Prototype of the metaPro which is slated to ship in June for $3,000; image via Meta
Google GOOG +1.3% Glass has raised the profile of glasses as
a new form factor for computing, and in its wake has come a raft of startups
with their own interpretations how of computers could sit on the bridge of your
nose. One of the most ambitious is Meta, a Silicon Valley startup that aims to
outdo Google on two fronts: its technology uses gesture recognition to let you
manipulate the digital objects the glasses show in front of you, using
augmented reality. It also want to avoid turning its early adopters into geeky,
“glassholes,” designing its device to
look as stylish as your average pair of sunglasses.
The first iteration of Meta’s glasses, the Meta 1 and 2,
were actually more of a headset than glasses, and more bulky than stylish. They
featured block-like frames and a strap that went around the head. On Tuesday
Meta unveiled metaPro (pictured above), an upgrade to its glasses design that
looks sleeker overall and does away with both the strap and block-like look. It
weighs 180 grams and boasts of a virtual display that’s 15 times larger than
that of Google Glass, optics that are 2 mm thin and a 40 degree field of view
aligned for stereoscopic display.
Sensors that were previously on top as a detachable block
have now been built into the brow of the glasses. Co-founder Meron Gribetz says
for the next series of metaPros after this, sensors will shrink even further to
the size of a stick of gum. The metaPro goes on sale on the Meta website
Tuesday, and the company says it will ship to consumers this June 2014.
The glasses are not wireless like Google Glass, though Meta
wants them to be eventually. Instead when wearing the device, a single cord
runs down the wearer’s back and plugs into a rectangular, mini computer in
their pocket. This mini computer is slightly larger than an iPhone, and takes
care of all the processing power and wireless connectivity for the glasses.
Meta expects early customers to use the metaPros primarily at home, virtually
connecting to their smartphones which might be in another room, so that while
holding out their bare hand in front of them they can see a virtual
manifestation of the phone and use it to take calls or
watch a film.
So far Meta has sold several hundred of its
earlier-generation devices, which each cost $667, to developers, bringing in
more than $650,000 in revenue. Among the apps that developers are currently
working on for the device: software that overlays visual instructions and vital
signs on an injured person for medical technicians, and a virtual, live-action
role playing game.
The startup is a graduate of the Y Combinator Accelerator in
Mountain View and has about 30 employees designing, engineering and batch producing
the Meta glasses out of a 23 acre property in California’s Portola Valley. Meta’s founders figured that the cost of
renting a large property where staffers could also live was about on par with
renting office space in expensive, downtown San Francisco or Palo Alto. The six-bedroom property features tennis
courts, pool and “car barn” which the founders hope to eventually fill with
software engineers.
While most of the Meta devices are assembled in a facility
in Las Vegas, a team of the startup’s hardware engineers assemble a small
proportion of the devices themselves in a spacious room that once served as a
concert hall, where the property’s previous owner played a enormous church
organ.
The unusual company received angel funding from Y Combinator
and Fenox Venture Capital and looks on course to raise more funding soon.
Gribetz, 28, started Meta in his dorm room in Columbia University in December
2012, hacking a pair of 3D glasses from Epson and fusing them with a Intel INTC
-0.34%-made camera that could track hand movements. (The current metaPro uses a
camera made by SoftKinetic.) All the software ran on the popular gaming engine
Unity 3D. Most of the tech came off-the-shelf.
“I have to build something that’s as beautiful as a pair of
designer sunglasses,” he said. “This it he culmination of hundreds of hours of
planning. How do you fit this complex componentry into something so small and
slim.”
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