Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses and their gesture-sensing neural band promised a future where we'd be writing out messages on our legs with our fingers. I saw Meta's team doing this last year, but I never got to try it myself. Now, if you have the glasses and band, you could try it too. Meta announced the news Tuesday along with info on a proof-of-concept smart car integration with Garmin that I demoed here at CES.
Support for handwriting recognition with a finger is rolling out in early access now to Ray-Ban Display glasses, which should give another option to responding to messages in the glasses besides voice dictation. My handwriting is terrible, and I'd prefer some sort of magic air-typing. But that doesn't exist yet, although Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth suggested to me it could be in the cards someday.
Watch this: My Life With Meta Ray-Ban Displays: A Weird Wild Future
The handwriting feature could work on any surface, according to Meta, like a desk (or your leg), but it's only English-supported for now, and only works with Messenger and WhatsApp. The new feature is part of several new glasses updates, including a new teleprompter mode and support for pedestrian navigation in more US cities (32 now) using the built-in map app.
But don't expect to try this outside the US anytime soon. Meta's paused the international release of Ray-Ban Display glasses for now, citing extremely limited inventory and long waiting lists in the US.
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