Facebook's new augmented reality smart glasses will have to meet privacy requirements if they ever hit the market, experts say.
Facebook AR Glasses Interface
The sensor-packed Project Aria glasses are an experiment intended to collect data and gauge public perception of the technology. The market for AR is expected to grow, but Google's "Glass" brand of smart glasses, released in 2013, were pulled from the consumer market after backlash.
“All of these things are so new that the laws and the habits of people are lagging behind,” Eric Nersesian, who studies augmented reality at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said in a telephone interview. “Even people who are doing the technology don’t have a full understanding of the field, let alone people who are older or outside the field. So there are still questions about how to figure out how to create effective laws that protect people’s privacy but still make the technology useful to the industry.”
The Project Aria glasses have cameras, microphones and other sensors that project a constantly updating map. In the initial testing phase, about 100 Facebook employees will use the glasses to capture as much of their surroundings as possible. The data will be used to build software the company calls LiveMaps, which will map the inside of buildings.
