General Intelligence

Facebook’s Project Aria Is Google Maps — For Your Entire Life

A new augmented reality headset will create a map of everything you see

Dave Gershgorn
OneZero
Published in
4 min readSep 18, 2020

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Image: Facebook

OneZero’s General Intelligence is a roundup of the most important artificial intelligence and facial recognition news of the week.

Google Street View emerged from a seemingly insane vision: Put cameras on cars, and drive them around the entire world to capture every street on the planet.

Over time, that data became more and more valuable. The footage from those cars automatically updates Google Maps with new business signs and changes street names. Data from the car’s trip can be used to correct satellite imagery.

Now, Facebook has an even grander ambition. On Wednesday, the company announced a plan to map the entire world, beyond street view. The company is launching a set of glasses that contains cameras, microphones, and other sensors to build a constantly updating map of the world in an effort called Project Aria. That map will include the inside of buildings and homes and all the objects inside of them. It’s Google Street View, but for your entire life.

Facebook can already see almost every aspect of how the world uses the internet, through its ad tracking…

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Dave Gershgorn
OneZero

Senior Writer at OneZero covering surveillance, facial recognition, DIY tech, and artificial intelligence. Previously: Qz, PopSci, and NYTimes.