Hands-on with Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype and the possible future of computing
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents Orion AR Glasses, as he makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S. September 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
The most impressive aspect of Meta’s Orion augmented-reality glasses has more to do with size and comfort than flashy computer graphics.
CNBC senior media and tech correspondent Julia Boorstin was able to use Orion this week at Meta’s annual Connect conference, and she was captivated by the prototype’s compact form relative to the various Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro virtual reality headsets.
“What was really striking to me about these was that they were incredibly lightweight,” Boorstin said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the Orion glasses on Wednesday and pitched them as “a glimpse of a future that I think is going to be pretty exciting.” The glasses are black and thick framed and come with a wireless “puck” that allows the device to run apps like a holographic game of digital chess or ping-pong that appear as digital graphics spliced into the real world.
The experimental glasses are part of Zuckerberg’s multi-billion dollar plans to build the next-generation of personal computing for the so-called metaverse, a term used by Meta to describe people interacting with one another online in virtual 3D spaces.
While Orion is not capable of putting users in fully virtual worlds, the glasses can overlay digital graphics onto the real world. And unlike VR headsets that can be cumbersome to wear for extended periods, Boorstin said she found the Orion glasses to be a good fit.
“The form factor didn’t feel meaningfully different than wearing a pair of heavy, ordinary glasses, and they were not uncomfortable to wear,” she said.
Though the current incarnation of the Orion AR glasses could pass as a movie prop for the film “Revenge of the Nerds,” Boorstin said she believes they’re only going to get smaller as technology improves.
“This is the first generation — four years from now, how much smaller will they be?” Boorstin said.
CNBC’s Julia Boorstin tries out Meta’s new Orion AR glasses on Sept. 25th, 2024.
Stephen Desaulniers | CNBC
When wearing the AR glasses, Boorstin was able to see digital holograms displaying the visual icons of apps like Instagram, Facebook and some extras like a browser and a video game mixed with the surroundings inside a small office at Meta’s headquarters.
Boorstin saw those digital icons overlaid atop her real-world surroundings with her own eyes. That’s an improvement over “passthrough” techniques used by current VR devices. For passthrough, companies use cameras on the outside of their headsets to show users a digital representation of the real world blended with computer graphics through their device screens.
Orion is able to overlay digital imagery on the real world using a much more expensive method. Its lenses aren’t made from traditional glass or plastic but rather a refractive material called silicon-carbide. When the Orion’s miniaturized projectors, built-in to the arms of the glasses, beam light into the silicon-carbide lenses, users can see “holograms” in their field of vision, an experience Boorstin said “felt totally normal and very natural.”
When the holograms were turned off, “it felt as if you were wearing glasses or sunglasses, and it wasn’t distracting or nauseating,” Boorstin said.
Boorstin was able to open, close and scroll through the apps with the help of a wristband, that she said felt similar to an old, lightweight Fitbit.
“The wristband can sense your finger and hand movements, so your hand can be by your side,” Boorstin said, describing how her finger movements and gestures manipulated the digital icons. “I was surprised that it was so accurate and that I could figure out these hand motions, and it picked them up exactly.”
In one demo, the Orion glasses were able to identify various food ingredients, like chia seeds, that were spread out on a table. It then projected a suitable recipe that appeared digital above the real-world seeds. In another demo, Boorstin played a simple game of pong, except the video game graphics were projected onto a real-world desk in front of her.
One demo that really impressed her involved seeing her producer’s face digitally appear in front of her while he called from another room. The overall experience of the 3D video call “felt very clear” to Boorstin, who noticed that the graphic’s resolution would change depending on where she placed it within her field of vision. It was enough to startle her into questioning whether or not the producer could actually see her in real life since it appeared as if he was there in front of her (he could not).
“I could see him perfectly, and he could not see me,” Boorstin said. “But I could hear him, and it was like I was FaceTiming with him, but he was in my glasses.”
By experiencing Orion, Boorstin said she has a better sense of how Meta’s research and development is directly benefiting the company’s other products, like its Quest headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses.
“They’ve been working so hard to make these components teeny, tiny, efficient, weightless,” she said.
CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, speaks during the launch of the supercomputer Gefion, where the new AI supercomputer has been established in collaboration with EIFO and NVIDIA at Vilhelm Lauritzen Terminal in Kastrup, Denmark October 23, 2024.
Ritzau Scanpix | Mads Claus Rasmussen | Via Reuters
Nvidia is replacing rival chipmaker Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a shakeup to the blue-chip index that reflects the boom in artificial intelligence and a major shift in the semiconductor industry.
Intel shares were down 1% in extended trading on Friday. Nvidia shares rose 1%.
The switch will take place on Nov. 8. Also, Sherwin Williams will replace Dow Inc. in the index, S&P Dow Jones said in a statement.
Nvidia shares have climbed over 170% so far in 2024 after jumping roughly 240% last year, as investors have rushed to get a piece of the AI chipmaker. Nvidia’s market cap has swelled to $3.3 trillion, second only to Apple among publicly traded companies.
Companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon are purchasing Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), such as the H100, in massive quantities to build clusters of computers for their AI work. Nvidia’s revenue has more than doubled in each of the past five quarters, and has at least tripled in three of them. The company has sginaled that demand for its next-generation AI GPU called Blackwell is “insane.”
With the addition of Nvidia, four of the six trillion-dollar tech companies are now in the index. The two not in the Dow are Alphabet and Meta.
While Nvidia has been soaring, Intel has been slumping. Long the dominant maker of PC chips, Intel has lost market share to Advanced Micro Devices and has made very little headway in AI. Intel shares have fallen by more than half this year as the company struggles with manufacturing challenges and new competition for its central processors.
Intel said in a filing this week that the board’s audit and finance committee approved cost and capital reduction activities, including lowering head count by 16,500 employees and reducing its real estate footprint. The job cuts were originally announced in August.
The Dow contains 30 components and is weighted by the share price of the individual stocks instead of total market value. Nvidia put itself in better position to join the index in May, when the company announced a 10-for-1 stock split. While doing nothing to its market cap, the move slashed the price of each share by 90%, allowing the company to become a part of the Dow without having too heavy a weighting.
The switch is the first change to the index since February, when Amazon replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance. Over the years, the Dow has been playing catchup in gaining exposure to the largest technology companies. The stocks in the index are chosen by a committee from S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7.
Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro investors continued to rush the exits on Friday, pushing the stock down another 9% and bringing this week’s selloff to 44%, after the data center company lost its second auditor in less than two years.
The company’s shares fell as low as $26.23, wiping out all of the gains for 2024. Shares had peaked at $118.81 in March, at which point they were up more than fourfold for the year. Earlier that month, S&P Dow Jones added the stock to the S&P 500, and Wall Street was rallying around the company’s growth, driven by sales of servers packed with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors.
Super Micro’s spectacular collapse since March has wiped out roughly $55 billion in market cap and left the company at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq. On Wednesday, as the stock was in the midst of its second-worst day ever, Super Micro said it will provide a “business update” regarding its latest quarter on Tuesday, which is Election Day in the U.S.
The company’s recent challenges date back to August, when Super Micro said it would not file its annual report on time with the SEC. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company and wrote in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.” The Wall Street Journal later reported that the Department of Justice was in the early stages of a probe into the company.
Super Micro disclosed on Wednesday that Ernst & Young had resigned as its accounting firm just 17 months after taking over from Deloitte & Touche. The auditor said it was “unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management.”
A Super Micro spokesperson told CNBC that the company “disagrees with E&Y’s decision to resign, and we are working diligently to select new auditors.” Super Micro does not expect matters raised by Ernst & Young to “result in any restatements of its quarterly financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, or for prior fiscal years,” the representative said.
Analysts at Argus Research on Thursday downgraded the stock in the intermediate term to a hold, citing the Hindenburg note, reports of the Justice Department investigation and the departure of Super Micro’s accounting firm, which the analysts called a “serious matter.” Argus’ fears go beyond accounting irregularities, with the firm suggesting that the company may be doing business with problematic entities.
“The DoJ’s concerns, in our view, may be mainly about related-party transactions and about SMCI products ending up in the hands of sanctioned Russian companies,” the analysts wrote.
In September, the month after announcing its filing delay, Super Micro said it had received a notification from the Nasdaq indicating that its late status meant the company wasn’t in compliance with the exchange’s listing rules. Super Micro said the Nasdaq’s rules allowed the company 60 days to file its report or submit a plan to regain compliance. Based on that timeframe, the deadline would be mid-November.
Though Super Micro hasn’t filed financials with the SEC since May, the company said in an August earnings presentation that revenue more than doubled for a third straight quarter. Analysts expect that, for the fiscal first quarter ended September, revenue jumped more than 200% to $6.45 billion, according to LSEG. That’s up from $2.1 billion a year earlier and $1.9 billion in the same fiscal quarter of 2023.
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