Tag Archives: AR / VR

ROG Just Gave the Ally Its First OLED and a 171-Inch AR Screen

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Handheld gaming PCs have become serious pieces of hardware over the past few years, and the display has quietly become the most contested spec on the spec sheet. Early handhelds shipped with IPS panels as a matter of course, but expectations have shifted. Owners of these devices spend long hours staring at a relatively small screen, and the quality of that screen now shapes how the whole experience is judged.

ROG is marking 20 years as a brand with an anniversary bundle that puts its most significant Ally upgrade to date front and center. The ROG XBOX Ally X20 is a special-edition take on the Ally X, built around a translucent black chassis with a gold internal structure and a 7.4-inch OLED display, the first of its kind on an Ally, paired in the box with a set of AR gaming glasses.

Designer: ASUS

The jump from IPS to OLED on the Ally is hard to overstate for anyone who’s spent time with both panel types. The Nebula HDR Display delivers 1,400 nits of peak brightness, a 0.2ms response time, a 120Hz refresh rate with FreeSync Premium Pro, and support for Dolby Vision. VESA DisplayHDR 1000 certification rounds it out, and Corning DXC glass with an anti-reflective coating cuts glare by 65%.

Under the hood, the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor carries the same horsepower as the Ally X, backed by 24GB of RAM and an 80Wh battery. New TMR joysticks deliver better precision and tracking. Auto SR upscaling handles frame-quality boosts at lower power costs, and Xbox Mode offers a clean, console-like interface for navigating a library that spans Xbox, PC Game Pass, and Steam.

The design is the most conspicuous part of the X20’s identity. The translucent black body lets the gold-accented internal frame show through, making the engineering itself part of the aesthetic. It’s a specific kind of flex that ROG’s anniversary context earns credibility for. Rubberized coating on the rear handgrips keeps the feel practical rather than purely decorative, which matters for a device meant to hold through long gaming sessions.

The bundle’s second piece is the ROG XREAL R1 Edition 20 Gaming AR Glasses, and they’re the part that makes this package genuinely different from simply selling a revised Ally X. These aren’t the kind of smart glasses that surface notifications or track fitness. They’re designed specifically for gaming, using dual Sony Micro-OLED displays to generate a virtual screen sized for long sessions away from a TV or monitor.

That virtual screen projects to 171 inches when viewed from 4 meters, covering 95% of the focused field of view. A 240Hz refresh rate and a 0.01ms response time keep fast-paced gameplay clean without smearing or lag. Native 3DoF head tracking anchors the display to your gaze, while Anchor Mode locks it in a fixed position for those who prefer to play without the screen following their movements.

The ROG XBOX Ally X20 isn’t the kind of hardware upgrade that quietly adds a spec or two. OLED on the Ally for the first time, combined with AR glasses that project a room-filling virtual display and wrapped in a translucent anniversary design, makes for a more complete idea than a typical limited-edition product usually delivers. A holiday 2026 release means the wait still has some time left.

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Translation, Prompting, Agentic AI, all in 40 grams: iFLYTEK’s Smart Glasses Debut at BEYOND Expo 2026

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Beyond Expo 2026 arrived with a clear message for the tech world, AI has moved past the screen and into the objects people wear, hold, and live with every day. Our own preview of the show framed this year’s edition as a turning point, arguing that AI software was only the warm-up for what the industry was really building toward. The event ran from May 28 to 30 at The Venetian Cotai Expo in Macau, centered on the theme of AI moving from digital to physical. That theme played out across robotics, smart machines, wearable intelligence, and real-world utility products on the show floor. It set up exactly the kind of environment where a product built around ambient AI communication could land with real meaning.

That made Macau the perfect stage for iFLYTEK’s AI Glasses, a 40 gram wearable built around communication, translation, and ambient intelligence. Announced at BEYOND Expo 2026, the glasses pair a lightweight magnesium-aluminum frame with a resin waveguide display, real-time translation, teleprompting, advanced noise recognition, and the GlassClaw AI agent, all wrapped into a device designed to keep information in sight and conversation in flow. iFLYTEK, the Shenzhen-listed AI company founded in 1999 and best known for its speech and language technology, framed the launch under the theme “Communication Without Boundaries, the World Before Your Eyes.” For a company whose core competency has always been understanding and generating human language, a glasses product aimed at communication is a logical next step. The pitch is a strong one: AI belongs in the line of sight, ready when you need it, invisible when you do not.

Designer: iFLYTEK

Getting a display, waveguide, processing stack, and speaker array under 40 grams in a glasses form factor is not a given, and the material choices iFLYTEK made to hit that number tell most of the hardware story. The frame uses an aerospace-grade magnesium-aluminum alloy, keeping the structure rigid without the front-loaded weight that makes smart glasses genuinely uncomfortable after twenty minutes. The display runs on a resin waveguide paired with a customized micro-optical module, a combination chosen to balance visual quality against physical footprint. Ergonomic adjustments calibrated specifically to Asian facial structures add another layer of intent, signaling that the wearability goal goes beyond a marketing claim. That kind of constraint-driven design work is what separates a considered wearable from a concept render that happens to ship.

GlassClaw, the AI agent built into the glasses, handles the intelligence layer across multiple modes (not related to OpenClaw). It captures conversations, generates AI meeting summaries, enables full-scenario real-time translation, and pulls in life services, functioning as a persistent contextual companion rather than a novelty voice assistant. The teleprompter feature stands out from a practical design standpoint, giving the glasses a repeatable use case in presentations, live video, and multilingual business settings. Advanced noise recognition ties the system together by giving the speech-processing layer a cleaner audio signal in conference halls, trade floors, and the ambient chaos of travel. iFLYTEK’s deep history in speech AI means the noise handling and translation accuracy are the features most likely to determine whether these glasses earn daily wear.

The iFLYTEK AI Glasses are priced at 4,299 yuan, roughly $635, with presales beginning June 15. iFLYTEK also staged an ecosystem partner forum at the expo alongside Sunny Optical, Wanxin Optical, and Conant Optics, treating the launch as the beginning of a product line rather than a one-time debut. For a product category that has struggled to articulate a daily reason to exist, iFLYTEK’s communication-first positioning is a credible answer. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses proved that lightweight wearable audio could build a real user base when the form factor stopped fighting the face, and iFLYTEK is making a similar bet with a display and translation stack on top. At 40 grams, with a clear professional use case and a company whose entire identity is built around understanding human language, these glasses have the ingredients to matter.

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No Vision Pro 2 Before 2028. Apple’s Focusing On Smart-Glasses Instead, says Gurman

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Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses sold over 7 million units in 2025, a number that would have seemed improbable two years earlier when the category barely existed outside enterprise pilots and conference demos. Google confirmed its own entry at I/O 2026, with Gemini-powered frames and eyewear partnerships with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster already in place. The market Apple is entering has already been legitimized by its competitors, which is an unusual position for a company that typically defines the categories it enters. All of that makes the N50, Apple’s first smart glasses, feel like a response to a race that started without it. The honest version of that story includes the fact that Apple’s engineers were busy building something else entirely.

The N50 is the product that absorbed the engineering resources originally aimed at a Vision Pro sequel. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman confirmed in May that no headset successor is in active development, and that the Vision Air, a cheaper model codenamed N100, was canceled last year to redirect talent toward smart glasses. Apple restructured the Vision Products Group, splitting engineers across hardware and software divisions, with many redeployed to the glasses program, to Siri, and to camera-equipped AirPods. The glasses carry cameras, microphones, speakers, and Apple Intelligence inside a conventional eyeglass frame with no display, no pass-through video, and no external battery, functioning as an iPhone accessory in the same way AirPods or Apple Watch do. A late 2026 reveal and 2027 commercial launch is the expected window, with analyst Ming-Chi Kuo projecting 3 to 5 million units shipped in the first year.

Designer: Oleh Koval

Four frame styles are in testing, two rectangular and two oval, built in premium acetate with colorways including black, ocean blue, and light brown (the images shown here are just a concept mocked up by designer Oleh Koval back in 2018). Apple initially experimented with embedding electronics into established eyewear brand frames, similar to Meta’s EssilorLuxottica arrangement for the Ray-Ban lineup, before moving toward designing its own frames in multiple sizes. Meta’s partnership gave the smart glasses category immediate cultural legitimacy because Wayfarers were already objects people wanted on their faces before any chip was inside them. Apple is betting its own design language in premium acetate can carry the same weight without borrowed heritage. Whether that holds against consumers who have already spent two years wearing Ray-Ban Metas is the sharpest design question the N50 faces at launch.

Two cameras are planned inside the frame: a high-resolution sensor for photos and video, and a second dedicated to computer vision tasks, helping the device read its environment and measure spatial relationships between objects. The N401, a custom chip derived from Apple Watch silicon, handles the compute with a design emphasis on ultra-low power draw, targeting a total frame weight below 50 grams. That weight target is the industrial design achievement the whole product depends on. A sub-50 gram device sits within the weight range of premium optical frames, which means the person wearing it makes a fashion decision first and a technology decision second. That ordering is exactly what the smart glasses category has needed to move beyond enthusiast territory into genuine everyday carry.

The M5 Vision Pro that arrived in October 2025 reads now as a holding action rather than a product commitment. The chip swap kept the SKU alive but left the device’s foundational problems untouched: 650 grams of front-heavy glass and aluminum, a mandatory external battery, and a $3,499 entry point that stranded it between developer hardware and enterprise curiosity. The Vision Air was supposed to address the weight and price simultaneously, and its cancellation signals that those two problems couldn’t be reconciled inside an enclosed headset on any timeline Apple found workable. A Vision Pro sequel won’t arrive before 2028, meaning it enters a market the N50 will have already spent a year conditioning. That sequencing is either very deliberate or very revealing, and I’d argue it’s both.

Pricing estimates cluster between $299 and $499, placing the N50 directly against the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2. Privacy is a genuine competitive lever here: nearly 47% of potential smart glasses buyers cite data concerns, and neither Meta nor Google carries credible on-device processing as a core value proposition. Apple’s Apple Intelligence architecture, built around local compute rather than cloud offload, gives the company a story neither competitor can cleanly replicate. A second-generation model with an in-lens display is reportedly expected as early as 2028, which is also the window when enclosed headset technology might finally be miniaturized enough to make a Vision Pro sequel viable. The N50, by that reading, is the product Apple had to build before it could build the one it always imagined.

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XREAL’s $299 a01 Is Lighter and Brighter Than Its $450 Sibling

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Xbox-branded gray sport sunglasses with blue mirrored lenses and curved arms, angled for a sleek athletic look

AR display glasses have spent years trying to convince a narrow audience that the experience is worth the money. The XREAL One starts at $450. The ROG XREAL R1 pushes past $800. For a category that promises a personal big screen you can carry anywhere, the entry cost has stayed high enough that most curious buyers talk themselves out of a first pair before they’ve had a reason to try one.

XREAL’s answer to that is xbx, a new sub-brand aimed at the hesitant first buyer, and its opening product, the a01, comes to the US in July at $299. The company is quick to note that the lower price didn’t come from cutting specs. The a01 holds two category records simultaneously: the lightest AR display glasses on the market at 62g, and the brightest at 1,600 nits, both beating the XREAL One it slots below.

Designer: XREAL

The 20g difference between the a01 and the XREAL One might sound minor, but it adds up over a long flight or a late-night watch session. XREAL reached that figure through a custom ultra-light nylon body, reduced lens thickness, and a redesigned hinge and temple-tip structure. Three nose pad sizes, adaptive elastic hinges, and flexible temples distribute pressure evenly across different face shapes.

Display performance is where the a01 goes further than a $299 product typically would. Dual-layer MicroOLED panels deliver 1,600 nits of perceived brightness across 1.07 billion colors with full HDR10 support, backed by a dedicated image enhancement chip that pushes every frame through real-time AI SDR-to-HDR conversion. The 50° field of view gives you the equivalent of a 147-inch screen from four meters away, which covers most rooms.

The most technically interesting addition is the spatial anti-shake algorithm, which XREAL claims is a category first. Earlier stabilization approaches reduced blur at the cost of image sharpness and washed-out colors, an acceptable trade-off in some contexts but not when you’re midway through a film. The a01’s algorithm preserves clarity and color fidelity while keeping the image steady, so a rattling subway car or a turbulent flight doesn’t turn a crisp picture into a smear.

The interchangeable front frames add a layer of personalization that most display glasses skip. The semi-transparent body uses chromatic dimming to shift between transparent and immersive viewing depending on whether you want to stay aware of your surroundings or shut them out. Swap the front frame to match an outfit or a mood, and if you’re the tinkering type, XREAL has opened the design up for 3D printing your own.

Someone catching up on a show during a forty-five-minute commute, a gamer who wants a massive screen from their handheld without dragging a TV along, or someone watching a film alone in a shared hotel room all find a more credible device here than anything currently available at this weight and brightness level. The a01 doesn’t need a dedicated ecosystem either; connect it to a phone, a tablet, or a laptop, and it works.

The a01 is already on sale in China and hits the US in July at $299, sitting $151 below the XREAL One at comparable or better specs by the numbers that matter most: weight and brightness. For a category that’s been waiting for its mass-market moment, a product that leads on both counts at a genuinely accessible price makes a fairly hard case to ignore.

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ASUS’ $849 XREAL R1 glasses deliver console-sized 3D gaming anywhere without bulky gear

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The race to create the most practical AR glasses is still on, and Asus already showed its development curve with the collaborative Xreal One Pro. Now, the VR gaming glasses get an exciting newer version, the Xreal R1. They are lighter than other options and less punishing on the eyes, offering a comforting viewing experience. First shown off at CES 2026, the glasses are finally up for preorder at a steep $849. Will they live up to the claims and compete with the much cheaper Meta Quest 3 VR glasses? Only time will tell.

The upgrade from the previous model is incremental, as the display now boasts a smoother 240Hz refresh rate and an ultra-fast 0.01 ms response time, and it comes with a dock to connect to gaming consoles or PCs for streaming content via DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, or USB-C. While the control dock is a bit on the heavier side, weighing at 230 grams and measuring 215 x 100 x 25mm, the option of connecting compatible hardware is a big plus. Other things that stay the same include the 57-degree FOV that renders a 171-inch virtual screen from a perceived distance of four meters, and the 1080-pixel resolution Sony 0.55-inch micro-OLED display, which should have been preferably bumped up beyond HD at that price range.

Designer: Asus

According to Asus, the R1 smart glasses, weighing just  91 grams, are the logical extension of the ROG Ally gaming handheld as a result of the unified hardware and software integration, along with the XR technology. To make the users feel as if they’re using a handheld gaming console on their face, the highly responsive display has reduced motion blur and smoother visuals. The finer adjustments, like pumping up the display brightness to 300 nits, adjusting the aspect ratio based on the content, and other visual effects, can be toggled in real time, which is a great feature.

The glasses are equipped with “Electrochromic Lens” technology that automatically makes the screen transparent as soon as the vision focus shifts away. As soon as the wearer’s focus returns, the screen turns tint to black, which can be adjusted to three different dimming levels in settings. For a heightened level of spatial awareness, these AR glasses come with built-in Bose-tuned speakers. This comes in very handy in FPS games where identifying the source of enemy steps is vital to in-game survival. If you are willing to shell out another $100 on the XREAL EYE add-on, the glasses unlock 6DoF tracking capability, which deepens the level of realism in a virtual 3D world.

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DJI FPV Goggles Concept Uses Foldable Antenna Panels to Fix Signal Reception

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FPV flying is phenomenally fun and almost completely non-transferable. You’re seeing through the aircraft’s perspective, feeling every input through the video lag, reading the environment in ways that only make sense when you’re in the feed. But to everyone around you, you’ve just put on a box that makes you unavailable for the next however-long. They can’t see what you’re seeing unless you’ve brought extra gear specifically for that purpose. Flying becomes this weirdly solitary activity even when you’re surrounded by people, which is partly why FPV remains niche despite being objectively amazing.

This concept headset tackles radio frequency challenges first and foremost. Those fold-out panels house high-gain antennas that deploy for better signal reception and fold flush for transport, following DJI’s industrial design language closely enough to suggest these could be internal explorations for future Goggles iterations. But one variant shown in the forest shots takes things further: outward-facing displays embedded in those same antenna panels, broadcasting the pilot’s FPV feed to anyone standing nearby. It’s the kind of feature that transforms the headset wearer from someone who’s checked out into the center of a shared experience, addressing one of FPV’s biggest adoption barriers while solving legitimate antenna placement problems.

Designer: Baozi Brother

Radio frequency propagation operates on physics that industrial designers can’t negotiate with. The 5.8GHz band used for FPV video transmission behaves predictably but unforgivingly. Obstacles attenuate signal. Distance degrades quality. Antenna polarization and orientation determine whether you get clean video or digital snow. DJI’s early FPV Goggles buried antennas inside the housing for clean aesthetics and struggled with reception compared to competitors running external stick antennas that looked awkward but performed better. The Goggles V2 improved things. The Goggles 2 and Integra finally achieved competitive range by respecting rather than fighting antenna requirements, but they still used conventional mounting approaches that pilots have relied on for years.

Baozi Brother’s concept makes antenna placement the core organizing principle rather than a constraint to work around. Those wing-like panels extending from either side create physical separation between antenna elements, which matters tremendously for diversity reception. When one antenna’s signal weakens due to aircraft orientation or obstacles, the receiver switches to whichever antenna currently has the stronger feed. Spacing them wide apart on opposite sides of the headset maximizes the likelihood that at least one maintains clean line of sight to the aircraft, even during aggressive maneuvers or when flying behind structures.

The mechanical deployment system uses what appears to be a friction hinge with detents, letting pilots snap the panels into position without tools or fumbling with locks. When folded, the headset’s profile stays compact enough for standard gear bags. When deployed, the panels extend at roughly 45 degrees, positioning antennas away from the head and creating better unobstructed reception angles than current goggles achieve. DJI’s design vocabulary runs throughout: gunmetal gray housing, matte black elastomer padding, sculpted ventilation channels. A BOA-style micro-adjustment dial handles head strap tension at the rear. Port placement on the right side shows USB-C, likely HDMI, and what might be an audio jack.

Now about those screens. The variant shown in the forest environment embeds displays on the outward-facing surfaces of the antenna panels. When deployed, they broadcast the pilot’s FPV feed to spectators, instructors, or anyone nearby. Your instructor watches your training flight without needing separate gear. Your friends see why you’re excited about that gap you just threaded. Content creators capture genuine reactions without additional equipment. Whether PUXIANG moves this beyond rendering remains unclear, but as far as rethinking FPV headset architecture around actual RF performance while making the experience more accessible, this gets closer than most attempts at reinventing goggles.

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RayNeo Just Put Batman on $299 AR Glasses (And They’re Brilliant)

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At some point between CES announcements and MWC reveals, someone at RayNeo had a genuinely inspired idea. They had built the world’s first AR glasses with HDR10 support, partnered with Bang & Olufsen on the audio, and engineered a display that could hold its own against high-end monitors. The product was technically impressive, competitively priced, and ready to ship. Then they added a Batman mask to it. Not a sticker, not a themed wallpaper, but an actual light-blocking cover that makes you look like you are about to patrol Gotham while watching movies on a 201-inch virtual screen.

This is the Air 4 Pro, unveiled at MWC 2026 in Barcelona, and it represents something rare in the wearables market: a product that takes itself seriously enough to deliver legitimate specs, but not so seriously that it forgets to be fun. The hardware alone would make this newsworthy. The fact that it comes with the option to cosplay as either Batman or the Joker while using it makes it irresistible.

Designer: RayNeo

Start with what matters most: the display. The Air 4 Pro is the world’s first AR glasses with HDR10 display support, which is a genuinely significant leap. Powered by RayNeo’s custom Vision 4000 chip, the display hits 1,200 nits of peak brightness, renders 10.7 billion colors with near-professional color accuracy (ΔE < 2), and runs at a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. We're talking about a 201-inch virtual screen that sits in front of your eyes, with a 200,000:1 contrast ratio. That is the kind of color performance you would expect from a high-end monitor, not from something you're wearing on your face.

The HDR10 support matters more than it might seem at first. It means that when you’re watching a movie or gaming with these on, the image is not being compressed into mediocrity. The Vision 4000 chip can also upgrade standard SDR content to HDR in real time, and there is an AI algorithm onboard that converts 2D content into 3D. These are not gimmick features. For anyone who has tried AR glasses before and felt vaguely disappointed by the visual output, this is the version that corrects the course.

Audio-wise, RayNeo partnered with Bang & Olufsen on a self-developed sound tube design with a dual opposing acoustic chamber system. The result is reportedly an 80% reduction in sound loss compared to previous models. That is a partnership that immediately signals intent. Bang & Olufsen does not lend their name to anything half-hearted, and the presence of that collaboration here suggests that RayNeo is going after people who care about the full sensory experience, not just the display numbers.

The glasses weigh 76 grams, which is no small achievement given everything packed inside. They include interchangeable nose pads, TÜV SÜD certification for low blue light and flicker-free performance, and a 3,840Hz PWM hybrid dimming system for eye protection. It is the kind of spec sheet that feels increasingly grown-up.

And then there is the Batman Edition. RayNeo unveiled two limited versions at MWC 2026: the Limited Justice Edition, which is the Batman variant, and the Limited Chaos Edition, styled after the Joker. Both come with a light-shield cover that doubles as a cosplay accessory, blocking ambient light to sharpen your viewing experience while also making you look like you are about to interrogate someone in Gotham City. The packaging is loaded with DC-themed details, and buyers get to literally pick a side.

Is this a marketing stunt? Partially, yes. But it is a clever one, because the light-shield cover is functional, not just decorative. It actually solves a real problem AR glasses have always had in bright environments. The fact that it also looks incredible is a bonus that makes this feel less like a product and more like a collectible.

My honest take is that the Batman collaboration is what will get people through the door, but the hardware is what will make them stay. At $299, with an early bird price of $249 through March 28, the Air 4 Pro is not cheap, but it is positioned well against the competition. It works with iPhones, Android flagships, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and most modern devices, which removes a lot of the friction that has held wearables back.

RayNeo has clearly done its homework. The Air 4 Pro is not trying to replace your phone or your TV. It is offering a better version of the portable screen experience, and the Batman costume is just the perfect way to announce it.

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PlayStation XR Glasses Concept Makes a Strong Case for Gaming-Focused AR Wearables

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Meta talks about XR glasses as companions for your social life. Snap a photo, answer a call, ask an AI what you are looking at. The PlayStation XR Glasses concept spins that idea toward a different center of gravity. Here, the glasses are not about broadcasting your world. They are about pulling the PlayStation universe closer, shrinking the distance between you, your console, and the screen that usually sits across the room.

Here, XR is not a spectacle. It is a subtle layer that folds into your existing PlayStation life. Imagine a virtual screen hovering above your TV stand, system notifications floating at the edge of your vision, a familiar PS logo resting by your temple like the Start button you have pressed a thousand times. The fantasy is not about replacing your PS5, but about letting its world follow you from couch to desk to bed, quietly, through something that looks like ordinary eyewear.

Designer: Shirish Kumar

The frames carry the same visual language as the PS5 and DualSense controller, all smooth curves and deliberate angles that look cohesive sitting next to your console. That blue accent lighting running along the temples is pure PlayStation branding, the kind of detail that works because it feels earned rather than slapped on. The folding hinge reveals those iconic button symbols when you open the arms, which is a nice touch that reinforces you are holding a gaming device that happens to look like eyewear. Whether Sony’s actual industrial design team would ever build something this sleek is another question entirely, but as a design exercise, it holds together.

There is a front-facing camera tucked under the lenses for object tracking and AR overlays, auto-adjusting lenses that darken outdoors and clear indoors, embedded sensors for a heads-up display, gesture controls for navigation. The PS logo on the temple supposedly works like a button, tap for Start and hold for Home, mirroring your muscle memory from the controller. All of that sounds good on paper. The real question is what you actually do with these once they are on your face. Existing PlayStation games would almost certainly run as a virtual screen floating in your field of view, basically a private monitor you wear instead of stare at. True AR gameplay where Aloy from Horizon is dodging around your coffee table requires games built specifically for that, and Kumar does not show or describe any of those experiences.

What this concept does well is stake out a different philosophy for XR glasses. Where Meta wants social connectivity and Apple is aiming for spatial computing as a productivity play, this imagines gaming-first hardware that extends an existing ecosystem rather than trying to create a new one. Whether that is enough to justify another screen in your life is the question every XR device has to answer eventually. For now, it is a polished look at what Sony could build if they decided lightweight AR glasses were the next logical step after VR headsets and portable screens.

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Forget CarPlay: Sherpa’s AR Glasses Decode Road Signs and Dashboard Icons For Nervous New Drivers

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The AR glasses market keeps promising us augmented productivity and enhanced experiences, then delivering expensive ways to check notifications without pulling out your phone. Sherpa takes a different approach by targeting a specific moment of genuine incompetence: those first few months behind the wheel when every intersection feels like a pop quiz you didn’t study for. The concept uses heads-up displays to overlay directional cues and translate dashboard indicators, theoretically keeping your eyes on the road instead of darting between the windshield and that mysterious warning light.

What makes this Hongik University project interesting isn’t the hardware, which looks like standard-issue smart glasses in white plastic. It’s the learning system built around it. After each drive, the companion app analyzes your performance and identifies patterns in your mistakes. Miss the same type of turn signal three times? The AI notices. Struggle with a particular intersection? It breaks down what went wrong. Most new drivers get feedback in the form of angry horns and passenger-seat panic. This proposes something more useful, assuming you’re willing to let an algorithm critique your lane changes.

Designers: Yeongjun Yun, Jaeyun Lee

The hardware itself follows the current playbook for consumer AR: rounded frames thick enough to house display optics, visible sensor cutouts on the nose bridge (likely cameras for environmental and eye tracking), and an adjustable temple mechanism that looks borrowed from premium eyewear design. They’ve skipped the usual temptation to make it look aggressively futuristic, which matters when your target audience already feels self-conscious about their driving abilities. The cylindrical charging case suggests they’re thinking about daily use patterns rather than occasional deployment, treating this like essential equipment you grab before every drive during those first nervous months.

Where this gets genuinely clever is the integration with what they’re calling SDV, or software-defined vehicles. Modern cars already collect absurd amounts of data through their sensor arrays. Sherpa appears designed to tap into that information stream and translate it into actionable guidance. The system knows when you’ve entered a complex intersection, can read your hesitation through eye tracking, and overlay exactly what you’re supposed to watch for at that moment. Then it remembers that you struggle with this specific scenario and adjusts future guidance accordingly.

Unlike entertainment-focused AR wearables, this actually solves a real use case, which puts it ahead of most AR glasses the industry is trying to push down our throats. Driving schools teach you mechanics but abandon you at the precise moment when contextual learning would help most. If Sherpa can fill that gap between instruction and competence, it might be the first consumer AR application that people actually need rather than tolerate. Whether novice drivers will adopt glasses that broadcast their inexperience is a different question entirely, but at minimum someone’s finally asking AR to do actual work.

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Meta Quest 3 feature turns any flat surface into functional Surface Keyboard with trackpad

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Meta may have discontinued the Quest for Business program intended for its Quest 3, but the Horizon OS v85 is planning on introducing some niche features to the VR headset, which, of course, will start with the replacement of Horizon Feed with the Navigator UI as the default. In addition to that, if the new Horizon OS v85 Public Test Channel (PTC) is considered, the Meta headset will be able to turn any flat surface – a table or a desk – into a virtual keyboard you can type on like a physical keyboard.

The PTC for Quest OS v85 has started rolling out and initial YouTube hands-on reviews and forum discussions reveal it’s available as an experimental feature exclusively on Quest 3. The Quest 3S may have been left out of the virtual keyboard (the reason is not apparent at the time of writing), which appears like magic on a table and turns it into a keyboard complete with a trackpad.

Designer: Meta

The feature is called Surface Keyboard and it adds a keyboard on top of any surface you want. With the tap on the handheld controllers, you can switch back from the virtual keyboard to controllers and back seamlessly. If mixed reality and hand tracking have always excited you, with v85 of its operating system, the Quest 3 is going to take that experience to a new level.

To be able to truly live this fiction, where you place your hands on a table for a couple of seconds and a keyboard appears out of nowhere (where your hands were), and you can start typing – no buttons, no configuration, just hands and the virtual keyboard to type on. You will be required to opt in to the PTC of the Horizon OS, and receive the pre-release version to toil with.

If we remember correctly, Meta has been working on creating a virtual keyboard of this kind for a better part of the decade. In fact, it was in 2023 that Mark Zuckerberg demoed it and claimed he could reach 100 words per minute. Going by the videos and reviews floating online, the keyboard will take some getting used to. That said, the setup is easy and straightforward.

When you have opted in for the PTC, you can go to Movement Tracking and enable hand movement and body and double-tap controllers for hand tracking (to be able to switch between controller and keyboard). Now, to the Experimental and Unstable Surface Keyboard under the head. Once that’s done, go to devices, click keyboard, and setup and you’re set. Place your hands flat on a surface, and in seconds, a keyboard will appear where your hands are.

 

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