Are Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses the Future of Face Computers?

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon Q Business is the generative AI assistant from AWS because business can be slow, like wading through mud.

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But Amazon Q helps streamline work so tasks like summarizing monthly results can be done in no time.

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Learn what Amazon Q Business can do for you at aws.com slash learn more.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, December 20th. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Oreos and Chips Ahoy may not be the first things that come to mind when you hear the words

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_01]: artificial intelligence. But snack behemoth Mondelez, which owns the popular cookie brands,

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: is turning to AI tools to speed up the creation of new recipes. Just ahead, we'll hear how and what

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_01]: this means for your supermarket snack aisle. And later, is the real future of face computers

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: lower tech than Apple's Vision Pro or the MetaQuest 3 headset? WSJ Senior Personal Tech Columnist

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Joanna Stern joins us to explain why Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses may be the forerunner

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_01]: to a mixed reality future. But first, Mondelez International is the giant behind snacks like

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Sour Patch Kids, Ritz Crackers, and Clif Bars. And now, Mondelez has built a generative AI tool to

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_01]: help its food scientists come up with new products and tweak recipes faster than ever before.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_01]: WSJ reporter Isabel Busquette has been following this, and she joins us now with more.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Isabel, is AI coming for Oreos?

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_04]: AI is here for Oreos. It's already happening, and you don't even know. I didn't realize this,

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_04]: but actually, the recipe for snacks like Oreos and Chips Ahoy and Ritz Crackers, it's changed several

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_04]: times over the years, and it continues to change. Companies like Mondelez continue to iterate on it.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And then, in addition to that, they are also constantly, as I'm sure you've seen in the snack aisle,

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_04]: rolling out new brand offshoots and minis and thins and gluten-free and golden Oreos. So,

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_04]: they are just constantly in this position of having to come up with and test new recipes.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And AI is playing a bigger and bigger role in that process.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: WSJ. How is Mondelez now then using AI? You know,

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_01]: what are some examples for how it's using it in this whole process?

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. So, they developed this tool, essentially. And this tool has an interface where you can go in

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_04]: and it includes a number of different characteristics like appearance, aroma,

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_04]: taste, and you can choose which characteristics you want to optimize for. You know, maybe you want to,

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_04]: you know, optimize for a certain level of chocolate chips in the appearance or the roundness of the

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_04]: edge or the perforation of the edge or the amount of holes in it. And some are weird like vanilla

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_04]: intensity or butteriness or egg flavor. And then this AI tool will generate a handful of various kinds

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_04]: of recipes that might fit the bill. And then in this lab in New Jersey, which is set up like a high

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_04]: school chemistry lab, they'll actually cook the recipes and then they'll feed it to the staff and

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_01]: see what people think. So, how is the AI then changing the process? What's different now that

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: this is getting involved versus how they used to do it before?

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. The process is not fundamentally different. It's just a lot faster and more efficient.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_04]: In the past, it would be a manual process for the food scientist based on their own expertise,

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_04]: just trial and error, create some new recipe options to try. But the AI is essentially getting

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_04]: you to the recipe that you want to get to a lot faster. They're saying four to five times faster,

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: essentially. Who made the AI model that Mondelis is using?

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_04]: So, they started developing this a few years ago with a software consultancy called 4Kind and

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_04]: it was later acquired by ThoughtWorks. So, they're still working with ThoughtWorks on that. And the

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_04]: ThoughtWorks engineers do the feature coding and stuff. And then they're working with the tech team

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_04]: at Mondelis, who has all this juicy proprietary data on things like the actual recipe of what an Oreo is.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So, proprietary recipes are really big secret in the snack world.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Does Mondelis and companies like it, its rivals, have concern about what AI tools might do with

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: that information?

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_04]: In this instance, they own the tool. It's not a public tool. It's not ChatGPT.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_04]: In this instance, that information getting leaked isn't really a risk. It's also worth mentioning

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_04]: that a lot of times today when we talk about AI, we're talking about generative AI. This is not that.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_04]: This is a more traditional kind of AI known as machine learning. And it's very structured and

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_04]: it's a lot more controlled and predictable.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Isabel Busquette covers enterprise technology and AI for The Wall Street Journal.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Coming up, a few years ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg went all in on the idea of a high-tech

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: virtual reality metaverse. But could a different and simpler meta product be the real future of

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: this technology? That's after the break.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon Q Business is the new generative AI assistant from AWS because many tasks can make

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: business slow, as if wading through mud.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, help?

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice. Amazon Q can securely understand your

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: business data and use that knowledge to streamline tasks. Now you can summarize quarterly results

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: or do complex analysis in no time. Q got this. Learn what Amazon Q Business can do for you at

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_02]: aws.com slash learn more.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Bulky headsets like the MetaQuest 3 and Apple Vision Pro have been held up as the gateway

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: into a world of mixed reality computing, where digital information is overlaid onto the real

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: world in front of your eyes, just like a heads-up display in a first-person video game.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But WSJ senior personal tech columnist Joanna Stern says a different meta product may actually

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: be where this technology is headed. She joins us now.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow. Joanna, what's so great about the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses?

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_03]: How do I list the things I love about these? Look, it's pretty simple. These are just

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_03]: sunglasses with a camera, mic, and speakers. It's, they're sort of dumb smart glasses because

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_03]: they don't do that much. There's no screen in them. They're not showing you anything,

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_03]: but you can hear things in your ear and you can take pictures with them. And for me,

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I have just become obsessed with taking these out in the world, especially when I'm with my kids

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_03]: on the weekends or on vacations, because I don't have to hold a phone in front of my face to always

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_03]: take a video or a photo. And that's the number one thing I really love about these glasses is you

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_03]: just are seeing the world through regular sunglass lenses, but you're also able to just say,

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_03]: hey, Meta, take a picture or take a video.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So you've tested a lot of face computers this year, including the Apple Vision Pro

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: mixed reality headset. What makes a pair of slightly techie sunglasses better in your opinion?

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Look, these are two different products, but what makes them similar is we're putting a computer

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_03]: on our face and all the big tech companies are obsessed with making a world where we wear these

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_03]: computers on our face. And the question for me has always been, why do we want to wear the

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_03]: computer on our face? With the Meta Ray-Bans, they've convinced me it makes sense to put this

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_03]: thing on my face. In fact, the beginning of the column, I talk about this experience where I forgot

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_03]: them. I forgot them when I went mini golfing with my kids and I was really upset. Like I got there,

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, how am I going to, how am I going to take photos of my kids? How am I going to do

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_03]: this? It's changed that habit. And so that's one of the things that really sold me on this idea of

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_03]: smart glasses because I wasn't totally sure we wanted to put these things on our face. And then

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_03]: earlier in the year, I did review the Apple Vision Pro and I had a similar question. Why would I want

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_03]: to put something like this on my face? It's big. It's really just big. I mean, that's my biggest

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: complaint about it. It's expensive, but let's just pretend it didn't cost money right now.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_03]: What would I do with it? And I discovered with that one really interesting use case was cooking,

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_03]: where I could see digital information overlaid in my world. And that's what Apple's trying to do

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_03]: with its Vision Pro. And that's what everyone is really trying to do in this industry is get to

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_03]: a place where we can have glasses that show us digital information in our line of sight that

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_03]: is overlaid in the real world. And so that is what Meta's trying to do. That is what Apple's trying

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_03]: to do. Apple took it in one direction with this Vision Pro. Meta's also tried to do similar with

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_03]: their Quest headsets. But I also got to get a look recently at something that Meta's doing,

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_03]: which is a prototype because it's not ready yet, but it gives you a real glimpse of what

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_03]: might happen when we get this technology that those big headsets have into a smaller design that looks

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_03]: closer to regular glasses.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: You tested the Meta Orion. That's an augmented reality eyewear prototype. What does that look

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_01]: like?

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_03]: So this is a complete prototype for Meta. They are not shipping this, but they wanted to give

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_03]: people a sense of where they were at right now in this journey of making smart glasses.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And these are glasses that look like pretty average glasses, like the glasses you're wearing now,

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_03]: but chunkier. It's not perfect in terms of design, but they're real lenses versus what you have on the

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Vision Pro or with the Meta Quest headsets is those are actually screens in there that you're looking

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_03]: at. Here, you're looking at real lenses through the world like you would with normal glasses,

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_03]: but there's a holographic display in there and it is projecting a digital interface over your real

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_03]: world. So I put on these glasses. I see a app menu. I'm able to then use my hands. It actually

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_03]: uses this special neural band. You put it on your wrist and its sensors are tracking your muscle

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_03]: movements. So you can actually just pinch in the air to select things, move your hands around. Your

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_03]: hand is basically the mouse and you're able to see things. I was able to browse the web. So my big

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_03]: takeaway here was these are not ready. In fact, you can listen to me ask Alex Himmel, who's the head

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_03]: of wearables at Meta, how much they cost.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Those cost thousands of dollars each to make. I mean, the main reason that we're not launching them right now

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is we want to dial in the manufacturing and bring down the costs that they're easier to scale and

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_00]: more affordable. We want them to be comparable to high-end phones and laptops when they come on sale.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: What is the signal for where AR technology is headed next?

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_03]: What we're really at is two extremes. Right now, we're with these kind of dumb smart glasses,

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: these Ray-Bans that cost $300 and they're really fun and anyone can go and buy and use,

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_03]: but you don't get a ton of information in your real world, to this really other big extreme

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_03]: or literally big, big bulky headsets that are expensive and they're very powerful and they show

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_03]: you this digital interface in your real world. And that is what we've got with the Vision Pro and

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_03]: the MetaQuest and that's the two ends we're at right now. Orion is what's in the middle here.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what these companies are trying to get to. Of course, they're going to want them to be smaller

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_03]: and more stylish, but what they're trying to get to is a normal looking pair of glasses with lenses

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_03]: where you can actually see digital info in your real world. And that's a ways off and there's a

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_03]: few reasons for that, but I also did ask Meta about that as well and how they plan to get there.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a number of advances. Obviously, the biggest difference between these is the display.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_00]: There's no display in these, so we have a pretty substantial investment in different display

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: technologies that we're parallel pathing and we'll bring multiple technologies and sizes and form

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_03]: factors to market in our roadmap. And so while Orion is pretty far away and you've now heard him say

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_03]: they're going to be working on these other types of devices, I reported that Meta is going to release

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_03]: in 2025 a pair of Ray-Bans or something similar to Ray-Bans with a small screen inside the lens. It won't

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_03]: be as advanced as Orion, but it will be a step towards it. And in fact, after I posted the article,

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Mark Zuckerberg responded and said, quote, next year is a big year for Meta glasses.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That was our senior personal tech columnist, Joanna Stern. And that's it for Tech News Briefing.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Today's show was produced by Julie Chang. I'm your host, Danny Lewis. Jessica Fenton and Michael

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Catherine Millsop. Our development

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: producer is Aisha Al-Muslim. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are the deputy editors,

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and Felana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. We'll be back this afternoon

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_01]: with TNB Techman. Thanks for listening.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon Q Business is the new generative AI assistant from AWS because many tasks can make business slow,

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: as if wading through mud.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, help?

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon Q can securely understand your business data and use that knowledge to streamline tasks.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Now you can summarize quarterly results or do complex analysis in no time.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Q got this. Learn what Amazon Q Business can do for you at aws.com slash learn more.