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.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.
In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.
Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.
In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.
Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.
The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.
“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”
Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.
Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.
The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.
An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.
The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.
“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”
At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.
The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.
Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.
Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.
Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.
Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.
The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.
While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.
Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
WATCH: Amazon grocery could be a trojan horse to more revenue
Technology
Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here’s what’s driving the big move
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”
Investors have piled into quantum computing technology this year, as tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon have embraced the technology with a wave of new chip announcements, multi-million dollar investments and research plans.
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