The world is asking who is gonna be the next Iron Man. Stark made you an Avenger
The world needs people like you
Hello Peter, these are your new augmented reality glasses from North
Woah
These are even better than than Edith
so unlike Edith where you can see the display on the glasses these are
projecting directly on my retina so only I can see it completely invisible
Yeah, they look like normal glasses to me
Hey guys, I'm the Hacksmith on this episode Make it Real we're testing out
Edith glasses from Spiderman Far From Home
Hello Peter, these are your new
augmented reality glasses from North. Mr. Stark wanted you to have them
would you like to see what they can do
Woah
Throughout the course of Tony's development as Iron Man
we've seen him use various smart glasses over the years
to assist him in being one of the smartest and most powerful heroes of the MCU
Tony: Friday what am I looking at?
Friday: Not sure I'm working on it
When his story arc is over it's up to Peter Parker to carry on the legacy
and Tony leaves him his latest iteration of his personal smart glasses called Edith
Edith by the way stands for Even Dead I'm The Hero
That Tony
anyway these augmented reality smart glasses give Peter a powerful artificial intelligence
and access to all stark tech and these smart glasses right here these are about
as close as we can get to Edith in real life with current technology
but we can't come up with revolutionary Stark technology like this in a month or two
since the movie came out. No these have actually been in development for over
four years representing millions of dollars in investment and hundreds of
thousands of hours of engineering time and in fact they're available to buy
right now. They're called Focals and they're made right here in Canada by
a company called North. Unlike other consumer smart glasses
available that are bulky and indiscreet vocals are actually stylish and discreet
They protect a holographic display directly onto your retina, no one can
even see that you're using them. They're literally the closest thing to Edith
glasses available today and while I personally had nothing to do with the
development of these smart glasses my business partner Ian
Well he was actually one of the engineers on the development team for them at North
that is before I poached him to work with me here at Hacksmith Industries
but thanks to Ian's history with the company we're getting exclusive
behind-the-scenes look at how the Focals are manufactured and what's coming next
Steven Lake the CEO of North invited us to come see special projects facility
number four right here in Canada, where Focals are manufactured
but before we go check that out let me show you what these glasses can do
So what exactly are these and how do they compare to Edith
well first and foremost they are normal glasses
you can get prescription lenses you can choose different colors and
I gotta say they're actually pretty stylish too. They're a little bit heavier
than regular glasses but the real magic happens right here. See there's actually
a tiny projector which bounces a holographic image off of a holographic
film on the lens into your retina which means no one can actually see
what you're seeing which is pretty cool
and to control it it actually comes with this little ring that has a little joystick on it
you can also use voice commands
and just like Edith you can actually talk to Alexa for example
Alexa
initiate drone strike
anyway let's go see how these are made
Here's a bit of a Museum of the history of vocals
I was with the company up until alpha
and then they took it beyond that obviously
A alpha unit is right here that's the first working prototype but I also worked on
other iterations to test certain features like this one
I made this one on the formlabs printer
So we're in the lab late one night we're
finally getting the first pair fully assembled where we had all the pieces
working I put the last little pieces together and what was the first one to
wear a fully assembled functioning alpha unit which I think is pretty cool
Hey I'm Stephen Lake, co-founder and CEO of North. Started this seven years ago
with this whole idea of how do we bring computing out into the world and
basically build those Ironman glasses in real life and seven years later
we're standing here at North
So you got tell me when you were out there securing
funding for this awesome company did you feel kind of like Tony Stark
bringing this never before really seen technology to investors and being like
check this out
I think the first time I truly like had that feeling it was going
through customs at the airport with this case it actually Ian built, the first one
it was like this Pelican case essentially handcuffed to my wrist
They scan it on the x-ray and they're like okay so you gotta like secondary
screening every time, what is this thing? You open it and you're like their glasses
They're like, what do you mean glasses
you open it and they're like, oh my god like what is this some kind of like
James Bond thing what is this and all the TSA agents would be coming over
and like asking to try them on and like calling everyone over
It's funny I took a metal Iron Man helmet through customs like a few months ago and no one even raised an eyebrow
yeah try a half a dozen pairs of glasses
Alright so we've seen smart glasses and various works of fiction over the years but
there's never really been like a good consumer pair until now with Focals, why has it been so hard to actually
create a pair of smart glasses
We saw the early things with Google glass
and like these other big headsets that were like an inch thick of optics and
you're realistically consumer you're never gonna wear that in public
So what's next?
It's like version 1 of this whole new wave of computing right it's
We're Focals V1 we're crazy excited the first glasses people are wearing every
single day and the idea is that over time these become completely invisible
and the technology just kind of fades away, there and you need it gone when you don't
walking down the street and suddenly bang there's the interface
finish what ever you're trying to do in the world, back to the real world and all you see
is an amazing looking the best pair of glasses that you would have worn
period never mind smart glasses
So would you say the Edith glasses
in Spiderman Far From Home are realistic or obtainable in the future
The crazy part today is now we watch these movies where we go back and watch like
original Iron Man or all these movies that, or James Bond that have these like
concept glasses and that's like mostly real today. We're 75% of the way there
like this is a pair of glasses looks like regular glasses holographic display like
projecting on the back of your eye. That was science fiction like six months ago
as far as the public is concerned. I think in terms of like Edith being fully
there, maybe not all the way yet but like that is absolutely going to happen
in the future. Bigger field of view, understanding the world around you like those ingredients are well underway
right now and so we're I think we're a lot closer than you might actually think
to that being reality
yeah we don't exactly have like superpowered AIs running off the stark servers
Hey all that stuff is not that far out
Focals will get more contextual understanding what we're doing in the world
and then like you can draw the line from there to something not too far off EDITH
How close are we to having an AI assistant in our ear able to answer
complex questions just like EDITH
Google assistant or Siri or Alexa
these things we have to tell them everything right they don't know what
we're doing in the world they kind of know you've asked it to set a timer or
asked a fact but one of the things that glasses will unlock is actually
Now I have a computer that can see the world around me eventually can understand what
I'm doing in the world, and so the amount of contacts or information
that you're gonna have to build an amazing smart assistant is orders of
magnitude more than we have today with our other phones and devices
And so that concept of like this all-knowing assistant is there you need it
prompting you of what you're trying to do in the world
Whether it's maybe Her or it's EDITH
like those things are actually not crazy anymore
so for example as Alexa becomes more sentient
how powerful do you think these glasses will be
The big change with us with bringing Alexa with you is like it's not just this
little speaker in the corner of your living room or kitchen saying set a timer for five minutes
it's suddenly with you all the time
but that next level of actually now feeding it, letting it understand
what are you trying to do and how do you just have it instantly there knowing
what you're trying to do and supporting you instead of you saying like James
What is this question like what is this you know thing, it's just there and it's like bang
I can walk home today I can be like, hey open the front door, turn on the
fireplace, open the blinds and like from the glasses that just happens. Real life today
It's crazy
So one more fun kind of question, what did you think when Ian
told you that he was going to quit his job here at North to pursue a tiny little YouTube channel
So Ian was always working on like pretty crazy stuff for us
he was sort of in this little like prototyping thing we had like building
crazy shit, so the fact working on like the concept of Hacksmith was not
surprising but like to go at that point when I think there's like no money and
like very few subscribers and like a couple videos at that point uh yeah
it was pretty crazy
it's like really that's we gonna do you could build these crazy
glasses or build some YouTube channel?
Now I look back and I'm like ok
Well alright let's go on a tour of the manufacturing floor
ya sweet let's check it out
This entire line we're gonna walk
through right here is doing everything from taking these raw kinda boards,
putting all the little components on it, soldering them on, goes through a big
oven to melt all the solder, comes through right here it gets tested every step.
They're automated testing making sure all the chips are on right they're
working and then that's hiding right inside of the glasses like that
That's incredible
This machine's kind of cool
basically every one of these things like the big ones here each of these those
are all separate little robots. Every little part that goes on this board is
in one of these reels. You can see them here they're like a tiny grain of sand
Ian: How many components are on that board
Atleast 100 per side here, on each side of that
So the robots picking that up, the board's going through it's moving
and it's placing them exactly on that tiny little spot there, it flows out into
the oven where it all gets melted and kind of soldered on stuck on board
That's incredible
And that's when we're building a product like glasses right it
there's real estate and space is at such a premium we got to pack everything in
there as tight as we can
Now this looks interesting
yeah this is a breakdown of all the parts so almost everything here we build in-house here
in Waterloo and we do that because A. a lot of the machines we have to build this
didn't exist right no one had an assembly line to make holographic glasses before
as you can imagine and so we have to kind of invent the processes,
the machines everything else another interesting thing is every piece of this
is built to order, so if you walk into the store in Toronto or the online app
and you order the product it's custom-built for you and that literally
automatically runs through the line here
This is one of the final areas where those all come together, our operators here doing the final assembly
hand assembling all the last components they're packaging it they're doing final
tests, calibrating everything and ultimately putting the retail box
and getting ready to ship it out the back door
So cleanroom right here we've got you got to get suited up for this so it's
you can imagine right we're working on things that are so small like the mirrors are you know less than a
millimeter let's say they're on a chip so any speck of dust a hair or something
would totally ruin that product so we actually have to get gowned up here so we'll head in
This is where we do all the optical assembly so we actually build all of the light engines,
the lasers, the projectors, they set up whole parts that generates the image
gets built in here then it's get sealed up in a little package basically it's
ready to go out to the rest of the facility and be put in the glasses
We have stations right here where they're taking in these little tiny lenses that are
tiny have to be aligned in the six degrees of freedom
those are all moved they see by robot inside of here automatically aligned in
the right spot and then cured with the glue to keep those lenses in the final position
And then that's it onto the next step
If you look at this screen here it's already aligned blue
and it's like currently aligning green and you can see that it's got the lense in
position and it's running through our algorithm here, so it's calculating
whether or not the lens in the right position. And all that is happening like
inside this black box
Were these machines developed in house or did you have any external
No we built these
yeah everything from the station to the software to the algorithm to like the way we even use this Dulsa camera like
all built from the ground up in house
So this is a raw holographic film right there you can just see the element there
we actually record that in first it's recorded by intersecting laser beams in the film
we take that we then curve it in 3D so it gets curved and it gets
inserted like this right into the middle of a lens that's cast around it
Then believe it or not out of that whole blank comes something
like this essentially a piece of optical plastic with a hologram inside
That's sort of the magic of it
All the machines we see back here is actually how that happens
On all the lenses we put a coating on the front and back that stops glare and reflections
in this crazy chamber here
And then behind this wall is like the actual machine is massive
James: Wow
James: A machine shop area
Yeah machine shop
A bit more familiar for our viewers
This is the machine I used to cut out some of the first prototype lenses come
Come a long way
These glasses are pretty freakin awesome so how do you get a pair
well when I got my pair I had to go to one of North's showrooms in Toronto to get
them custom size for my face but since then they've actually created an at-home
sizing app which means you can literally just order these glasses online and have
them custom fitted for you. All you need is an iPhone X or greater
and you can actually 3D scan your face at home for a perfect fitting pair of glasses
It's super simple just check out the link in the description below to get
your own pair or if you want to try your hand at chance we're actually doing a
giveaway to two lucky viewers to win their very own pair of Focals it's
free to enter and easy to do all you have to do is follow North on Instagram
Twitter or Facebook and then fill out the giveaway form linked in the description below
Good luck
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode Make it Real see you next time