smartglasses

AR Startup Brilliant Labs Secures $3M Seed Funding from Oculus & Siri Co-founders

argpt, brilliant, brilliant labs, chatgpt smartglasses, News, smart glasses, smartglasses / Ryan Harris / June 30, 2023

Brilliant Labs, an AR startup working to integrate AI into daily life, announced that it has raised $3 million in seed funding which it will use to expand its team and invest in R&D for its open-source, AI-powered smartglasses.

The funding round was led by Brendan Iribe, co-founder of Oculus, Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri, Eric Migicovsky, founder of Pebble, and Plug & Play Ventures, among others.

Founded in 2019, Brilliant Labs describes its design approach as “embodied intelligence.” Its one-eyed ‘Monocle’ smartglasses dev kit is an open-source device which began shipping in February 2023, offering up a single-lens design that’s supposed to clip onto existing eyewear. For now, Monocle boasts a six-hour battery life with a charging case, which includes fast charging technology.

Similar to Google Glass, Brilliant Labs’ Monocle serves up text via a single waveguide, doing things like letting you see important information while remaining present in the moment. Monocle also includes an embedded microphone, computer vision-ready camera, and hackable FPGA accelerator chip.

In addition to the latest funding round, Brilliant Labs also announced the launch of arGPT, the company’s first ChatGPT integration for Monocle, letting developers directly use the generative AI as well as build apps on top of arGPT.

“We believe that Generative AI is the key enabler for AR, so at Brilliant Labs, we’re building an open-source ecosystem to support developers and creatives reimagining the future, and Monocle is just the beginning. We’re excited to see what developers create with it,” said Bobak Tavangar, Founder and CEO of Brilliant Labs. “We’re thrilled to have the support of our investors as we usher in a new era of embodied intelligence – the intersection of AI and AR.”

Other investors in its seed funding round include Steve Sarowitz, founder of Paylocity and Chairman of Wayfarer Studios, Nirav Patel, former core team member at Oculus and founder of Framework, Francisco Tolmasky, member of the original iPhone team, and Moveon Technologies.

Want to know the difference between smartglasses and AR glasses? Check out our primer on what’s what (and why everyone is confused).

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Google Discontinues Glass Enterprise Edition Smartglasses

Google, google ar, Google Glass, google glass enterprise, google glasses, google smartglasses, News, smart glasses, smartglasses / Mike M. / March 16, 2023

Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2, the company’s work-focused version of its iconic but once maligned smartglasses, is being discontinued.

Google says in a device support FAQ that, starting March 15th, it will no longer sell Glass Enterprise 2, adding that it will only support the device until September 15th, 2023.

While the company says it’s not pushing out any more software for Glass Enterprise Edition after that date, however its most recent system images will remain publicly available until at least April 1st, 2024.

Launched in 2017, Google Glass for enterprise was a revival of sorts, as the company had ceased production of the storied device in 2015.

Google Glass Explorer Edition | Image courtesy Alphabet

Starting in 2012, the company was hoping to seed the device among prosumers with its Glass Explorer Editions, although public backlash spawned the term “glasshole,” putting a severe dent in Google’s ambitions to launch a more consumer-focused version of the device.

Google hasn’t explained why it’s killing off Glass for enterprise. In response to PC Mag, a Google spokesperson left this comment:

“For years, we’ve been building AR into many Google products and we’ll continue to look at ways to bring new, innovative AR experiences across our product portfolio.”

To be fair, Google probably has bigger fish to fry, and the aging smartglasses platform may well be replaced sooner rather than later. Google said last summer it would be conducting real world tests of its early AR prototypes, emphasizing things like real-time translation and AR turn-by-turn navigation.

There’s also the issue of emerging competition. Apple’s upcoming mixed reality (MR) headset is rumored to arrive sometime in mid-2023, while Meta is prepping multiple generations of its MR Quest headsets.

Granted, these MR headsets probably won’t be the model workhorses, although many companies see MR headsets as a steppingstone in preparation for the sort of all-day AR glasses industry is hoping to commercialize in the near future.

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To be clear, Google Glass is a style of smartglass(es) and not an AR device as such; Glass provides a single heads-up display (HUD) that doesn’t place digital imagery naturally in the user’s perceived environment, like with HoloLens 2 or Magic Leap 2, but rather flatly projects the sort of useful information you might also see on a smartwatch. You can learn more about the differences between AR headsets and smartglasses here.

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French company ActiveLook® is bringing augmented reality smartglasses within reach of everyone

activelook, ces2022, Fashion Tech, Highlights, smartglasses, sunglasses / Ryan Harris / January 4, 2022

ActiveLook® is reinventing sports eyewear by using its miniaturized and invisible augmented reality technology to display essential sports performance data with zero obstruction to the wearer’s field of vision. ActiveLook® now has its sights set on going further still and taking the brand further upmarket with its new NexT technology platform.

Designed to improve the practice and performance of sports competitors, ActiveLook® technology enables real-time display of useful and essential data, such as speed, heart rate, direction, etc. In combination with expert software, this unique miniaturized technology can be elegantly integrated into eyewear without affecting its design or ergonomics. Its low power consumption means record battery life for longer athlete support.

ActiveLook® Founder Eric Marcellin-Dibon says: “Mass adoption of AR relies on discrete integration. Consumers aren’t prepared to put on superhero helmets, but they definitely do want eyewear that helps them to see and do their activity better. We believe that ActiveLook® is the inevitable technological evolution of the eyewear that has been making our lives easier for centuries”.

Marc Vernet, ActiveLook OEM Business Line Manager, adds, “NexT” is the new generation of eyewear platform, it fully embodies the vison we have with ActiveLook: a solution to deliver information in action through extra light and stylish eyewear. Our highly customizable platform, combined with a rich and growing ecosystem of ActiveLook compatible applications offers our partners a unprecedent short-curt to creating cutting edge experiences, on the move!”

Augmented reality: encouraging active involvement in sport

Already used in more than 1 million devices worldwide for high-precision applications, the MicroOLED microdisplays have already been integrated into premium camera systems, precision binoculars and other optical devices.

Since 2000, screens have become part of our daily lives and our lives increasingly depend on them. In developing a new product category of smartphone-connected eyewear, ActiveLook® now brings its users the opportunity to ‘seize the moment’. ActiveLook® is now targeting the world of sport, where mixed reality delivers significant benefits as a navigational aid and physical performance reporting technology that is particularly powerful for cyclists, runners, skiers and triathletes.

A new NexT platform to create the world’s lightest connected eyewear

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