Meta Pro – the glasses which can ACTUALLY beat Google Glass!
Unless you probably live under a rock or you are new to the tech world, you probably have an inkling, howsoever small, as to what Augmented Reality (AR) & Google Glass is. For those who don’t, it is an upcoming tech field which enhances your vision by enabling to view certain new things (previously not there) – thus the name, ‘Augmented Reality‘.
This burgeoning sector is increasingly attracting more and more attention. To give you a simple, popular and exceptional example, take a look at the Google Glass video below that took the world by storm when unveiled, resulting in the words “Augmented Reality” and Google being used almost synonymously henceforth.
To be honest with you, it made me, at least, want to go and break the bank – even if it meant laying my hands only on a Developer Preview version! Alas, my banker and bank balance both almost died laughing when I told them of my plans!
Having seen for yourself what AR possibly means, what if I NOW told you that Google Glass was practically just a PLAYTHING / TOY for the uninitiated/unintelligible ??!
Yup!! You heard me right! After you’re done with the rest of this article, I’m sure you’ll agree too!
Chances are that you’ve never probably heard of the Meta Pro Glasses / the Space Glasses. On the other hand, you’ve probably heard of and seen the Iron Man movies (atleast!). Have a look at the following video before I proceed –
That mindboggling video you just saw was that of a certain Meta Pro Glasses – the coolest new product from one of the hottest new startups in the bay Area. As is glaringly evident from the above video, both, the Space Glasses and the brains behind it, are hell bent on redefining the meaning of the words “Augmented Reality”! While the Meta Pro Glasses seem to have been picked right out of one of the Iron Man movies sets, they are inching closer to a commercial release than is expected. Less than just a year back, they were distributing the developer version of the same (Meta .01)! Let’s get to know about this proposed “Apple of augmented reality” in detail in the subsequent sections.
Inception – How it all started!
Started less than 3 years back in the December of 2012 with a seed funding of $1 Million by CEO and founder Meron Gribetz, Meta is NOT his only claim to fame! The surprisingly young Gribetz (just about 27-28 years old!) was one of the pioneers even behind the ubiquitous QR codes we are so habituated to today. In his own words,
“Since I started the company, we have collaborated with Epson and a number of other companies to create the world’s first consumer device that was built from the ground up for AR.”
A devout follower of the legendary Steve Jobs, Gribetz’s started his startup in his alma mater, Columbia University, and has since shifted his crew – which boasts of other legendary pioneers like Steve Mann & Steve Feiner – to probably one of the most unusual of locations – a Los Altos MANSION with as breathtaking a view as their idea! Take a look –
What exactly does this wacky device do?!
My bad – it’s just that this is probably more exciting than even going to Baskin & Robbins for me!
All right, getting down to the question asked, these glasses are meant for anybody and everybody who ever wanted to be like Robert Downey Jr. in the Iron Man series! Seriously. Having ingested a considerable amount of information pertaining to the glasses, I’d say that the scope, potential and future of this product seems to go only one way – up.
Consider it like this – whilst Google Glass and others only show alerts and other information, Meta also allows you to immerse your world and even interact with virtual 3D objects by overlaying them on the real world in front of you. While there a string of technologies which set it apart from the herd, Meta’s crown jewels have to be the 2 which form the very crux of the entire project – its Surface Tracking & Hand Tracking algorithms. These are based on some pioneering work of their very own Chief Scientist & the the Father of Wearable Computing, Steve Mann
To save you from a load of tech jargon, the awe-inducing work on these algorithms along with the incorporation of info, provided by the 9-axis inertial measurement unit in the glasses, enables a Meta user to eventually fling different computing windows onto just about any walls and have them stick there — virtually, letting them place a window, look elsewhere, and come back to find the window where they left it!
As is want with their mentor, Apple, Meta too is not averse to the idea of using and improving pre-existing technology in a way such that the final result is greater than the sum of the two individual technologies. Thus, it also used SoftKinect’s motion sensor technology to start tracking a user’s hands with almost zero latency – a necessary essential to provide users with the much-desired natural user experience – thereby, even eliminating the need to first calibrate the system after being worn.
Software that propels the Meta Pro Glasses
The primary reason why you feel that these glasses offer a Iron Man feel is that Gribertz & co have indeed brought over Jayse Hanson, the man responsible for Iron Man’s heads-up display in the films, to help design the user interface which seem pretty exciting from their videos. To add further bang for your buck, they have even tied up with Dolby Digital to provide 3D sound too! Meta takes user gestures for interacting with the software – like the thumbs up for the Facebook like, the hand gun for its multi-player 3D Laser Tag and so on.
Moreover, Meta claims that they will also have their own App store and already has 500+ apps for users!
Hardware Specification
Meta has outbeaten all it’s competitors with a plethora of hardware features – the most beautiful of which has got to be the INCREDULOUSLY thin see-through optics, which boast of being used by the military and aviation sectors, which provide a 40-degree field of vision(FOV). Each display (premium quality Zeiss lens) is built to play 720p HD (1280X720p), and with two of them, they’re aligned to display stereoscopic 3D.
Dual RGB video and photo sensors form an integral part of the sensor arrays, along with an accelerometer which can track upto nine-axis, compass and gyroscope. The Meta Pro has a 15x larger virtual screen than Google Glass, and provides a 3-D interface instead of just the 2-D one provided atop the Glass. Not only are Meta’s optics much thinner, at 2mm vs 5mm, but its sensors, coupled with the futuristic software, can also recognize hand gestures, thereby providing a much easier (not to forget – cooler) way to control and interact with the product.
Meta has coupled their little gizmo with a pretty powerful wearable computer in order to run the software seamlessly- an Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 128Gb of storage, 802.11n WiFi & Bluetooth 4.0 powered by a 32WHr battery.
Hardware design
The Meta Pro prototype has been touted to cost Grebertz & co a whooping $30000 to build! Having said that, they obviously used the best materials available. In fact, they have been designed by Martin Hasek, an industrial designer who previously even worked for Nike. However, his services, howsoever costly, have not gone in vain – the Pro Glasses exude an astoundingly cool retro theme, in my personal opinion, compared to their model used for development – the Meta .01 Dev Kit.
Cost of Meta Pro Glasses?
This is probably one of the only places where Meta Pro seems to lose its edge over competitors like Google Glass’ Explorer Edition as the Meta Pro is available for pre-order at a cool $3600 while the Meta .01 Developer Kit retails at a seemingly measly $667! By comparison, the Google Glass’ EE retails at $1500.
However, one look at the abundant features and capabilities of the Meta Space Glasses and one is sure to ditch Google without thinking twice. Agreed $3600 is definitely not cheap, but it can be argued that neither is blowing up $1500 on a seemingly childish gadget – especially one which is visibly antiquated in front of competition already!
The only other aspect where Google is availability – it is more than likely that you will receive the Explorer Edition almost immediately (provided you stay in the US or UK), whereas you will have to wait till the start of next year to lay your paws on the coveted edition of Meta Pro Glasses.
Conclusion
Having dissected the Meta Pro Glasses at length above, I’d like to recapitulate that this product is a uniquely distinct one. One which is brave enough to venture out into the wild on its own – and not just hold its ground, but even capture previously explored & unexplored territories. One whose potential is belied by the fact that no one can truly, at least currently, estimate its potential – something common to all the Facebooks, Amazons and Googles when they began. One which displays all the portents of a company out to wreck havoc on the tech world and take it by storm – starting this very year!
I’d like to end with the words of Ben Grubb over at TechCrunch, “The future is here and it’s projecting itself right back at me”. ‘Nuff said!
