Update: September 13, 2021: As we announced at Facebook Connect last year, the goal of Project Aria is to help Facebook Reality Labs researchers build the software and hardware necessary for future AR glasses by capturing data from a first-person perspective in the types of situations in which people will eventually use them. While Project Aria has been used in public spaces in the US for the past year, we want to ensure our eventual products work in different cultural contexts equally well. As such, we need to start collecting and training our algorithms on a variety of data. Singapore is home to a wide range of cultures, ethnicities, and religions, and also serves as our hub for teams in the region. Starting in September, some Facebook employees and contractors will capture data with the Project Aria device in a handful of public landmarks in Singapore. While this is the first time we will be using the device in public places outside of the US, we are excited to bring this research to other regions in the coming months.
As part of our continuing series of updates from Facebook Reality Labs Research, we’ve shared how our researchers are designing lifelike avatars for VR and showcased our latest work in brain-computer interface and spatial audio and enhanced hearing. Today, we’re excited to unveil Project Aria — a new research project that will help us build the first generation of wearable augmented reality devices.