My life through a lens
Technology Ahead of Snap Inc’s new video glasses arriving in London, Richard Godwin has a first try at making a spectacle of himself
LAST September Evan Spiegel, the enigmatic 26-year-old founder of the social messaging app Snapchat, announced a change of direction. The Los Angeles company was no longer just in the business of allowing its 156 million daily users to apply dog-based filters to their selfies and exchange pix of vomiting rainbows. It was a “camera company”. And it was now called Snap Inc to reflect its pivot into the brave new world of augmented reality.
Shortly after that Minion-esque vending machines began to appear in select American locations where for $130 you could buy a pair of Spectacles: an eye-mounted camera attached to a pair of kooky shades that allows you to capture 10-second videos. Shortly after that I began to see the early adopters around Venice Boardwalk pausing to record skateboard displays and juice bar tête-à-têtes and “SNAPCHAT OUT OF VENICE” signs. And shortly after that, Snap Inc launched on the New York stock exchange with a value of over $20 billion. It was America’s biggest initial public offering since 2014.
The Spectacles are not yet available in Britain — if you want them you’ll have to get someone in the US to post you a pair, 19th-century style. But despite recent controversies (Spiegel allegedly calling India “poor” and over-inflated Snapchat’s user numbers) they seem to be catching on. At the very least they’ve avoided the fate of Glass, Google’s experiment with eye-mounted cameras. Perhaps this is because they look a bit like something from Back to the Future II or that they’re more explicitly silly. Or perhaps it’s because they fit more seamlessly into day-to-day life — as long as you’re in a place where it’s acceptable to wear shades indoors.
My first attempts to see the world through these new lenses left me bewildered — a common theme with thirtysomethings on Snapchat, apparently. I was disappointed to realise that no, you can’t use those