Facebook has recently filed a patent for what looks like futuristic augmented reality (AR) headwear. As the patent filing shows a baseball hat is attached with a display. This is the company’s attempt to incorporate screens into clothing and moving away the hardware from the wearer’s face. This approach could make the AR headgear more comfortable, but is it practical?
The patent was recently published and first spotted by a law firm called Founders Legal. The design mock-ups show a person wearing a futuristic hat. The mixed reality display could fold up and go out of sight when the user doesn’t feel like using it.
Subtle designs would be more successful
Not just baseball hats, Facebook has also released designs that would work with a cowboy hat. Well, it’s not certain how the mixed reality headsets in the future would appear to be, nor we can predict which designs will be adopted and which ones will become a laughing stock.
But it’s reasonable to assume that subtlety could be the key to go ahead and that an AR display that’s incorporated within a pair of glasses is more likely to be used more than any other design. But developing a functional mixed reality device that is similar to regular glasses is a tough task than utilizing extra space provided by a hat.
Other upcoming projects
Facebook is also said to be working on a smartwatch that will pack two cameras. The idea behind the camera could be anything from clicking selfies to attending video calls on the go. This could also breach your privacy, which the company is infamous for. But that remains to be seen until the smartwatch makes it to the mainstream.
Facebook is also working on a lot of other projects. The company recently unveiled an AI research project called TextStyleBrush that can copy text style from an image just by looking at one sample word. While there are AI algorithms that could do that using a narrow set of examples, the new AI can recognize a wide range of handwriting and type styles, even with less-than-ideal angles and backgrounds.
