Snap has become the first leading US tech company to unveil augmented-reality (AR) glasses, beating rivals such as Facebook and Apple to what many see as the next big computing platform.
Evan Spiegel, Snap’s chief executive, announced his company had built a pair of smart glasses, called Spectacles, that allow wearers to overlay its playful augmented reality filters, known as Lenses, on to the real world.
“Nobody else is doing this right now, in the way that we are and in the form factor that we are,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times, adding: “I don’t think people expect us to be this far along. Every other product out there is like a helmet.”