Facebook has announced a collaboration with EssilorLuxottica, the company born in 2018 from the merger of the largest eyewear manufacturer, the Italian Luxottica, with the largest manufacturer of lenses, the French Essilor. Together, in 2021, they will produce a pair of smart glasses, that is, glasses similar to wearable smartphones, with information and images projected on the lenses. A first example of smart glasses were Google Glass, on sale since 2014.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, broke the news during a Facebook livestreaming, saying that “I can't go into product details at the moment but they are the next step on the road to augmented reality glasses. And they are also very beautiful “.
At the base of the smart glasses is Project Aria, a research tool that will help Facebook understand how to best build eyewear hardware and software. From September, about 100 Facebook employees will wear Project Aria glasses, which will record audio and video, follow eye movements and collect other data. They are not for sale and, Facebook guarantees, the data they collect will be purified of sensitive information, such as people's faces or car license plates; on the other hand, whoever wears them will have clothes that will make them recognizable.
