Facebook Engineer Asserts That Augmented Reality Will Replace Smartphones in 5 Years – Futurism

In Brief At Facebook's developer conference last week, Oculus Research predicted that AR glasses would replace smartphones in the near future. The ability to augment reality is just one of the futuristic technologies Facebook is working on. Augmenting Technologies

Last week, Facebooks annual developer conference (FB8) gave us a glimpse of the future. While most of the announcements made during the event were meant for developers, it doesnt take a techie to understand how they will impact the lives of Facebooks more than 90 million consumers.

One of the most interesting project announcements came from Facebooks uber-secretive Building 8 (B8). The divisionis currently working on a top-secret brain-computer interface (BCI)similar to Elon Musks neuralink, but that BCI project isnt the only future tech Facebook currently has in the works.

According to Michael Abrash, chief scientist at Facebook-owned Oculus Research, super augmented reality (AR) glasses could replace smartphones as the everyday computing gadget in the next five years.

Its definitely not an outlandish prediction. Abrash explained that despite all the current hype around AR, the tech hasnt yet reached its defining moment. [I]t will be five years at best before were really at the start of the ramp to widespread, glasses-based augmented reality, before AR has its Macintosh moment, he said on Day 2 of FB8.

Widespread adoption, however, would take a few more years. 20 or 30 years from now, I predict that instead of carrying stylish smartphones everywhere, well wear stylish glasses, claimed Abrash. Those glasses will offer [virtual reality], AR, and everything in between, and well use them all day.

IfFacebooks Oculus team has any say, these super AR glasses would be capable of far more than just augmenting reality. They could give the user superpowers by enhancing the wearers memory, providing them with instant foreign and sign language translation, and isolating and muting distracting sounds and noise.

Facebook isnt the only company invested in AR. Apple CEO Tim Cook has also been rather bullish about AR as the technology of the future, and with so many tech behemoths involved, five years seems like a completely realistic timeline for tech that will change everything about reality as we know it. After that, itll be on to combining these AR glasses with BCI, and thats a truly high-tech future worth waiting for.

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Facebook Engineer Asserts That Augmented Reality Will Replace Smartphones in 5 Years - Futurism