Facebook revealed (again) that it is building augmented reality glasses and announced a project called “Live Maps” that will produce the world’s 3D maps.
At today’s Oculus Connect developer conference, Facebook’s Augmented and Virtual Reality head Andrew Bosworth said the firm had “some” AR glass prototypes, although he did not provide information about them.
Facebook Reality Labs will mapping and modeling many different layers of an AR cloud.
[No discussion of any of the privacy implications or boundaries of any of this] pic.twitter.com/w4TEWPR4Be— Kent Bye VoicesOfVR (@kentbye) September 25, 2019
Facebook also defined Live Maps in aspirational terms. According to a video, using crowdsourced information, traditional maps, and footage captured through phones and augmented reality glasses, it will generate “multi-layer representations of the world.”
The video demonstrates familiar prospective uses, such as getting notifications projected in thin air, identifying items with labels, or even projecting a holographic avatar to hang out with actual people.
It’s not totally evident how (or whether) Facebook would secure privacy while gathering all this information. After all, the Street View system from Google, which also captured physical world data, raised troubling legal issues.
We have seen companies such as Magic Leap, Microsoft, and Google offer similar concepts, and with their Spark AR system, Facebook has been promoting phone-based enhanced reality.
Facebook also stated several times that it is building AR glasses, and rumors circulated last week that it is partnering with Ray-Ban manufacturer Luxottica on one of the various prototypes codenamed. Oculus Connect is just starting, so later at the meeting we may hear more about Live Maps.
