1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:02,960 Imagine a world where you don't need a mobile phone because 2 00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:06,000 information just appears contextually in front of you 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:10,200 exactly when you need it. When language is automatically 4 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:13,440 translated as you speak to a person so you can just read them 5 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:16,960 as subtitles, and as you navigate cities, you can see 6 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:20,520 arrows appearing on the street, directing you to your ideal 7 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:23,040 destination. In a world like this, you 8 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:26,600 describe technology as ambient. Always there, always present, 9 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:29,880 but rarely in the way. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg 10 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:32,640 released the Ray Ban Meta glasses. 11 00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:34,920 The technology itself actually flopped on stage. 12 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:38,520 But regardless of the failed demos, I think they represent 13 00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:41,600 potentially a look into the future of human machine 14 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:44,800 interaction. In today's episode, I'm going to 15 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:47,920 investigate whether or not we're at one of those inflection 16 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:50,360 points. This is in the loop with Jack 17 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:52,200 Horn. I hope you enjoy the show. 18 00:01:04,940 --> 00:01:07,220 So let's start with what actually happened in last week's 19 00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:11,260 announcements. So on September 17th, last week, 20 00:01:11,700 --> 00:01:14,180 the Meta Connect event, which is like Meta's biggest event of the 21 00:01:14,180 --> 00:01:17,260 year, Mark Zuckerberg basically took the stage to announce the, 22 00:01:17,900 --> 00:01:21,780 what he believes the ideal form of super intelligence because 23 00:01:21,780 --> 00:01:24,420 they actually announced the Ray Barn glasses starting at about 24 00:01:24,420 --> 00:01:27,000 $800 and coming out at the end of this month. 25 00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:30,600 Every single pair comes with this Meta neural band, which is 26 00:01:30,600 --> 00:01:33,160 this really innovative piece of technology that they themselves 27 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:36,360 have produced, which uses electromyography, which is this 28 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:38,840 technology that essentially reads the electrical signals in 29 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:41,200 your hand. So little movements with your 30 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:44,440 fingers or your wrist can obviously result in you taking 31 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,400 action in the glasses. And to be honest, the, the 32 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:49,160 product's actually quite impressive on paper. 33 00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:53,080 We're looking at a full colour high resolution hood displays 34 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:56,000 your heads up display position just off the side of your field 35 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,520 of vision in the glasses. And this play covers about a 20° 36 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:01,760 field of view. What I found also really 37 00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:04,680 impressive actually was the the fact that the display cranks out 38 00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:08,600 about 5000 nits of brightness. And obviously nits is a word 39 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:10,320 that most people are not that familiar with. 40 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,120 But to put in perspective, most smartphone screens Max out about 41 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:19,160 800 to 1200 nits and even the brightest tablets rarely exceed 42 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:21,160 1600. So this means that you can 43 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:24,040 actually see the display very clearly in direction light, 44 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,920 which obviously being a pair of glasses is something really 45 00:02:26,920 --> 00:02:30,920 important and previously has completely played all I guess 46 00:02:30,920 --> 00:02:33,920 smart glasses projects. It's also got 12 megapixel 47 00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:37,240 camera and can record at 1080P, which is kind of crazy. 48 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:39,960 It's also got microphone technology called beam forming, 49 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:43,160 which is essentially the microphone being able to focus 50 00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:46,960 on sound that's coming from in front of you and focusing in on 51 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:49,200 that, as well as open ear speakers. 52 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:52,360 And it weighs about 69 grams, which is the weight of a chicken 53 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:56,880 egg, but still about 17g heavier than the previous generation 54 00:02:56,880 --> 00:02:59,440 because it didn't have a screen in the previous generation. 55 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:01,640 So yeah, I think it's quite interesting. 56 00:03:01,640 --> 00:03:05,120 And you know, though it's worth noting that obviously during the 57 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:08,680 demo it was a bit of a flop because there was 2 pro high 58 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:11,120 profile attempts to showcase some of the most innovative 59 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:14,520 features and it didn't work. I'm quite interested. 60 00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:17,000 A little side note, I think it's interesting that the fail the 61 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,240 demos actually going wrong. The first attempt was a cooking 62 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:23,640 influencer on stage, obviously in front of this big audience 63 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:26,880 who tried to use the glasses for recipe help. 64 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:30,000 And he clearly said, you know, hey, meta start live AI. 65 00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:33,560 Now what was meant to happen is that the glasses start speaking 66 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:35,960 out loud and having step by step instructions appear on the 67 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,440 screen. But instead the glasses kind of 68 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:42,080 lagged out for a few awkward seconds and then suddenly jumped 69 00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:45,680 ahead and skipped the recipe. So obviously it didn't really 70 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:49,000 work very well and he had to kind of stop mid demo and blame 71 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,480 it on the Wi-Fi. And then it happened again with 72 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:53,600 Mark Zuckerberg. He actually tried to take a 73 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:58,480 WhatsApp call during the event for apparently the CTO and 74 00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:01,400 basically, as you can imagine, it didn't connect. 75 00:04:12,050 --> 00:04:15,450 Mark Zuckerberg was visibly fumbling and trying to press 76 00:04:15,490 --> 00:04:18,010 different buttons to try and make this work and eventually 77 00:04:18,010 --> 00:04:20,570 gave up. And I feel for them. 78 00:04:20,570 --> 00:04:22,250 Now I do a lot of demos at Mindset. 79 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:25,960 You can literally have a product work a million times when you're 80 00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:29,640 practising and then in front of a live group of people it it can 81 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:31,240 go wrong. It does happen now and again. 82 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:34,600 They released an update within kind of 48 hours and all the 83 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:37,520 bugs were fixed and and the problems were quite reasonable 84 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:39,560 as well. But either way, I thought it was 85 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:42,920 quite an interesting side note because gosh, that must have 86 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:45,960 been awkward. Anyway, let's dig into what the 87 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:49,240 glasses actually do. And I guess the use cases for 88 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:51,960 these that are they're quite interesting to me. 89 00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:54,600 So first and foremost, you've got live captions and 90 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:58,000 translations. It feels like 2025 is the year 91 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:00,560 of live translation because I don't know if people have seen 92 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,520 it, but Apple Airpods just released this new feature in 93 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:04,960 there. I think it's their Gen. 3 or 94 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:07,560 Gen. 4 Airpods. But instead obviously just being 95 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:09,360 sound. And the reason it's worth noting 96 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:12,120 is because it's a stand out, I guess, capability that gets most 97 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,360 early adopters quite excited. I mean, I'm probably in that 98 00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:18,040 category. I don't think I'd buy the Meta 99 00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:22,160 Ray Ban glasses for just that feature, but it is really cool. 100 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:26,160 So the glasses can listen to anyone that's speaking to you 101 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:29,760 and display, I guess captions just as they're speaking. 102 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:33,360 And even more impressively, they can translate between languages 103 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:36,800 just on the fly. Just imagine, you know, going to 104 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:39,480 Spain or wherever else you're going, travelling in the world 105 00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:42,880 and just speaking to anybody and having those subtitles appear 106 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:45,440 that that's really cool. And for accessibility, this 107 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:47,600 could be huge. You know, imagine someone that 108 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:51,040 might be hard of hearing or deaf or someone that's got that's 109 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:56,280 heart of sight and be able to have someone or the AI read out 110 00:05:56,280 --> 00:05:59,160 what people are saying real time or have subtitles appear 111 00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:00,960 underneath them. So yeah, it's a really great 112 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:04,720 feature for accessibility too. And early testers apparently 113 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:06,840 have reported that it works quite well in quiet 114 00:06:06,840 --> 00:06:09,760 environments, though it can apparently struggle when there's 115 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:12,280 lots of noise going on. It can accidentally sort of pick 116 00:06:12,280 --> 00:06:14,800 up stray words from nearby conversations. 117 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:17,200 And I guess it's probably probably quite a similar 118 00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:20,120 experience to anyone that uses digital note taker UPS during 119 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:22,520 video calls. Sometimes it gets muddled up 120 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,640 between two people speaking and it labeling it as the same 121 00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:28,120 person speaking. Still, even with some issues, I 122 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:30,480 think it's going to be a really exciting feature and has real 123 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:32,840 use case in the world. Second, you've got navigation of 124 00:06:32,840 --> 00:06:35,360 maps. I'm actually just really, I've 125 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:37,840 always thought this is very cool, this idea where you can 126 00:06:37,840 --> 00:06:41,080 just be walking around a street and seeing arrows appear or, you 127 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:44,120 know, just just general guidance that isn't in a map and you have 128 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:46,960 to have your, you know, head down inside a phone to see where 129 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:49,760 you're going. And at the moment, there's some 130 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:52,200 limitations to this. The glasses do provide a kind of 131 00:06:52,200 --> 00:06:55,520 turn by turn walking directions with arrows and mini maps 132 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:57,960 appearing on the glasses themselves in your peripheral 133 00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,360 vision. So yeah, I think although it's 134 00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:04,560 still in a map and it's not placing arrows onto the street 135 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:07,080 as I was describing it, it'll probably get there eventually. 136 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:09,960 And I had the idea of not having to look at your phone as you're 137 00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:12,360 kind of navigating environments, just having it in your glasses 138 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:13,440 instead. I think the way they've 139 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:15,120 implemented it is quite interesting as well. 140 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:17,240 You know, the display is positioned so it doesn't block 141 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:20,120 your entire central vision. It's more like kind of having 142 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:23,680 AGPS overlay, you know, in the corner of your eye. 143 00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:26,560 And at 5000, it's a brightness, as I said, about four times 144 00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:29,600 brighter than a mobile phone. You can therefore see it in 145 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:31,160 direct sunlight. And they're built in some 146 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:34,200 security and safety measures, such as if you're moving at high 147 00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:36,400 speed, it's going to try and stop you using the feature. 148 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:39,520 Or if you're, you know, biking or driving, it's going to try 149 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:41,960 and stop you doing it. The only real big problem I see 150 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:44,640 right now is the fact that they don't support Google Maps or 151 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:48,320 others. And we just know that those 152 00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:51,960 technology providers are so far ahead in the map space compared 153 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:55,480 to, let's say, Meta, because Google has so much traffic 154 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,720 information that's up to date and root updates and things like 155 00:07:58,720 --> 00:08:00,200 that. So the third use case is quite 156 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:03,200 interesting to me is message triaging and general 157 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,560 communication. So the neuro band comes into 158 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:09,880 effect here because, you know, incoming texts or calls or app 159 00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:13,360 notifications can just appear in your lens and you can just 160 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:15,840 respond without reacting or looking at your phone. 161 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:19,280 So you can use the neural band. You can kind of pinch your 162 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,200 fingers a little bit or make subtle wrist movements to select 163 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:24,880 an option or reply to a message and things like that. 164 00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:27,960 And what's quite surprising here is Monkey's Brown. 165 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:31,040 So for those that don't know him, he's the biggest YouTube 166 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:33,440 tech reviewer in the world. He has the power to make or 167 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,120 break a product launch, really. And he actually said it works 168 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:39,320 really, really well. And he did a big in depth review 169 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:40,960 of that. I recommend go check that out. 170 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:43,960 So yeah, for a lot of people online are saying it's genuinely 171 00:08:43,960 --> 00:08:47,240 useful and even people describing it as kind of magical 172 00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:49,760 experiences here. Now for me personally, I would 173 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:52,360 never, ever, ever, ever in a million years allow 174 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:55,920 notifications and texts and things like that appear on my 175 00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:59,360 screen in front of my eyesight. I have all notifications turned 176 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:01,200 off. I don't like it being super 177 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,360 intrusive and dragging me back to applications, but I know many 178 00:09:04,360 --> 00:09:06,400 people will love that. Then we come into the last use 179 00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:08,200 case that are really interesting, which is content 180 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:11,320 creation. Obviously you've met a a giant 181 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:15,320 network of creators. The incentive for those creators 182 00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:18,960 to create content and be pushed by meta on their applications 183 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:22,440 also makes sense and they've upgraded it to enable that use 184 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:24,320 case really well. So they've got, as I said, 12 185 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:26,520 megapixel camera and 1080P filming. 186 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:31,680 The camera also shows you where on what is being filmed because 187 00:09:31,680 --> 00:09:34,200 previous glasses actually you couldn't really tell if the 188 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:36,120 camera was focusing on one thing over another. 189 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:39,600 You can also zoom in just by rotating your wrist, like 190 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:42,120 turning a dial and start recording with kind of finger 191 00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:43,920 movements, which I also think pretty cool. 192 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:46,920 There's also an LED light that kind of flicks up on the glasses 193 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:50,400 to activate when recording. So you actually are able to 194 00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:53,040 notify people around you that you're recording. 195 00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:56,560 Again, there's a lot of privacy fears and concerns with these 196 00:09:56,560 --> 00:10:00,160 glasses and say, being at the gym or doing things and suddenly 197 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:02,000 you're being filmed without you knowing it. 198 00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:04,840 And as you can imagine, you can film things like reels and stuff 199 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:07,360 straight to the application and do live streaming and stuff like 200 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:19,240 that. So that's all the things it can 201 00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:20,920 do. But importantly, I guess the 202 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:23,880 question is, will this be successful or is it going to be 203 00:10:23,880 --> 00:10:26,000 another flop? Well, I'm going to try and 204 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,880 attempt to answer that and give my my viewpoint. 205 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:32,320 So when this technology typically comes out, it's often 206 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:34,440 seen as a bit fanciful by many people. 207 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:37,280 Like people I roll, they don't think it'll ever catch on. 208 00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:41,560 And I think the smartphone evolution over time officers 209 00:10:41,560 --> 00:10:44,920 probably the clearest road map to understand whether or not the 210 00:10:44,920 --> 00:10:49,240 smart glasses can actually catch on and importantly cross the 211 00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:52,800 chasm from say early adopters that really like, you know, very 212 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:55,560 niche features to the mainstream. 213 00:10:55,760 --> 00:11:00,240 So with that context in mind, in the early 2000s, mobile phones 214 00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:04,640 like, you know, the BlackBerry 957, the Palm trio, very early 215 00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:09,040 Nokia's were incredibly popular for e-mail and very basic web 216 00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:13,240 access, but appealed mainly to business users and very early 217 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:15,160 adopters. And that's what they were often 218 00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:18,520 marketed as. They're very clunky interfaces, 219 00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:22,240 lots of big keyboards, very poor battery life. 220 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,760 And in general, the public saw them as a expensive tool for 221 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:29,120 business people or tech lovers. Now, obviously, as everybody 222 00:11:29,120 --> 00:11:32,720 knows, the inflection point came around 2000 and seven, 2010 with 223 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:35,080 the iPhone and the Android, mainly the Android. 224 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:39,560 And obviously, several factors aligned into what became 225 00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:42,440 literally a generational product. 226 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:47,680 You know, we had improved hardware, much faster chips so 227 00:11:47,680 --> 00:11:50,640 things could run faster and the phone could be much more 228 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:53,200 lightweight. We had new touchscreens that 229 00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:55,840 replace, you know, styluses and big keyboards. 230 00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:59,560 And very famously, the BlackBerry CEO said no one will 231 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:01,880 ever want to use anything other than a keyboard. 232 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,480 And you could argue that the smart glasses right now are in 233 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:09,920 that BlackBerry era right now because Meta sold about 2 234 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:13,200 million Ray Ban glasses since about 2023, which is actually 235 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:15,720 quite respectable for what is actually a new category. 236 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:20,880 But it's very small compared to that $1.5 billion smartphone 237 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:22,720 user because that market is huge. 238 00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,040 So it almost mirrors how maybe a few million people are using 239 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:29,360 PDAs and and things like that before the iPhone changed 240 00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:31,360 everything. Zuckerberg himself actually 241 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:34,360 referenced this third generation rule, which is where 242 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,920 breakthrough consumer electronics typically hit their 243 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:41,680 stride in the third iteration, selling between 5 and 10 million 244 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:44,280 units if it's going to be destined for mass success. 245 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:49,320 And I think Ray Ban display represents Meta's third attempt. 246 00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:52,840 They had stories in 2021. They had the Meta glasses 247 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:56,240 launched in 2023, and now the display glasses in 2025. 248 00:12:56,760 --> 00:13:00,720 And so you could argue this is the iPhone 3GS moment where the 249 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:04,640 technology might finally mature and achieve somewhat broader 250 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:06,000 adoption. But there's also another 251 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:08,640 possibility, which is they're actually in the year 2000, not 252 00:13:08,640 --> 00:13:11,080 2007. And maybe the core 253 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:14,280 infrastructure isn't here. Social barriers are too high. 254 00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:18,280 You need many more iterations of hardware before it actually 255 00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:21,280 makes sense for a regular consumer or it might never catch 256 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:22,600 on anyway. So with that in mind, let's go 257 00:13:22,600 --> 00:13:24,120 through some of the things that I think are going to make or 258 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:26,200 break the smart glasses. So the first one, as you can 259 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:28,960 imagine, is the price. It's about $800, which is quite 260 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:31,240 actually respectable for an early adopter market. 261 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:34,280 You know, the first iPhone launched at about $600.00, which 262 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,320 is about $850 today after inflation. 263 00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,840 And that very much positions it at the early adopter market. 264 00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:43,640 So it's slightly a bit too expensive for the mass 265 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:47,760 consumers, but it's also not too expensive, which is where Apple 266 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:49,880 Vision Pros landed at three and a half, $1000. 267 00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:52,400 But I put myself in broadly an early adopter. 268 00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:55,320 I would never pay three and a half, $1000 for the Apple Vision 269 00:13:55,320 --> 00:13:57,640 Pro even if I really wanted to try it. 270 00:13:58,560 --> 00:14:01,120 And historical precedent suggests that this pricing could 271 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,360 work quite well. And importantly, Verizon is 272 00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:07,200 exploring whether to stock these glasses, and they actually 273 00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:10,880 announced that they will be. But whether or not they do what 274 00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:12,880 they did with early mobile phones, which is, you know, 275 00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:15,640 bundle it into packages that makes it a lot more affordable. 276 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,280 Or for example, giving you some smart glasses when you get a 277 00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:22,120 specific type of contract. Because if they did that, that 278 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:25,080 pricing would massively expand the total potential market for 279 00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:26,760 these glasses. The second factor I think is 280 00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:29,760 going to be the input mechanism. And, and when I say input 281 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:33,080 mechanism, the way you interact with the smart glasses, because 282 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:35,840 obviously a lot of the smartphone innovations really 283 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:38,160 hinged on how people could engage and interact with the 284 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:40,520 phone. So you went from, you know, T9 285 00:14:40,520 --> 00:14:44,600 keyboards to quality BlackBerry keyboards to then a touchscreen. 286 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:49,720 And every breakthrough led to huge numbers of new use cases 287 00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:52,640 being possible. And I think the neuroband you 288 00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:55,760 could argue is potentially equivalent as that touchscreen. 289 00:14:56,040 --> 00:14:59,880 You know, Metro invested 4 years into building this out and 290 00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:02,320 reviewers have described it as feeling quite magical. 291 00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:06,760 You know, the ability to zoom in to cameras by rotating your 292 00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:10,160 wrist or navigate interfaces through sort of like small 293 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:14,240 gestures is is really cool. And obviously the better it 294 00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:16,280 gets, the more likely people use it. 295 00:15:16,280 --> 00:15:17,760 But it's a really hard one to call. 296 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:20,280 Anyway, factor 3 I'll go into as the App Store. 297 00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:24,480 You know, the, the iPhone was really powerful at launch, but 298 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:28,160 it became like breakout successful through the App 299 00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:30,440 Store. You know, metas glasses launched 300 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:34,080 with essentially no third party ecosystem and no ability for 301 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:35,800 developers to build into it either. 302 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:39,800 So that's going to be a problem. Now, Meta obviously understand 303 00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:42,560 intimately platform dynamics. It's literally their business 304 00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:45,400 model. And they're building developer 305 00:15:45,400 --> 00:15:47,120 interest gradually. So they've got partners like 306 00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:51,760 Microsoft, Disney, and and many, many more #4 obviously is social 307 00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:53,760 acceptance. You know, early mobile phone 308 00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:56,720 users were seen as rude. Like people talking loudly in 309 00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:00,440 public would get an eye roll. And over time, of course, as 310 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,960 we've seen in at Scale, these norms do shift. 311 00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:07,120 Now everyone is very happy staring at their screen in 312 00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:09,600 public. And I think smart glasses are 313 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:11,800 going to have to overcome something quite similar. 314 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:16,560 And there's going to be unique privacy fears and concerns to 315 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:18,720 deal with as well. You know, Meta learned quite 316 00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:21,960 well from Google Glasses and the giant fairy that was Google 317 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,960 Glasses anyway. So they've gone for trying to 318 00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:28,800 style their glasses in line with Ray Bans. 319 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:31,440 That's why the partnership exists, to provide that, I 320 00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:34,680 guess, social legitimacy that pure tech companies just can't 321 00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:36,400 match. And the glasses also include a 322 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:38,760 very bright LED screen when recording. 323 00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:41,160 So again, trying to tell everyone around that these 324 00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:42,640 cameras are now recording right now. 325 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:48,160 However, even with this LED system, if venues and important 326 00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:51,520 public spaces start to ban these glasses, you know, like schools, 327 00:16:51,520 --> 00:16:56,600 gyms, offices, hospitals, then it's just limiting all the 328 00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,520 potential times and places that these glasses can be used. 329 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,720 And if all these areas become no glasses zone, then it's going to 330 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:05,480 be hard to become a mainstream product. 331 00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:08,200 And then finally is competition. Obviously Apple is going to 332 00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:10,720 develop something similar and they always launch something a 333 00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:13,800 few years later as well. And obviously they've got 334 00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:16,240 probably the most perfect position to produce something 335 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:19,200 good here because it's Apple. I think they've lost a bit of 336 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:21,280 that magic over the years, but I'm sure they can pull something 337 00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:24,200 good out the bag. And Meta really need this giant 338 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:28,600 developer market share before Apple enters because, you know, 339 00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:31,040 although Meta have that first mover advantage and it's 340 00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:36,040 building its ecosystem, Apple already have that built ready 341 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:38,000 for them. It's going to be whether a Meta 342 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,520 can really hit that ambitious number of 10 million units sold 343 00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:43,200 by 2026. And if it can do that, maybe it 344 00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:44,840 can establish itself as a real player. 345 00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:58,840 So yeah, Meta Ray Ban display represents either the dawn of, I 346 00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:02,280 guess, AI computing or an expensive reminder that being 347 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:07,720 early and 1st to market often means being wrong on timing. 348 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,520 And I guess the technology obviously largely works. 349 00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:14,800 The use cases make sense. The social barriers are probably 350 00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:17,040 lower than ever before, especially with the partnership 351 00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:20,320 with Ray Ban. But Meta do face huge challenges 352 00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:22,760 like how are you going to build up a big enough developer 353 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:24,440 ecosystem? How are you going to bring in 354 00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,280 the right big players like Apple and bringing iMessage in? 355 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:29,960 And the big question of whether people really want computers on 356 00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:33,040 their face. So right now, I'd probably put 357 00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:35,080 us in the BlackBerry era of smart glasses. 358 00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:38,760 So it's finely functional enough for some utility amongst early 359 00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,320 adopters, but probably still years away from an iPhone moment 360 00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:45,520 that drives mass adoption. And the question really is 361 00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:48,800 whether Meta can iterate fast enough to get there, or whether 362 00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:53,200 they're really just building brand and awareness or a bridge 363 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,480 for Apple to walk over. My verdict then is I'm 364 00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:58,560 cautiously optimistic. These might not change 365 00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:01,360 everything, but they could prove that change is quite inevitable, 366 00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:05,280 and sometimes being early to an inevitable change is enough. 367 00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:08,840 Anyway, thank you for listening. I hope you found today's episode 368 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:11,760 interesting and I'll see you next week.