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Facebook Seeing the Future through a New Lens

Facebook’s head of augmented reality Ficus Kirkpatrick confirmed that Facebook is building AR glasses

“We are building hardware products. We’re going forward on this . . . We want to see those glasses come into reality, and I think we want to play our part in helping to bring them there,” Kirkpatrick said.

This is Facebook’s opportunity to own a mainstream computing device on which its software could run, a decade after being beholden to smartphones built, controlled, and taxed by Apple and Google. This month Facebook launched its first self-branded gadget out of its Building 8 lab, the Portal smart display, and now it’s planning headset designs.

Other AR startups like Magic Leap and Thalmic Labs are starting to release their first headsets and glasses. Microsoft is considered a leader thanks to its early Hololens product, while Google Glass is still being developed for the enterprise. Additionally, Apple acquired AR hardware developers like Akonia Holographics and Vrvana to accelerate development of its own headsets.

The article by Josh Constine outlines Facebook’s plans.

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