Facebook Is Working on an Amazingly Hideous Augmented Reality Fedora – Futurism

Please, for the love of god, brace yourselves for what youre about to see. Facebook was just awarded a patent for, uh, stylish augmented reality (AR) headwear and its a real doozy.

First, some credit for poor old Facebook and its terrible AR hats. Current mixed reality headgear is bulky, cumbersome, and all-around not great. These new designs, Gizmodo notes, at least make an attempt to incorporate the display into existing articles of clothing and, by moving hardware away from the wearers face, could theoretically make AR headgear more comfortable.

But take a quick scroll through the patent, which was published Tuesday and first spotted by the law firm Founders Legal, and youll see that even the little dude in the design mockups looks like he doesnt want to be there. I mean, just look at him. He looks like hes trying to escape his own hat.

Folks, youre gazing at the mildly-recoiling face of the future. Only the brain-geniuses at Facebook could come up with a mixed reality display that can fold up and out of sight when you dont feel like using it but that also somehow simultaneously dangles from the edge of a baseball cap and balances on the wearers nose.

If baseball caps arent your style, dont worry! Facebook thought ahead and also released designs that would work with a visor, a cowboy hat, and even a fedora finally allowing you to offer a tangible tip of the hat to your virtual waifu. No, mom, you dont need to google that.

To be fair, nobody can say for sure what the mixed reality headsets of the future will look like, nor can they predict which designs will take off versus which ones will get laughed out of existence. But it does seem reasonable to assume that subtlety will win out, and that an AR display embedded into a pair of glasses would probably be more popular than, well, whatever these monstrosities are.

Of course, creating a functional mixed reality device that looks like regular eyeglasses is a much trickier engineering challenge than utilizing all the extra space afforded by a hat. But if it worked, you at least wouldnt need to walk around in public doing whatever it is that this woman is up to.

READ MORE: Google Glass Was Ugly, but Facebooks AR Baseball Hat Might Actually Be Worse [Gizmodo]

More on augmented reality: Augmented Reality Is Changing the Cosmetics Industry Forever

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Facebook Is Working on an Amazingly Hideous Augmented Reality Fedora - Futurism