Microsoft on Friday unceremoniously revealed new prototype augmented-reality (AR) glasses that look like a normal pair of thick-framed glasses. The emergence of the technology indicates Microsoft has been thinking ways to go beyond the bulky and costly HoloLens headset it unveiled two years ago.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Microsoft researchers Andrew Maimone, Andreas Georgiou, and Joel Kollin wrote in a paper describing the glasses containing holographic display prototypes, which employ a technique called digital holography. The researchers will talk about their work at the Siggraph conference in Los Angeles in August.
The paper comes a few weeks after Facebook talked about building AR glasses. Snap, which sells camera sunglasses for its Snapchat messaging app, has introduced AR software features, although it has not yet indicated it’s working on proper AR glasses. Apple is also thought to be developing AR technology.