Mark Zuckerberg believes the next breakthrough moment in technology, comparable to the first Google search or Facebook friend request, might be Meta’s holographic glasses.
“We’re almost ready to start showing the prototype version of the fully holographic glasses, and it’s amazing,” Zuckerberg said in Interview in June with YouTuber Kallaway. “Every single person I’ve shown it to, their reaction, they’re just blown away.”
The holographic glasses transform the user’s full visual field into a three-dimensional space. Zuckerberg painted an image of him as a full hologram, or 3D digital avatar, sitting on a couch in Kallaway’s lounge.
“And it’s not just a video call, it’s not like there’s a screen and you’re there as a hologram,” he said. “We’ll be able to interact. So you want to play cards, it’s a hologram, we interact.”
Zuckerberg explained that artists could create art together and content creators could collaborate on latest projects in the type of holograms.
This technology comes at a price, but the exact cost has not yet been announced.
Zuckerberg said the fully holographic glasses will cost “significantly more” than the $300 Ray-Ban Meta glasses currently on the market, and that Meta doesn’t plan to right away sell its glasses to everyone.
“We’re focused on creating a full consumer version, not selling a prototype,” he said.
Meta still intends to indicate a wider audience what the prototype can do — Zuckerberg admitted he’s “really looking forward to it.”
Another example of a disruptive product, in response to Zuckerberg, is the upcoming Meta neural wristbands. The futuristic wristbands receive brain signals without the need for wires or anything attached to the brain, and are designed to one day perform tasks like typing on a keyboard and controlling a computer mouse.
Zuckerberg said the ability to create breakthrough products like holographic glasses or neural headbands sets technology apart from other fields.
“In many other fields you can do the same thing for a long time, but in technology every now and then something comes along that opens up new possibilities and you have to rethink what you’re doing,” he said.
Meta is currently the industry leader in virtual reality, drawing 37.2% AR/VR market share in Q1 2024, in comparison with Apple’s 17%.