Facebook’s Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is shipping today, but in the future, the company hopes the technology and form factor will shrink to fit into a pair of normal-looking glasses.
On stage at the company’s annual F8 developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off a concept for a pair of smart glasses that he thinks we’ll all be wearing.
Zuckerberg said he wants the smart glasses to be capable of both virtual reality and augmented reality. The vision is not too different from Google Glass.
“Augmented reality gives you the ability to see the world, but also deliver overlays on top of the real world,” Zuckerberg said. With augmented reality glasses, users could bring up a photo and resize it for viewing immediately in front of them, overlaid on top of the real world.
Zuckerberg hopes that Oculus (mashed with an AR device) will look like these specs in 10 years. #F82016 pic.twitter.com/XhH1kS7SCc
— Chelsea Stark (@chelseabot) April 12, 2016
Some day, the Oculus VR headset might look like this. Apparently, I’m already wearing them. #F8 #Facebook pic.twitter.com/xrp7yXkfSj
— Lance Ulanoff (@LanceUlanoff) April 12, 2016
Facebook’s not the only tech company interested in augmented reality. Microsoft just shipped itsHoloLens headset to developers. Snapchat is reportedly working on its own pair of augmented reality glasses, too.