- Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture in February of him in Facebook's early days and this year.
- A Threads user recently pointed out something in the background that might be forthcoming AR glasses from Meta.
A photo Mark Zuckerberg shared in February may unintentionally offer some insight into Meta's roadmap for its AR hardware.
The Meta CEO made a post on Threads earlier this year with the caption, "How it started vs. how it's going." It shows two images of Zuckerberg at a desk working on Facebook, one from the tech giant's early days and a more current pic.
Matthew Karolian of The Boston Globe recently pointed out on Threads that there's eyewear in the background that might reveal some information about smart glasses in the works from Meta.
"Tell me more about these chonky glasses with the weirdly folding arms," Karolian posted alongside a zoomed-in image of the glasses.
Zuckerberg responded in the comments, "Will be ready to share more later this year."
Post by @mkarolianView on Threads
Zuckerberg said in an interview last month that Meta is "almost ready" to show off a prototype of its "full holographic" AR glasses.
The company will likely show off the first version of its "true" AR glasses, a project internally referred to as Orion, at its annual Connect developer conference this fall, Business Insider's Kali Hays previously reported.
The prototype is "not the most stylish" and has thicker frames because of the AR technology, Zuckerberg said in last month's interview.
The Information reported last week that current and former Meta employees think the thick frames on the AR glasses Meta hopes to debut next year could be a tough sell for customers and that eyewear company EssilorLuxottica, which worked with Meta on its first two Ray-Ban smart glasses models, "balked at the design."
So what's exactly in the background of Zuckerberg's photo? It's hard to say. It could be an old design, a non-functional design mock-up of a future product, a prototype of some sort — or something else entirely. After all, it's hard to think Zuckerberg would have posted a photo with a future product in plain view.
But with Meta's Connect conference just two months away on September 25, we can expect to soon get a peek at what Zuckerberg and the Meta's Reality Labs division have been cooking up.