Threefold Leap in Sales of AI glasses

EssilorLuxottica said its "AI glasses gained further traction in the first half of the year, with Ray-Ban Meta more than tripling in revenue year-over-year. The new Oakley Meta was announced in June, being on the blocks with the HSTN collection equipped with Oakley Prizm lenses, that will be available later this summer." Source: EssilorLuxottica financial results 

Smart Glasses Momentum Continues at Meta

Meta reported a 5% year-on-year increase in sales in its Reality Labs segment for the second quarter to 370 million US dollars, due to increased sales of AI glasses, partially offset by lower sales of its Quest VR headsets. As Reality Labs' expenses were 4.9 billion dollars, up 1% year-over-year, the unit made an operating loss of 4.5 billion dollars.

Meta said "the growth of Ray-Ban Meta (AI glasses) sales accelerated in Q2, with demand still outstripping supply for the most popular SKUs despite increases to our production earlier this year. We’re working to ramp supply to better meet consumer demand later this year." 

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, added: "I continue to think that glasses are basically going to be the ideal form factor for AI because you can let an AI see what you see throughout the day, hear what you hear, talk to you. Once you get a display in there, whether it’s the kind of wide holographic field of view like we showed with Orion or just a smaller display that might be good for displaying some information, that’s also going to unlock a lot of value."

"The other thing that’s awesome about glasses is, they are going to be the ideal way to blend the physical and digital worlds together. So the whole metaverse vision, I think, is going to end up being extremely important, too, and AI is going to accelerate that, too. It’s just that if you’d asked me five years ago, whether we’d have kind of holograms that created immersive experiences or superintelligence first, I think most people would have thought that you’d get the holograms first. And it’s this interesting kind of quirk of the tech industry that I think we’re going to end up having really strong AI first." Source: Meta

Quarter a "Seminal Point" for Tesla

Tesla's revenues declined 12% year-on-year in the second quarter to 22.5 billion US dollars, as vehicle deliveries declined. Even so, the automaker described the quarter as "a seminal point in Tesla’s history: the beginning of our transition from leading the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries to also becoming a leader in AI, robotics and related services." 

Ashok Elluswamy, Director-Autopilot Software at Tesla, said the company's test robotaxis, which operate with a safety driver, have "been doing great so far in Austin.... and we'll continue to expand in Austin to probably more than 10x our current operating region. ... The next thing to expand would be in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are working with the government to get approval here and, in the meanwhile, launch the service without the person in the driver seat just to expedite and while we wait for regulatory approval. We are also testing a lot of other cities in the U.S., including Florida, Nevada, et cetera."

Elon Musk, Tesla, CEO,  added: "If we are not roughly making 100,000 Optimus robots a month in 60 months [time], I would be shocked." Source: Tesla

Waymo Doubles Mileage in Six Months

Alphabet said its Waymo robotaxis have driven more than 100 million miles without a human behind the wheel, doubling the mileage in about six months. Waymo has about 1,500 vehicles operating in San Francisco and some other Bay Area cities, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. Source: Reuters