This post was originally published on this site
Facebook Inc. has seen the future of computing: Ray-Ban smart glasses with built-in speakers and a microphone for making calls. The rub is whether consumers share that vision after several earlier misfires from others.
On Thursday, the social-networking company
FB,
unpacked Ray-Ban Stories in partnership with European company EssilorLuxottica
EL,
The $299 spectacles are available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Italy and Australia.
“The Facebook View app on iOS and Android makes it easy to import, edit, and share content captured on the smart glasses to apps on your phone: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter
TWTR,
TikTok, Snapchat, and more,” Facebook said in a blog post. “You can also save content to your phone’s camera roll and edit and share from there.”
The sleek black glasses, the first fruits of a multi-year partnership between Facebook and EssilorLuxottica, are an outgrowth of a project via Facebook Reality Labs — the same division that oversees the Oculus virtual reality headset and the Portal video-calling gadget.
Whether the internet-connected eyewear catches on with the public could be another matter.
Facebook’s previous forays into hardware products have met with mixed results as consumers remain cool to virtual- or augmented-reality smart glasses not designed for gaming.
The infamous Google Glass from Google parent Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
GOOG,
was met with derision by many for its nerdish look, and faded away. Snap Inc.
SNAP,
has had some success with Spectacles.
