuck’s head or heart, but I think AR and VR are fucking awesome technologies, and while embarrassing moments are easy to make fun of, I also know that his show of spine for something he believes in in the face of people and investors has impressed me at least a little bit. I wish money wasn’t involved and wouldn’t ruin everything it touches, because for better and for worse, the tech is going to change the world.