Just as Google gets set to rethink their “glasses” strategy Snapchat, or rather Snap Inc, as it is now called has revealed a pair of sunglasses that becomes a video recorder.
According to the Wall Street Journal when you slip Spectacles on and tap a button near the hinge, it records up to 10 seconds of video from your first-person vantage. Each new tap records another clip.
The new sunglasses are a one-size-fits-all and come in black, teal or coral.
So instead of having to use your smartphone Snap glasses can be clicked on in a split second.
The Spectacles’ camera uses a 115-degree-angle lens, which is wider than a typical smartphone’s and much closer to the eyes’ natural field of view.
The glasses are the culmination of a years-long development process by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel the former boyfriend of Australian Model Miranda Kerr.mirn1
Spiegel claims that the Spectacles allow Snap to control a physical camera, instead of making the app a slave to your smartphone’s built-in lens.
“It’s not about an accumulation of photos defining who you are,” says Spiegel. “It’s about instant expression and who you are right now. Internet-connected photography is really a reinvention of the camera. And what it does is allow you to share your experience of the world while also seeing everyone else’s experience of the world, everywhere, all the time.”
Snapchat won’t comment on its revenue figures. An internal document reported on by TechCrunch suggests that the company took in a paltry $59 million in 2015.
But Snapchat has begun to ramp up its overtures to advertisers, attempting to offer better feedback metrics and slightly more advanced targeting options (like knowing whether a user tended to watch news-based content on Snapchat’s Discover channels or preferred lifestyle content), and the document in the TechCrunch report held that Snapchat estimates 2016 revenues between $250 million and $350 million. In 2017, it aims to bring in $500 million to $1 billion.
It’s not known whether the new glasses will be launched in Australia.
