Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at Meta Connect 2024 to announce a variety of new products, with Quest 3S opening the show and bringing affordable VR and mixed reality to market However, Project Orion, while still a prototype, stole the show with its insane augmented reality technology

Prototype or not, these seem to be game changers Zuckerberg even described it as “like a time machine No, they can't transport you through time, but they feel like something from another era

Despite being incredibly powerful, the glasses are designed to cool themselves This is because the lenses are not made of glass or plastic The lenses are made of silicon carbide This material is considered durable, lightweight, and has an ultra-high refractive index for projectors

Another important element of Project Orion is that the lenses are clear This is great for people who don't want to walk around wearing sunglasses all day

Do they look a little chunky compared to regular glasses? Yes Is that a problem? That remains to be seen, but if the demo was an accurate representation of how these glasses feel, it might be worth it to wear thicker frames And while the glasses are large, they also have the largest field of view of the smallest AR glasses yet available [According to Zuckerberg, he spent more than a decade developing these glasses “Nailing the form factor, delivering a holographic display, developing a compelling AR experience, creating a new human-computer interaction (HCI) paradigm, and bringing it all together into one cohesive product is one of the most difficult challenges our industry has ever faced Meta stated in a blog post

Meta Orion can take advantage of eye tracking and hand tracking, but also uses a neural interface that is realized via a wrist-worn accessory called the EMG wristband There is also a separate battery pack Zach and his associates did not spend much time talking about the neural link, but paused for serious dramatic effect when he mentioned it Basically, it seems that certain wrist movements trigger something in the interface that allows you to operate the device without having to speak or make large hand movements

According to Zuckerberg, Meta is treating Orion as a developer kit and is working behind the scenes to streamline the design, lower the price, and work with other applications But it looks very promising