Business
AR glasses are here: Snap launches spectacles at LA summit and its own OS to power it
The fifth generation Snap spectacles, which the company says weigh 226 gram, sit lightly on the eyes and behave like usual glasses till you power it up and it conjures a screen that lets you have fun or get creative with a range of lenses.
With big tech seeing the virtues of AR glasses, which are different from the opaque and chunkier VR headsets, Snap is first off the blocks in this new class of wearables. Meta is believed to be poised to introduce its own AR glasses too.
The Snap spectacles, which are a standalone device and can be operated by pinch gestures of your right hand and a virtual console that opens on your left palm, work by projecting an overlapping AR image on your view and so don’t cut you off from reality.
For example, if you are sitting in your living room, you can play a game of virtual chess on your real table wearing the spectacles – lifting pieces with pinch gestures and making your moves on the virtual board – while sipping on a (real) cup of coffee. The table, the chess board and pieces and the cup of coffee – you see all three clearly.
Snap described the spectacles as “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”.
The spectacles can also be paired with a phone through Snap’s ‘Spectacles’ app, which lets one use the phone as a game controller and also mirror the phone screen. The ‘spectator mode’ feature allows group activity with the spectacles. For example, two players can play that game of chess if both are wearing the spectacles.
The new AR glasses were launched by Snap co-founder Evan Spiegel at the Santa Monica-based company’s main annual event, Snap Partner Summit, at the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles.
“Tech can be way better than it is today. We can’t be bound by screens forever. We need something more intuitive, more human,” Spiegel said.
Snap also announced a partnership with OpenAI that will open up artificial intelligence models to lens developers using the new AR glasses. As Spiegel put it, “no tech event in 2024 is complete without an OpenAI partnership”. Like image-generating AI tools, its Easy Lens can do the same to instantly generate lenses.
At the summit, the company also announced Lego Games launching ‘Bricktacular’ for the spectacles, a partnership with Niantic, and a Star Wars Galaxy experience being crafted by ILM Immersive, Lucasfilm’s interactive studi0.
The spectacles, the company said, will be available for now only to lens developers, including those from India, working with Snap for a $99 monthly subscription.
Features
The Snap AR glasses are equipped with four cameras that power Snap Spatial Engine and enable hand tracking. The Optical Engine has been designed to enable a see-through AR display.
The glasses work through liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors that create vivid images and have waveguides that make it possible to see the images created by the LCoS projector without the need for calibrations or custom fittings. They have a 13 millisecond motion-to-photon latency that give, the company said, “incredible accuracy, integrating them naturally into your environment”.
The Optical Engine delivers a 46-degree diagonal field of view with a 37 pixel per degree resolution – similar to a 100-inch display which is 10 feet away. The glasses tint automatically based on surrounding light and work indoor and outdoor.
The dual system-on-a-chip architecture with two Snapdragon processors splits the compute workload on the spectacles while titanium vapour chambers dissipate heat. The company announced a runtime on a single charge of up to 45 minutes.
“We want to be the most developer-friendly platform in the world and empower developers to invest in building amazing lenses,” the company said in a statement, while announcing that the spectacles would have no developer tax and would give developers new ways to build and share lenses. “Instead of a complicated compiling process, the newly rebuilt Lens Studio 5.0 lets developers quickly push their project to spectacles,” it said.
Simplified Snapchat
Snap also announced at the summit it is testing “a new and simplified Snapchat that organises the app around communicating with friends, using the camera, and watching snaps from friends and the broader Snapchat community, including creators and publishers”.
“We’ve been working on unifying Stories and Spotlight for some time. Now, with this new and simplified design, Snapchatters will have a more personal and relevant viewing experience,” it said.
Initial claims decreased by 12,000 to 219,000 in the week ended September 14, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was below all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The period also corresponds with the so-called reference week when the survey is conducted for the September employment report.
Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, also dropped in the previous week, to the lowest in three months.
The four-week moving average, a metric that helps smooth out volatility in the data, fell to 227,500, the lowest since June.
What Bloomberg economics says…
“Initial jobless claims declined more than expected in the survey week for September’s employment report, due in part to difficulty adjusting the data around a major holiday like Labor Day. Claims tend to be depressed in holiday-shortened weeks, then rebound the following week — so the current data have limited value as a guide to September’s payroll print,” said Eliza Winger.
Claims for unemployment benefits have remained subdued in recent months even as labor demand cooled. The US central bank’s decision to lower interest rates by a half percentage point this week reflected policymakers’ intention to maintain what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell described as “still a solid” labor market.
“We’re trying to achieve a situation where we restore price stability without the kind of painful increase in unemployment that has come sometimes with disinflation,” Powell said during a press conference Wednesday following the rate-cut announcement.
Initial claims, before adjustment for seasonal factors, rose by 6,436 to 184,845. Texas, New York and California saw the largest increases. Applications in Massachusetts fell by the most since the end of April.
Business
Stock market today: BSE Sensex hits fresh lifetime high, goes above 83,600; Nifty50 above 25,550
Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Research, Wealth Management at Motilal Oswal, says, “A 25bps rate cut is already discounted and can lead to profit booking in the market.However, a 50bps rate cut by the Fed could bring some cheer to market sentiments. Also, Fed commentary will be important as it will give clarity on the quantum and duration of the rate cut cycle. We expect the market to remain volatile in the near term with rate-sensitive sectors in focus.”
Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities noted that the short-term trend of Nifty remains positive with range-bound action, and any dips to the support levels of 25,200-25,100 could present a buying opportunity. A decisive move above 25,500 levels might propel Nifty towards higher targets.
In the global markets, U.S. stocks closed with modest losses on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 basis points, exceeding expectations. The S&P 500 futures rose 0.5%, while Japan’s Topix gained 2%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2%. Euro Stoxx 50 futures also climbed 0.7%.
In the forex market, the euro, Japanese yen, and offshore yuan experienced slight declines against the US dollar. Oil prices fell in Asian trading on Thursday following the larger-than-expected Federal Reserve interest rate cut, which raised concerns about the U.S. economy.
Several stocks are in the F&O ban period today, including Balrampur Chini Mills, Hindustan Copper, GNFC, RBL Bank, PNB, Bandhan Bank, Biocon, Birlasoft, LIC Housing Finance, and Granules. Foreign portfolio investors turned net buyers with Rs 1154 crore, while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 152 crore. The net long position of FIIs increased from Rs 2.2 lakh crore on Tuesday to Rs 2.37 lakh crore on Wednesday.
The Federal Reserve’s decision was supported by an 11-to-1 vote in favor of reducing the benchmark rate to a range between 4.75 percent and 5.00 percent.The larger-than-expected rate cut surprised some analysts who had anticipated a quarter-point decrease. Additionally, policymakers projected an extra half-point of cuts by the end of this year and a further percentage point of cuts in 2025.
Meanwhile, major US stock indices fluctuated between positive and negative territory following the Fed’s decision. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 103.08 points, or 0.25%, to 41,503.10, the S&P 500 lost 16.32 points, or 0.29%, to 5,618.26 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 54.76 points, or 0.31%, to 17,573.30. Briefing.com noted that the Fed’s decision would be met “with both elation and criticism,” as the larger rate cut could appease those who believe the Fed is lagging in preventing a hard landing. However, it may also face criticism from those who think the more aggressive rate cut was unwarranted given broader economic trends, with concerns that it could reignite inflation.
During a news conference, Powell described the US economy as being in “good shape,” highlighting lower inflation and robust growth. He emphasized the Fed’s desire to maintain a strong labor market. The decision to implement a larger rate cut was based on various economic data points, leading policymakers to conclude that monetary decisions had been “appropriately restrictive” and that a “more neutral” approach was now necessary. Powell signaled that investors should expect more interest rate cuts in the future but cautioned that the central bank would proceed carefully and evaluate the matter “meeting by meeting.”
In Europe, stock markets in Paris and London closed lower, while Frankfurt ended the day flat. The dollar initially experienced a significant drop against the euro and other currencies but later recovered. The Fed now anticipates only a half-percentage point of cuts remaining in 2024, which is lower than the three-quarter percentage point that traders had been expecting. Traders are now focusing on the upcoming announcement by the Bank of England on Thursday. The central bank is expected to maintain its current stance following a regular meeting, as official data released on Wednesday showed that British annual inflation remained at 2.2 percent in August.
(With inputs from agencies)
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