Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O), teased a new smart glasses project with EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA) on Wednesday, publishing a photo of the eyewear company’s chairman wearing a prototype of a neural interface bracelet – designed for directing other gadgets.
“Here Leonardo is using a prototype of our neural interface EMG [electromyography] wristband that will eventually let you control your glasses and other devices,” Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook, referring to EssilorLuxottica’s chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio. He ended his post with a sunglasses-wearing smiley face emoji.
In a blog post last year, Facebook, which changed its name to Meta Platforms in October, stated that it wanted to develop a wristband that would operate augmented reality glasses, allowing users to interact with a virtual world via finger gestures.
According to Zuckerberg, he was in Milan to discuss plans for new smart glasses with the eyewear manufacturer.
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O), and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google have all entered the wearable tech market, producing augmented reality glasses in the hope that they could one day replace mobile phones. Google also adopted fitness tracking technology when it paid $2.1 billion for Fitbit.
EssilorLuxottica and Meta Platforms established a multi-year partnership to build smart glasses in 2020. Starting at $299, they sell frames like the famous Ray-Ban Wayfarer model that are packed with technology, allowing the wearer to capture photos, listen to music, and make phone calls.
Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta and formerly known as Facebook, Inc. and TheFacebook, Inc., is a Menlo Park, California-based American global technology company. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among other subsidiaries, are all owned by the firm. Meta is one of the most valuable corporations in the world. Along with Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, it is regarded as one of the Big Five American information technology corporations.
Facebook, Messenger, Facebook Watch, and Facebook Portal are examples of meta products and services. It also owns Oculus, Giphy, Mapillary, Kustomer, and Presize , as well as a 9.99 percent investment in Jio Platforms. The sale of advertisement placements to marketers produced 97.5 percent of the company’s income in 2021.
Media outlets claimed in October 2021 that Facebook’s parent corporation wanted to change its name to “reflect its concentration on establishing [what it refers to as] the metaverse.” The “metaverse,” according to Meta, is the integrated environment that connects all of the company’s products and services. Later that month, on October 28, it was renamed, Meta.