Meta and the Battle for Smart Glasses | Google's Return | 3

22:26David Brown:You've said so much there that I think is so important because that's what happened organically with the smartphone. when people found ways to incorporate the smartphone into their everyday lives in ways that probably weren't even conceived of by the initial designers. And that led to a whole, you know, infrastructure. But listen, we got to talk about some of the downsides here, and we're going to do that in just a moment. My guests are Wired Magazine senior editor Julian Chokatu and staff writer Boone Ashworth. When we come back, we're going to take a look at some of the thorny ethical issues that surround smart glasses.

23:00David Brown:Stay with us.

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24:30David Brown:Transcription by CastingWords so you can be just as fascinating. All in one easy app with plans now starting at£5.99. You'll get access to over 900 ,000 audiobooks and podcasts, including trending bestsellers, the hottest new releases, and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audiobook every month plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at£5.99. Audible. Be fascinated. Be fascinating.

25:10David Brown:Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. My guests are Julian Chokatu and Boone Ashworth from Wired's Gear Desk. You know, we've been talking mainly about the technology, what smart glasses can and can't do. Guys, do you mind if I share something with you? And I'm not sure that this goes to the can or can't situation, but I got a pair of the Gen 2 glasses. And when I was setting them up, I had to, you know, integrate it with my smartphone. So you download an app to do that. And as I was typing in all this information, I was reminded about why I left Facebook years ago. You know, I was kind of you're both laughing.

25:47David Brown:And I was thinking, you know, I just don't want Facebook looking over my shoulder all the time when when I'm on my computer. And then I realized, what am I buying into? It's going to be looking at the world through my own eyes in a sense, right? And sucking in all of that data and knowing far more about me as a person than it could have ever really picked up from the inferences that you can draw based on how you use your computer. It was really seeing the world as you see it. And I'm wondering if that's given you any, I don't know, pause or maybe creeped you out a little bit. Or am I just being too paranoid here?

26:28No, I think that is the number one thing. I think that a lot of people also, especially in the wave of Meta's popularity with the glasses, I think the number one rejection was that, but it's Meta. Like, you know, Meta has just a really bad history with privacy and managing your data and all of the above. It's just not a good company from that outlook. And I think anyone who is interested in trying to keep their data private would probably not want to buy the Meta glasses. Boone probably can say the same. Boone, what do you think? Yeah, 100%. I mean, one of the reasons I'm kind of excited to see where Google is going with its glasses is not because, you know, Google is like the good guy necessarily, but it's just it will be nice to have something that feels like viable smart glasses that isn't made by Meta.

27:20just because meta has, as Julie was saying, just this whole track record of privacy issues that have gone wrong. I believe they're being sued right now because very sensitive videos had been uploaded to a meta subcontractor who then saw videos that people had recorded on their glasses and didn't know that they were sharing. So things like people naked, people using the bathroom, people having sex. Like you have to be careful what you're filming on your smart glasses because that might wind up somewhere that you were not expecting.

27:52David Brown:I have these visions of putting the glasses on the bedside table. Oh, my gosh. I'm talking to you specifically, David. Be careful. I didn't mean me specifically. You guys are cruel. But, of course, this is another thing, right? Because you go into, I don't know, you go into a gym and you're wearing these glasses and they see this guy come in with his Ray-Bans on. And everyone kind of does a double take, you know, looking for, is that red light on on the temples there? What's, you know, and, you know, there's the question of what ethically we should or shouldn't be able to do with these glasses.

28:33David Brown:But, you know, the ability to record everything without people always, you know, being aware of it. What are some of the biggest privacy concerns that you see coming along with these products? Julian, what would you say? I mean, I think it has to be the camera is like number one, because it drives everything else. You know, the same thing, like if Meta wanted to add facial recognition, you know, I think last year it was some students found a way to add facial recognition tracking software into the Meta glasses. And they were able to correctly identify people who were riding the subway. So, you know, that kind of tech can obviously and always be used for nefarious purposes.

29:14But I think ultimately the camera is the number one thing that I think it's up to these companies to really figure out a way to make it so that people can't go around the hardware and actually find ways to disable the recording light for the camera, which is a common thing a lot of people are doing with the metaglasses. but also i think designing them in a way where maybe modular cameras you can remove so that maybe if you're entering a sensitive environment you don't have to take your old glasses off and maybe if your glasses wear like i am have to carry a second pair of glasses but maybe you can just pop the cameras off or something i think a lot of social uh cues will form as more and more people probably will end up buying and wearing and using these glasses um but i think we'll see a bit of, you know, maybe we'll see science saying, no, met our glasses, please, or something to that effect.

30:04But I think a lot of the responsibility still falls to these companies because they're the ones pushing the technology. They should be responsible for keeping it safe, private, and, you know, minimize that data breach risk.

30:18David Brown:Well, I mean, glass holes, that whole thing kind of really deep-sixed Google's first iteration. And I wonder, Boone, if you think that maybe meta is vulnerable here. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, people are calling them pervert glasses. Our colleague, Myles Klee, just wrote a story about the rise of the meta ray-ban creep. And my other colleague, Reese Rogers, also on the GoDesk, and I wrote about people who are removing the lights with the indicator lights on the meta glasses that tell you when somebody's recording and you can find whole TikTok streams of people saying you can go in and drill it you can put a cover over you can do this so I think like an element of this is just human behavior but people are always going to use technology for ill at some point I do think you know meta has to get on top of that a little bit more and I think that the way that that's going is that people are going to be very critical of this technology when people use them in this way.

31:20Yeah. And I also think that like, you know, obviously we saw Google Glass start more than 10 years ago, stop and fail. And then we hadn't really heard a ton of other smart glasses in between. There were a few, but not not really from any major major companies. But I don't think at this point, smart glasses is going to go away like it's too big. All the big companies are making them. This is for sure going to be a very real part of our tech gadget sort of life cycle products for you now, much like the Apple Watch or smartwatches in general. So I think we're just going to have to see how these companies respond to how people use and maybe abuse the products.

31:59They look good, but it would be nice if they do good as well.

32:04David Brown:Yeah, for sure. Listen, what is this segment called? Does it have a name? Because already the brands are putting their own name on it, you know, Google Glass and Meta Glasses. Yeah, I mean, I think they're just the smart glasses category. And what's interesting is that, you know, the category is really wide. Right now, like sort of like what Boone mentioned initially, the glasses he was talking about testing earlier, those are like display specific glasses where you kind of plug them into a smartphone, a gaming console or a laptop. And you can like project your laptop screen to the to the glasses to see something so you don't have to crane your neck down all the time.

32:44Like great for something like an airport or an airplane. but that's a very different category compared to these more you know stylish glasses that are designed to be walked around with and this ai features to sort of work with you throughout the day and then there's also that other category of glasses that's like more accessibility minded so earlier last year the nuance is a brand from esl or luxotica they came out with hearing aid glasses and these are supposed to be you know for people who with low to moderate levels of hearing loss you can just wear these glasses and they try to beam in on the area that you're looking at and improve the audio that picks up and route them through the speakers.

33:18So that's another category. Now, you know, we're going to see we're seeing transcription glasses for hard of hearing people who can also now see the text of what people are saying on these glasses as well. So I think there's going to be all sorts of these types of categories popping up and each going to be tailored to specific things, just like how phones and wearables are kind of doing that right now.

33:39David Brown:We're going to hit the pause button. And when we come back, we're going to get a first look at Google's brand new Android XR and talk about the future of smart glasses. Stay with us.

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35:59David Brown:Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. I'm here with Julian Chukatu and Boone Ashworth from Wired. Now, just a few weeks ago, you both co-authored an article that previewed Google's new Android XR line of smart glasses. First, I got to ask, how'd you get that first look? Julian's just built different. Just good building relationships over a long time. Well, how does it work? Do they bring you in and you have to get your eyeballs scanned and go through a number of security doors and all of that stuff? Top secret facility, 007? Not going to lie, fairly light on the security, actually. But it was at Google's campus.

36:46They brought us into a demo room. And they had my prescription already, so they just put prescriptions inserts on the glasses so that I could try them on. and they do that for everyone who comes in so that they don't have to you know retrofit other types of lenses or whatever but basically i got to try the reference design which wasn't the final version that is going to come out later this year for morby parker and gentle monster the reference design is what like the hardware version that google and samsung have been working on privately and the technology will be what's in available on the devices later this year wait a

37:17David Brown:I mean, did you say Samsung is teaming up here? Yeah, so Android XR is sort of a cross-collaboration between Samsung and Google. So they're working both on the hardware and software. You could say that Google is maybe working more on the software side, and Samsung is helping with the hardware. And then, of course, the design comes from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Nice. And how do they look? Do they look as good as the Metas? They pass for completely normal glasses. I think you can still see the cameras, obviously. So I think they're a little more stylish than the Ray-Bans, but maybe I will get some flack for that.

37:52They felt very lightweight, which is a very important thing because who wants to wear these really bulky things all day on your head? And the version I tried technically had the full feature set. They're basically three types of glasses that Google is making, audio only, a single display, and then a double binocular display. And the binocular display sort of gives you that full feature set where it's like a rich display experience. The single display is, you know, almost the same. It's just a slightly lesser display capabilities. And then the audio version is what's coming out first. And that's more akin to the Gen 2 metaglasses where, you know, you can hear what the assistant is saying and you can talk to the assistant, but you can't just see any visual data.

38:33David Brown:Very interesting. Boone, how do you feel about these glasses and what's the difference between this new iteration and, say, the metaglasses if you had to single out any particular feature? Yeah, they're slightly less dorky than the original Google Glass, I'll say that. I didn't get to try them the way Julian did, but I'm excited to see what they do. I'm also particularly excited to see how Google's Gemini AI works in them because I have experience with the metaglasses and I don't think that meta's AI is quite on the level that Gemini is right now. And so I'm interested to see how they pull off putting that stuff in their glasses.

39:15During the I.O. event, when Google was announcing these glasses, they definitely were focusing less on content capture and trying to film the world around you and more just using the cameras as a way to guide you through the world. So I think that's definitely a focus that Google is going for. And I'm curious to see how that plays out for them.

39:37David Brown:That's interesting. Where do you think this is going in the short term? Are we going to start to see the sort of similar walled off gardens the way that we have iPhone and Android? We're going to have the Google Glass functionalities. They're all going to have certain strengths and Meta is going to have its strengths. I think that's kind of their dream, right, is having you locked in that walled garden. I do think Google's approach is a little broader because of Android XR allows third-party developers to build on it, whereas Meta's is doing its own thing. I think in general, the future of smart glasses is, like Julian was saying earlier, more niche, trying to make them lighter.

40:23And I think there's going to be a lot of smaller brands really fighting it out. And I think they're going to struggle in the face of these giants. Yeah, but I think one thing where this may play out slightly differently also, though, compared to smartphones, is that this is such a design-focused product. like you put this on your face and i think there's opportunities for smaller companies who really lean into that and try new things and play into that design factor where maybe they can actually get someone interested enough if they have the technology right as well to produce something that maybe they'll collect like a niche group of people who want to wear that versus what is sort of the trendy or more popular google or metaglasses right so i think that does play a factor because, you know, it's just such a big design play.

41:10That's a great point.

41:11David Brown:You know, I wonder, is there anything left of AR and VR? Is that pretty much off the table? Is everything sort of focused on AI right now? And how does that factor into what's happening in this smart glasses space? Well, so I think a lot of it is actually converging, especially around AR specifically. Like, you know, a big part of these smart glasses, especially with the display is that with the cameras, you'll be able to layer things over the real world and see them through the display. And so that augmented experience still follows through, especially something like you're navigating with Google glasses and you have Google Maps pulled up right over the real world.

41:48But I think the other very interesting thing that we also saw at that event two weeks ago is this Project Aura that is coming from a company called Xreal, who's developing Android XR glasses with Google, you know, Samsung and Apple have their very bulky mixed reality headsets like the Vision Pro. What Xreal is doing is what I saw in their demo is essentially 90 % of that functionality brought down to something that is the size of a pair of smart glasses. It is incredibly lightweight. I was able to use my fingers to like click on apps, like full Android apps, run them, play a game, even just like move around.

42:25I could see the world around me. one of the things they showed me was oh you could like even watch a video and fling it to the side of your eyes while you're washing the dishes um so it had full android xr capabilities so like all the typical android apps you can access um all in something that is essentially a pair of glasses except the downside is that thing does have a wire connected to a battery pack that you have to put in your pocket so there is a compromise there but the fact that we went from something like last year or two years ago with something as heavy and bulky as an Apple Vision Pro to already seeing something like this in a much slimmer, more comfortable form factor.

43:00I think you can imagine in five or so years, that stuff was just going to miniaturize more and more. And maybe you're basically going to run a full phone experience with apps and all on something like smart glasses in five, seven, 10 years.

43:14David Brown:It seems like it's conspicuous in its absence. We haven't really talked about Apple. Are they a player in this space at all from what you can tell, Boone? Have you heard anything from Cupertino? Oh, they're getting there, I'm sure. Right? Someday, maybe, eventually. I think they're probably working on it. I think they had a little bit of a setback with their Vision Pro, which was really heavy and was very expensive and didn't quite reach. I mean, it was a developer device, so I think it probably reached an audience they were expecting, but they haven't really iterated on that very much. But I think the pressure to get into the smart glasses space is definitely probably pretty high in Cupertino right now.

43:59So I imagine they're working on it. WWDC is soon. I don't know if we'll hear anything about that. That's their developer conference.

44:07David Brown:The Big Apple Conference. Yes. So I don't know if we'll hear anything about it there, but I imagine there is something going on. You know, when will we know, when do you think most people will be convinced that the age of smart glasses has arrived? It's one thing if you guys are plugged into what's going on there in, you know, Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area and all that, that's going to be, I would imagine, you're going to have a higher concentration of people using these glasses. But, say, here in Austin, which, you know, thinks of itself as a big tech city, even if there's some question about that, I'm a little surprised that for all the talk about how metaglasses have taken off, that I don't think I've seen any in the wild yet.

44:55David Brown:And if you look at the raw numbers, 9 million is a lot, but, you know, it's hardly a saturation point. Well, I think we're getting close.

45:33warming up to the idea. I'm interested to see how this backlash goes, because there's going to be a real push against it. And I think, honestly, the answer for a bit is probably going to lie with Gen Z and see what the kids want to wear. Julian, what's the tipping point for you? Yeah, I mean, I feel like it may not be obvious, but if you go on social media today, you can subtly notice that a lot of videos are being filmed by some of these glasses, because people don't have a phone in their hand or it's clearly coming, the video feed is coming from their head. So I think there's a lot of this content capture that's been happening and people are slowly kind of noticing it and that they're...

46:14We don't even realize it. Right. And then they're then saying, oh, look how convenient that is. He can have his full hands and mobility and do all the things he wants to do in this video, but he can still record it without having to worry about holding up a phone. So I think when we're already seeing that sort of stuff I've you know sometimes look at those videos and see comments where people are like oh what do you how did you capture this and they're saying oh with the meta glasses so I think as more and more content is being created about them I think naturally it's gonna get more and more popular you know later this year we're gonna see google's options but I think as that stuff rolls out um next year we're definitely gonna start seeing uh because now we'll have two very very major players in the space and I think that might be a tipping point where people might start paying more attention and maybe even wanting to buy one for, you know, the Christmas holiday list.

47:04David Brown:I like how you're going so bold on the record. 2027, the year of smart glasses. Yeah, I like that. You guys have been so generous with your time. Before I let you go, I'm curious, just pie in the sky. You're designing your own smart glasses. What's that one feature that you'd love to see that doesn't exist yet? Julian, what about you? That's a very hard question. um i think i mean you know a lot of the stuff that you would think naturally i feel like are the things that they've already considered and started putting in there um i feel like one of the coolest things that i remember from the original google glass demo was the person video calling i think it was a guy he was like video calling his girlfriend and they were like looking over a rooftop at the sunrise and i think no one has really talked about that kind of capability today i think with a lot of the smart glasses um i think the idea of being able to take a video call and show the person that you love what you're seeing uh whether you're halfway around the world i think that's something that's really cool and i think that could be something that's i don't know just kind of a nice nice feature yeah boon i put a neck massager in it while you're there just give me just just just like help get the tension out of my neck a little bit you know Do something real for me.

48:28David Brown:Julian Churkatu is Wired's senior gear editor. Boone Ashworth is a staff writer on Wired's gear desk. Guys, thanks so much for joining us on Business Wars and telling us about the shape of things to come. Thanks for having me. It was a really fun conversation. Yeah, this was great. Thank you. Next time on Business Wars, we'll take you inside the Greek yogurt empire Chobani. The company grabbed a massive 20 % of America's multi-billion dollar yogurt market and turned the whole industry upside down. But does Chobani have what it takes to stay on top?

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49:22David Brown:From Audible Originals, this is Episode 3 of Meta and the Battle for Smart Glasses for Business Wars. I'm your host, David Brown. Our senior interview producer is Peter Arkuni. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ant. Karen Lowe is our producer emeritus, engineered by Sergio Enriquez. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylot. Kyle Randall is our lead sound designer. Executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer-Beckman. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Head of Audible Originals North America, Marshall Dewey. Chief Content Officer, Rachel Giazza.

49:57David Brown:Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC.