Meta (company)

The company was founded in 2012 as a technology startup from the Y Combinator business incubator. In January 2013, Meta spoke about plans to create augmented reality glasses, collecting a budget for development on the Kickstarter crowdfunding service ^[1] . The required budget was $ 100,000, and the amount of funds raised exceeded expectations by almost two times and amounted to $ 194,444 ^[2] . In May 2013, augmented reality pioneer professor Steve Mann joined Meta ^[3] . In July 2013, Infinity Augmented Reality (Infinity AR), the manufacturer of the world's first augmented reality software platform for universal integration with smart cards, smartphones and tablets, announced an investment in Meta and a strategic partnership with it ^[4] .

On August 20, 2013, Meta announced the opening of the world's first store of augmented reality applications for wearable computers Space Apps ^[5] .

The co-founder and leader of the company is Miron Graybets (Meron Gribetz). The partner at the base of the Meta was Ben Sand. Lead Researcher - Steve Mann. Senior Advisor - Steve Feiner.

Meta is engaged in the production and sale of augmented reality glasses (in fact, wearable computers). According to repeated statements by the head and other Meta employees, including Professor Steve Mann, the company's goal is to create a new type of standard computer interface. To this end, Meta intends to compete not only with its “peers”, but also with the leaders of the computer market, such as IBM and Apple:

“I see myself in a ten-year war with these small companies,” Graiberts says with a smile, pointing first to the impressive Googleplex and then to the large Apple campus in the distance. “It may sound crazy, but take a look at the story.” IBM was as powerful as Google, and yet could not beat Steves (meaning Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - ed.). You need hungry, creative, and inexperienced people in their twenties to do this, and we have them. Computing should be more natural and interactive. Soon the day will come when we will laugh, remembering that we squinted, peering at the tiny panel in our hands ^[6]

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Devices

The first device of the company was META.01 Developer Edition, designed for software developers and created on the basis of the Epson Moverio platform and its own Meta code. Start of deliveries - December 2013.

Hardware Specifications

• dual displays made by TFT LCD technology, with a resolution of 960 × 540 with a field of view of 23 degrees (the image is fed via HDMI);
• RGB-camera connected via USB and shooting video in 720p resolution;
• infrared camera depth of scene, connected via USB;
• USB position sensor (three-axis accelerometer, three-axis gyroscope, three-axis compass).

Software

• Chess;
• 3D Sculpt + Print Tool for modeling, created in collaboration with Game Draw 3D;
• Laser Tag;
• Voxel Editor;
• MetaCraft, MineCraft simulator.

System Requirements

• computer on Windows;
• Unity 3D application development.

SDK is represented by Unity 3D technology.

Unity 3D SDK for Developers Specifications

• Unity 3D Surface Tracking for markers, functional and non-functional surfaces;
• Unity 3D Hand Tracking with support for meshes (an object consisting of triangles, with a superimposed texture) of hands, skeletal structure and gestures;
• support depth map and RGB;
• test applications.

The second device announced in August 2013 was the consumer META.01 Streamlined Edition glasses, which technically correspond to the developer version, but received a more ergonomic design. The start date for the delivery of these points was set for April 2014.

The cost of both versions was $ 667 apiece ^[7] .

• The official website of the company