Facebook says it is working on augmented reality glasses to take on Microsoft and Magic Leap

Would you trust Facebook to control your view of the world? Firm says it is working on augmented reality glasses to take on Microsoft and Magic Leap.

Facebook has long expressed an interest in augmented reality, but now it seems the tech giant is getting serious.

The company has revealed it is looking at building its own pair of augmented reality glasses.

Ficus Kirkpatrick, Facebook's head of augmented reality, confirmed the move in an interview with TechCrunch.

'Yeah! Well of course we're working on it,' Kirkpatrick told TechCrunch.

'We are building hardware products. We're going forward on this...We want to see those glasses come into reality, and I think we want to play our part in helping to bring them there.'

Kirkpatrick provided scant details on how the glasses would look or function, however.

And it appears that Facebook could potentially have other AR hardware in the pipeline for the future.

'We have no product to announce right now,' Kirkpatrick told TechCrunch.

'But we have a lot of very talented people doing really, really compelling cutting-edge research that we hope plays a part in the future of headsets.'

Facebook in 2014 paid a whopping $2 billion to acquire virtual reality headset maker Oculus, releasing several iterations of VR goggles since then.

However, in the ensuing years, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others in the company have signaled a deeper interest in augmented reality.

At Facebook's F8 developer conference in 2017, Zuckerberg teased the company's hopes to create a pair of AR glasses.

'We know where we want this go eventually - glasses or contact lenses that overlay this,' Zuckerberg said at the time.

'This will help us mix the physical and digital in new ways, and make reality better.'  

Zuckerberg acknowledged the firm didn't have the science or technology 'today to build the AR glasses that we want.'

He said it could have the necessary makings for glasses in five or seven years time though.

That hasn't prevented the firm from filing patents around the technology.

Last August, Facebook was granted approval for a patent describing a pair of 'near-eye display' glasses. 

According to the filing, the display 'may augment views of a physical, real-world environment with computer-generated elements' and 'may be included in an eye-wear comprising a frame and a display assembly that presents media to a user's eyes.'

Using a waveguide display, the technology will project light onto the wearer's eyes to show images and video.  

It comes as Facebook is rumored to be launching other hardware in the near future, after unveiling its Facebook Portal devices this month.

At Facebook's F8 developer conference last year, it teased a system that would use optical sensors to allow people to type at speeds of 100 words per minute simply by thinking.

Now, it seems those efforts are moving ahead under a secretive project codenamed 'Edgefield,' according to Cheddar. 

Another device, part of an internal project called 'Sequoia,' would involve an augmented reality projector.

It would allow users to project AR graphics onto the real world and interact with them in novel ways.

(Daily Mail)