Audio company Bose has introduced a new take on the
augmented reality wearables with its new AR glasses. Making its debut at the
SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the Bose AR is the world’s first audio
augmented reality platform. Augmented reality is almost exclusively associated
with vision, but Bose’s prototype wearable demonstrates that sound-based AR
might be the way to go.
The concept device consists of a pair of 3D printed
sunglasses that is paired with wafer-thin acoustics package developed
specifically for the platform. It combines data from embedded motion sensors
with GPS stats from your smartphone phone to output contextual information
based on positioning, gestures, or geolocation through its high-quality
speakers built into the arms of the glasses.
The company has established a US$ 50 million fund for
Bose AR developers, and 11 software partners are already onboard, including
Yelp, TripAdvisor, and fitness company Strava. Bose is also working with
academic research institutions, which includes the likes of MIT Media Lab to
advance human interaction related to augmented audio reality, and the NYU
Future Reality Lab.
The AR
wearable is still in its concept form and isn’t going to be commercially
available anytime soon, but the company plans to ship 10,000 of these glasses
to developers and manufacturers this summer for its further development.
