Alongside some of the world’s most recognizable brands, businesses, and institutions, we’re exploring how AR can transform everything from shopping to education. These experiences are embedded directly into the Facebook family of apps and devices to give people a new way to connect no matter where they are.
We’re working with the Smithsonian, the Palace of Versailles, and other museums and cultural institutions to bring art, history, science, and culture to life in the palm of your hand. We’re also exploring how AR can positively impact journalism, working with The New York Times to support their new AR Lab working to deliver AR news stories on Instagram and inform and entertain readers in an interactive way.
With AR, you can bring the best of in-store shopping with you anywhere. Walmart, West Elm, and Anastasia Beverly Hills are just a few of the newest brands to employ AR shopping across Facebook. AR Try On has been live in Facebook ads and with a small number of Instagram Checkout Partners since 2019, and we’re excited to bring it to Facebook Shops soon.
On Portal, we’re expanding the library of Story Time stories powered by Spark AR to better represent and celebrate the families who use them. The first entry in this new lineup will be Thank You, Omu!, the Caldecott-honored debut from Oge Mora. A heartwarming story of sharing and community, Thank You, Omu! launches on Portal next month. We’ll also bring Kevin Carrol’s A Kids Book About Belonging to Portal, and we’ll have more to share on these titles and others in the coming months.
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AR glasses research: The future of interaction
We shared our vision to build an AR glasses interface that will fundamentally change the way we interact with and experience the digital world — an interface that’s proactive rather than reactive, that’s intuitive, that understands our intent and acts almost before we know we need it. An interface that, for the first time, puts us at the center of our technology, rather than requiring us to adapt to it.
We also shared a look at our work on audio, electromyography, 3D mapping, and contextualized AI — some of the major research and development initiatives designed to tackle the problem of AR interaction. As part of this, we unveiled a new initiative called Project Aria. Starting this month, trained Facebook employees and contractors will wear Project Aria glasses in real-world conditions, indoors and outdoors, to help us answer some of the questions — both technical and social — we need to ask as we build the AR glasses of the future.
These innovations help drive our progress toward the next great computing platform with people at the center. We look forward to sharing more in the months ahead.