The policy risk inside Mark Zuckerberg's glasses

Meta has always insisted that building the “metaverse” is a long-term play, but a flashy recent demo from Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated just how immediate a policy concern it might become if people really start to inhabit virtual reality at scale. At Meta’s annual Connect conference, Zuckerberg strode onstage to demonstrate the company’s prototype Orion augmented reality glasses. The glasses resemble a strange combination of Buddy Holly, Iris Apfel and semi-opaque drive-in 3D glasses, and functioned, as Zuckerberg demonstrated in a video, exactly how he and the metaverse’s biggest boosters have promised it: cleanly laying virtual elements onto physical reality, controllable with a wrist-bound “neural interface,” with no clunky visor or joysticks required. But while the device might be far from ready for the public, tech-watchers are saying it’s a bright red warning sign that regulators need to prepare themselves for the next wave of omnipresent, data-hoovering smart devices.