New Apple Glass Rumors; Samsung Smartphone Sensor-DSLR-Like; Microsoft & Sony Partner On Smart Camera Solutions; Tesla Will Raise ‘Full Self-Driving’ Price

Major leaks about the Apple smart glasses from Macrumors.com, picking up from Jon Prosser of Front Page Tech. We now reportedly have a name and price. They will be called Apple Glass, and will start at $499. Apparently, prescription lenses will be an option. There will be displays in both lenses, and they can be interacted with via gestures. The glasses will have to be paired with an iPhone, as the original Apple Watch was. Other rumors include wireless charging and LiDAR. The Apple Glass was to have been shown at their iPhone event in September, but has now been bumped to spring. The iPhone event will be delayed to October because of the pandemic, according to Ming-Chi Kuo. Apple is also reportedly working on a more traditional AR/VR headset that will resemble the Oculus Quest.

Samsung has revealed its latest smartphone camera sensor, which ‘only’ has 50 megapixels…finally tacitly admitting that more megapixels isn’t always better. According to engadget.com, the ISOCELL GN1 does come in at 1/1.3 inches, with relatively large 1.2 micron pixels to help low-light performance. It has dual pixel autofocus, similar to what Canon cameras have, and Samsung says it will have ‘DLSR-level autofocus speeds,’ even in dimly lit situation. Samsung may see it go into a Vivo phone first, and later make its way into the Galaxy line. Samsung has had problems with the 108 MP sensor in the Galaxy S20.

In other cam sensor news, Sony and Microsoft are partnering to build AI powered smart camera solutions, in order to make it easier for enterprise customers to perform video analytics. Zdnet.com says that they will be embedding Microsoft Azure AI into sony’s IMX500 AI-enabled image sensor. It’s the first chip to contain but a pixel chip and a logic chip. According to Sony, the app will allow independent software vendors and smart camera original equipment manufacturers to develop AI models, enabling them to create their own customer and industry-specific video analytics and computer vision solutions that use the IMX500 image sensor.

Tesla has announced that they will jack up the price of the ‘full self-driving’ option by $1000 on July 1st. Cnet.com reports the announcement came in a Tweet from Elon Musk (of course.)
Tesla Full Self-Driving option cost rises by ~$1000 worldwide on July 1st. Order a Tesla online in less than 2 minutes at https://t.co/qJm9uPBCX5
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2020

The package has been priced at $7000 for a while now. When contacted, Tesla wouldn’t comment on whether any new features would be included in the package. Musk claims the FSD mode is “the value of FSD is probably somewhere in excess of $100,000.”