Facebook, is no longer the same company that only runs its social media presence. Facebook has come far from that mould and it is now rapidly experimenting with different cutting-edge technologies and investing thousands and millions of dollars into research and development into novel technologies for people around the world.
Today’s article is one such piece into the company’s technology, a technology that is no longer connected with social media. It is a revolutionary technology that brings people together and let them experience certain situations in a virtual environment. It is about VR/AR.
The company has recently been a lot in news about its products in the Virtual Reality domain. Initially, it developed the headsets of Oculus and its related web software. Now it is for the VR/AR glasses developed by the company. The project is called Aria and is being projected as a research idea on the types of sensors and their study to use them in smart AR/VR glasses.
Let us have a short tour of the project layout, components and the technology that is used. We won’t delve into many details, but for those who are interested, a detailed user manual is available on this link.
The hardware of the project, which makes it the backbone of the project is called the Gemini Engineering Valuation Test. These are a set of few hardware glasses and other hardware equipment that is being built for testing and prototyping, before mass production. Another point that has to be clarified is that this project is not full-fledged software development, but more of hardware research and study. Hence it is mostly concentrated on collecting and analysing data, and not displaying it like on Oculus Headsets.
These glasses are just similar to the reading glasses that most people wear while reading or working to avoid eye strain. Thus, people with defective eyesight cannot wear it. The glasses have four cameras on them in different places and angles to capture videos and photos. The glasses are being developed by a leading eyewear manufacturer Ray Ban. They are powered by Qualcomm chips, have LED’s which change colour according to the mode they are operating in. They also have a separate power button and a USB-powered charging cable and port.
Since these glasses can be categorised into the smart category, and store data, they need a platform where the analysis, displaying and other interactive activities happen. It is for the same reason that an app called Ariane is being developed.
Ariane app is a one-stop app for all the interactive and immersive experiences of the glasses. All features like getting connected by Wi-Fi, battery levels, sensory data, notifications and other stuff will be processed. The app is still in the beta stage. Although a lot of reviews that have surfaced online say that the app has incredibly simple UI.
So, in a nutshell, this project looks more like hardware and data collecting experiment rather than an AR/VR project.
For more such articles about the trending technologies in the domain of Virtual and Augmented Reality, make sure to follow us on our website Twin Reality. We also specialise in creating virtual reality web and app development for our clients. We have a huge client base with amazing projects, showcased in our portfolio. We would be glad to get connected with you!
