SNAP DEBUTS FIRST COMMERCIAL AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES

Snap Inc., parent company of social media app Snapchat, has beaten rivals Apple and Facebook to introduce the newest generation of augmented reality glasses.
The smart glasses, dubbed Spectacles, look like a slightly boxy pair of sunglasses instead of the giant, face-eating goggles used by some previous “mixed reality” technologies. 
The lenses are actually transparent display screens. Using touchpads on the stems, a user can choose from an array of effects to project onto the lenses, creating realistic fantasy images.
The glasses also can “understand” what you’re looking at and suggest overlays that might be appropriate, the company said in a release announcing the product.
The Spectacles have two cameras and four microphones built in, so users can narrate and record the images and animations they create and save and share them.
The specs are now available only to developers; a timeline and price for commercial release wasn’t announced, although the previous version was sold online for $380.
TRENDPOST: Augmented reality (AR) will allow users to create their own video entertainment instead of turning to Netflix or Disney+. While that will cut into corporate revenues, a greater concern is that a portion of users will find AR at least as addictive as their smartphones. 
That could lead heavy users to find unaugmented reality – in other words, reality – boring and drive them to spend even more time in their fantasy worlds, leading them to withdraw even more from human interactions and productive activity.
Photo credit: Snap