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Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has today announced the fifth generation of its ‘Spectacles’ AR glasses. These new see-through, standalone AR glasses are designed to enable users to interact with ‘Lenses’ and experience the world in novel ways alongside friends.

The latest iteration of Spectacles is powered by Snap OS, an operating system crafted to enhance natural interactions with the world. The glasses are now available through Snap’s Spectacles Developer Program.

“Spectacles are the result of a decade of research and development to introduce hardware that breaks the bounds of screens and brings people together in the real world,” explained Snap.

The newly unveiled Spectacles come equipped with cutting-edge hardware. They are lightweight, tipping the scales at only 226 grams, significantly lighter compared to average VR headsets, and are outfitted with four cameras. These cameras enhance the Snap Spatial Engine, making hand tracking exceptionally smooth.

The core technology of these glasses is the Snap’s proprietary Optical Engine. This includes Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors and sophisticated waveguides that together project sharp, vibrant visuals across a 46-degree diagonal field of view with a resolution of 37 pixels per degree.

These glasses operate on a dual system-on-a-chip setup, featuring two Snapdragon processors by Qualcomm. This structure not only fosters deeper immersive experiences but also optimizes battery usage, supporting up to 45 minutes of uninterrupted use in standalone mode.

Furthermore, the glasses run on Snap OS, a custom-made operating system that users can interact with via hand gestures and voice commands. Equipped with the Snap Spatial Engine, the system swiftly responds to real-world environments, enabling Lenses to be displayed in three dimensions realistically, with a motion-to-photon delay of merely 13 milliseconds.

To encourage more developers to adopt its platform, Snap has introduced Spectacles with “no developer tax.” Moreover, the company has unveiled new tools designed to simplify the creation and distribution of Lenses.

Lens Studio 5.0, an overhauled development environment, facilitates the rapid deployment of projects to Spectacles. The newly released Spectacles Interaction Kit makes it easier to build intuitive Lenses without designing bespoke interaction systems from the ground up.

The enhanced Lens Studio now supports TypeScript and JavaScript and features advanced version control tools to assist with collaborative development projects. SnapML allows for the integration of custom machine learning models in Lenses, enabling capabilities like object recognition, tracking, and augmentation.

Snap has further solidified its technological offerings by entering into a partnership with OpenAI to incorporate cloud-based multimodal AI models into Spectacles, equipping developers with tools to enhance contextual understanding in their Spectacles experiences.

The Spectacles Developer Program is now open in the US for a subscription fee of $99 per month with a commitment duration of one year. This program offers developers access to hardware as well as dedicated support from Snap to help bring their ideas to life.

A number of prominent partners are already utilizing the capabilities offered by Lens Studio and Snap OS to develop innovative Lenses for Spectacles. Notably, the LEGO Group has introduced BRICKTACULAR, a hands-on AR game that responds to hand movements and voice instructions. ILM Immersive, a branch of Lucasfilm, is creating experiences themed around Star Wars. Furthermore, Niantic is incorporating well-known games like Peridot and Scaniverse into the platform.

With this latest initiative by Snap, there is a clear intention to make digital and physical realms intersect more smoothly. Nevertheless, the effectiveness and future popularity of Spectacles alongside Snap OS will depend heavily on the inventiveness and technological breakthroughs from its developer community.

See also: Unity scraps its ‘Runtime Fee’ following developer backlash

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