Snap, the owner of Snapchat, is moving beyond the social platform and focusing on developing augmented reality technology. To that end, it has acquired a company working on a brain-computer interface.
The company doesn’t intend to give up its photo and note-taking app, but it also wants to focus on other things. Snap, like Meta and Apple, is interested in developing augmented reality technology.
People who have had contact with them say that while their build quality is top-notch, they overheat in less than 10 minutes of use, and the displays are so small that it’s uncomfortable to look at them longer. Snap Spectacles AR are smart glasses designed to record video for the Snapchat service. They feature a camera lens and are capable of recording short snippets of video and syncing them to a smartphone for transmission to the user’s account.
All indications are that Snap continues to invest in the development of augmented reality. Tech companies agree that augmented reality glasses could completely replace our smartphones in the future. However, how do you write a message without a keyboard? A voice solution certainly won’t catch on. Eye movement analysis? That kind of work could make your eyes go dark. There is a growing consensus that the solution to the situation could be an interface somehow connected to the brain.
Snap recently announced the acquisition of NextMind, a Paris-based neurotechnology startup that has created a headband that allows the user to control certain aspects of the computer – like aiming in a video game or unlocking the iPad’s lock screen – with their thoughts. The company is developing a brain-computer interface. Most likely, NextMind’s research team and their technology will eventually be used to design and develop future versions of Snap Spectacles augmented reality glasses.
