Snap’s new smart glasses are probably the most impressive bit of face-computer technology we’ve seen. They’re not VR-headset huge; they don’t have a big charging puck; thanks to Snap’s many years of AR lens development, they’re likely to have a lot of features right out of the box. (Yes, they’re $2,195, but that may just be what all this tech costs right now.) Snap is clearly at the front of this race.
And then… you see the pictures. The pictures of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wearing the new Specs, as the enormous and heavy stems smash down on his ears. The pictures of models and athletes wearing Specs, carefully posed to hide the obvious weight of these glasses. Does any of the tech really matter if no one’s going to want these glasses on their face?
There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Specs, including how they feel on our own faces, but on this episode of The Vergecast, David and Nilay try to figure out whether Specs have a chance to be worth wearing. What experiences do the glasses need to have to be worth the discomfort? Is four hours of battery a bug, or maybe a feature that will save your poor ears? When the device ships this fall, suffice to say we’ll have many things to try.
After that, the hosts dig into Fox’s acquisition of Roku, and what it says about the state of entertainment that a content company would spend $22 billion on a smart TV operating system. They talk about the future of both companies, wonder whether a less independent Roku can still be as successful, and bring out the Go90 Scale of Doomed Streaming Services for both Tubi and The Roku Channel. Then, in the lightning round, it’s time for the Hype Desk, Brendan Carr Is a Dummy, Facebook’s AI Mode, and Matter 1.6.
In case you missed it this week: We also dove into the history of Markdown, answered your questions about Mythos, Fable, and the future of AI, and ran a very revealing microphone test on some new headphones. And we want to hear all your thoughts about all of it! Call the Vergecast Hotline at 866-VERGE11, send us an email at [email protected], and tell us everything that’s on your mind. And make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!