EssilorLuxottica, Polytechnic University of Milan create research center for smart glasses

Italian eyewear manufacturer EssilorLuxottica and Politecnico di Milano University are teaming up to develop the next generation of data glasses. On Tuesday, the two partners announced the establishment of the EssilorLuxottica Smart Eyewear Lab in the presence of leading Italian politicians. According to the statement, the facility will be located in the newly developed "innovation quarter" Parco dei Gasometri in the Lombard metropolis, and receive an investment of 50 million euros at launch and will ultimately provide jobs for more than 100 researchers.

"The main challenge of the project is to develop hardware, software and application technologies that enable people to interact with the digital world," the project partners said in a joint statement. The goal of the collaboration, which will initially run for five years, is to research and experimentally develop the basic technical components for "a new generation of wearables capable of autonomous network connectivity," the statement said.

"Innovation is at the heart of EssilorLuxottica's business model," said Francesco Milleri, the eyewear group's chairman and CEO. "The boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds are becoming increasingly blurred, opening up entirely new horizons and presenting a unique challenge that will catapult us into the future." These developments are "the key to opening up enormous development potential for the labour market and the entire economic system," Milleri said.

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.DE, and has been translated and edited into English by Veerle Versteeg.