LOS ANGELES (dpa-AFX) – The creators of the Snapchat photo app have presented special glasses with which digital content can be displayed in the user’s field of vision. Such glasses are also made by Apple, among others and Facebook expected – but the developer company Snap overtook them with the presentation on Thursday. The “Spectacles” glasses only show the virtual objects in a limited part of the field of view. It is initially only available to users selected by Snap and is not available for purchase.
The combination of digital content and the real world is known as augmented reality (AR). So far, the technology has mainly been used on smartphone screens, and Apple has been building on it for years.
After starting out in fun functions and digital art, AR is being used more and more for business applications, said co-founder and boss Evan Spiegel of the German press agency. But it will probably only be possible to exploit the full potential of the technology with AR glasses in the next ten years, he emphasized. “Up to now we used AR on a small screen as if we were looking at the world through a toilet paper tube. If we have a much wider field of vision in the future and can use our hands free, it will create completely new possibilities.”
The biggest challenge in the development of AR glasses is currently finding the right balance between the largest possible field of vision for the digital content and the power consumption and the size of the components required, said Spiegel. “The technological limitations of the hardware today demand a lot of compromises.” Therefore, it will be a decade before the glasses are widely used by consumers, he estimated.
Snap glasses weigh 134 grams and have four cameras. They are significantly lighter and more compact than Microsoft’s Hololens glasses that the group offers for companies.
At the beginning of 2020, at the technology trade fair CES, the German technology group Bosch also presented the prototype of light and slim AR glasses in which route instructions or chat messages can be displayed, for example. The images are projected directly into the eye. In the industry, Bosch was treated as a possible supplier to Apple – while the iPhone company did not even confirm that it was working on glasses. Recently, however, there has been speculation that Apple could at least give an outlook on the device at its upcoming developer conference WWDC at the beginning of June.
Spiegel emphasized that the competition with the tech heavyweights did not scare him. “We have been asked about it since the company was founded ten years ago – and our strategy has always been to focus on our users.” The “Spectacles” glasses are currently designed so that Snapchat users can create cool videos with digital effects. So that leaves a wide field for other application scenarios.
At the same time, Snapchat itself isn’t exactly small. The app has 500 million active users at least once a month, and 280 million access it every day. And Snap wants to be a central interface between the real world and virtual content.
At an online event on Thursday, the company presented improved functions for trying on fashion items such as bags, sunglasses, clothes and cosmetics in the app. In the corona pandemic, Snapchat was used much more often for this. This also drove the company’s sales. What is new, for example, is that the size of the objects that have been tried on should be displayed much more precisely. In the future, several users will also be able to interact with a digital object at the same time. Snapchat demonstrated the function using the example of a virtual Lego car that several friends can assemble from different locations.
The map in the Snap app, with which digital content can be linked to specific locations, is also being further developed. In the future, for example, you will be able to display your own Snap images on the map – or restaurants and upcoming concerts, for which you can buy tickets right away in the app. The card is currently accessed by 250 million Snapchat users.
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