During its annual Connect conference on Wednesday, the California company sketched out its aspirations for products that would bring the virtual world into the real one.

"This is the physical world with holograms overlaid on it," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said after pulling out the chunky black glasses from a metal case dramatically brought to him on stage.

"For now, I think the right way to look at Orion is as a time machine," he said.

"These glasses exist, they are awesome and they are a glimpse of a future that I think is going to be pretty exciting."

Meta also showed off new AI chatbot capabilities for its services and a new Quest mixed-reality headset. Meta shares registered a record closing high on Wednesday, up 0.9% at $568.31.

The Orion glasses are made of magnesium alloy and powered by custom silicon designed by Meta.

Users will be able to interact with the glasses through hand-tracking, voice and wrist-based neural interfaces.

Meta plans to work on making it smaller, sleeker and more low-cost before releasing it to consumers later on, Zuckerberg said.

--Reuters--