Connect with us

Technologies

I Tried These Turbocharged XR Sunglasses at Disney Studios and Got a Stunning New View

I checked out Disney-backed startup Liminal Space’s tech in person. Its glasses are a theme park experience waiting to happen.

Standing on a crate inside Walt Disney Studios Stage 1 is Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s talking with a crowd of people wearing the same ordinary-looking sunglasses that I am, and is larger than life, speaking with full-body movements and natural gestures.

Then I take off the glasses, and I can see that Rocket was on a screen, not an animatronic figure standing on the physical crate. When Rocket stops moving, out from behind a curtain — Wizard of Oz-style — steps an actor who’s been doing all the movements and voice work on Rocket’s behalf.

I could wear these glasses all day and never know there’s anything out of the ordinary about them. They’re regular sunglasses when you’re outdoors, before transforming into XR glasses when you look at a special screen.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

The LED screen technology and glasses come from Liminal Space, a startup selected as part of the 2025 Disney Accelerator Program. Starting out by providing AR experiences at music concerts, Liminal Space creates display systems with microLED chip technology. This produces holographic 3D displays used for everything from stadiums and arenas to smaller spaces like attractions and galleries.

During a Demo Day event at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank in November, Liminal Space co-founder and CEO Nathan Huber explains on-screen that he wanted to improve on how virtual reality is a “solo, isolating experience” because you’re wearing a hulking headset alone, and all you can see is the display. You can’t share it with the people around you.

“We can give you that same level of immersion and awe [as VR], but you can now see your friends and family … and do it all for one to 10,000 people at the same time,” Huber says in the Demo Day video, describing a world where things are “augmented by digital enhancements all around you.”

Liminal Space’s sunglasses are a little closer to augmented reality (AR) than they are to VR, as well as a huge step up from old-school 3D glasses that are currently used in theme parks. 

Whereas VR — like Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest 3 — requires a headset and drops you into a fully virtual world, AR overlays the real world with graphics. Smart glasses, like Meta’s Ray-Bans (which Disneyland has already been experimenting with), use AR to overlay information over the real world, as well as providing camera-recording functions and phone connectivity.

As theme parks compete with one another to provide their guests with the most immersive atmosphere possible, Disney’s backing of Liminal Space shows it’s interested in adding more hyperrealistic screens to its parks.

How realistic are these XR visuals?

After Rocket steps away, the Liminal Space demo screen takes us through the world of Avatar, showcasing landscapes from the upcoming sequels (no photos allowed). We soar through thick green vegetation, pulsating trees, floating cliffs, neon flowers and flying reptiles.

“The quality of the visuals — it is bright, it is crisp, I am seeing details in this footage that I’ve never seen before,” Leslie Evans, executive Imagineer at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D, says in the video. “People painstakingly rendered these scenes, and if that’s happened, I want you to see every detail. I want the contrast to be top-notch, I want you to feel like it’s real.”

It does feel as real as 3D and VR can: Everyone gasps as we reach a summit in the Avatar world and tilt forward, “falling” down into the rainforest below. Despite these dizzying heights, it’s somehow less nauseating than strapping on a full VR headset and gazing into another reality. Maybe it’s because you can still see the real world around you, or because you’re not wearing a heavy headpiece.

Leaving aside the comparisons to VR and AR, these glasses offer a far more sophisticated version of the screens on the Avatar Flight of Passage ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida, especially with those new Avatar visuals I experienced. Liminal Space’s sunglasses are the next step up from those awkward, plasticky sets handed to you at the start of rides and shows like PhilharMagic and Toy Story Mania — the ones you’re told not to wear until the show starts, and that only really work if you’re looking dead straight at the screen and position them just right — with the idea being that you could walk around comfortably in them all day and have them work everywhere. 

This seems to be what Disney intends to do with the technology (Disney tells me it’s still exploring possibilities and doesn’t have anything to share just now). The glasses do double duty, both as sunglasses and whenever you come into contact with a screen at an attraction or while strolling through a land. 

Modular screens throughout theme parks?

The Liminal Space glasses also work from multiple viewing angles while looking at screens, which helps create the feeling of total immersion.

Michael Koperwas, supervisor of Creative Development and Digital Design at Industrial Light & Magic — the famed visual effects studio founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas in the 1970s — spoke about using modular screens from Liminal Space for park experiences.

“All of these different screens create these low-friction, wonderful ways to expand the world that you’re already in,” Koperwas says during the Disney Demo Day showcase video. “Having a modular display like that is essential to creating these locations that feel seamless, feel magical, feel wonderful, and are just full of surprises.”

The company’s glasses are cheap to make, Liminal Space says, meaning theme parks could easily provide thousands of pairs to guests, who could even leave with them at the end of the day and bring them back for their next visit.

It wouldn’t be Disney’s first park wearable: In 2013, Disney introduced the MagicBand for guests to buy and wear at Walt Disney World, allowing them to swipe the band to enter parks and their hotel rooms, and to pay for merchandise and food. The MagicBand Plus added more functionality and came to Disneyland in 2022.

At Liminal Space’s demo, I switch from black-framed sunglasses to white ones and walk into the next room. It has an enormous circular screen showing Impressionist artworks, fading out of one and into the next. A gargantuan Vincent Van Gogh stares at me, inviting me to step inside his Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. The image shifts to Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and the soft saffron petals curl out toward me.

The image changes again, and this time I’m not just looking at a centuries-old painting — I’m standing in a European street as snow falls around me. Like a child watching a 3D movie for the first time, I can’t help but reach out to try to touch the drifting snowflakes. Through the Liminal Space sunglasses, they’re moving all around me. 

And unlike those traditional 3D glasses you’d wear to watch a show in Disneyland, where the image doesn’t appear to be any closer if you move closer to the screen, Liminal Space’s demo feels like you’re stepping into the video itself. As I walk slowly closer to the falling snow, it begins to fall around me, moving into my peripheral vision as well as in front of me.

Walt Disney Imagineering wants to give park guests immersive experiences like these that don’t just feel like looking at a TV, says Jody Gerstner, executive of Show Systems at Walt Disney Imagineering. 

“Because the circular [screen] performs so well with this bright an image, and because the filter gives you an unfettered view when you move your eyes back and forth, it could be a big win in our guest quality,” Gerstner says in the Demo Day video.

Speaking to a packed theater, Bonnie Rosen, general manager of Disney Accelerator, says the whole point, whether it’s AI, 3D printing or VR, is creating imagination that comes to life. 

“Innovation happens every day at Disney,” she says. “This company lives and breathes creativity. We just don’t talk about it until it looks inevitable, and then someone calls it ‘Disney magic.'”

Related Topics:

Technologies

Anthropic warns investors of AI’s ‘existential risk to humanity’ in IPO prospectus, reports say

Anthropic’s IPO filing dedicates 80 pages to the risks of AI, nearly double the 48 pages it spends discussing its business plans, according to Reuters.

Your Privacy

On this service, we and our vendors use cookies and other tools (“Cookies”) to store and access information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP address, and your browser type. Your data may be used to save and communicate your privacy choices; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; for advertising and content measurement; to conduct audience research and services development; so we can improve our services and develop new ones; to match and combine offline data with your online activity; and for social features. We may share this data with select vendors with your consent. You can adjust your choices any time through the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings.

We will also use other Cookies that are essential or related to our services, including for security and fraud prevention. To learn more about some of our vendors, see the IAB and Google Vendors under each purpose. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy to learn more.

These Cookies and SDKs are required for Service functionality, including security and fraud prevention, and to enable any purchasing capabilities. You can set your browser to block these tracking technologies, but some parts of the site may not function properly.

The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.

Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.

Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.

– Use limited data to select advertising 791 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).

– Create profiles for personalised advertising 637 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.

– Use profiles to select personalised advertising 640 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.

– Create profiles to personalise content 261 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.

– Use profiles to select personalised content 234 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.

– Measure advertising performance 916 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.

– Measure content performance 405 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.

– Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 579 partners can use this purpose Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).

– Develop and improve services 688 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.

– Use limited data to select content 180 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).

These Cookies and SDKs are used to collect data about your browsing habits, use of the Services, your preferences, and your interaction with advertisements across platforms and devices for the purpose of delivering targeted advertising content, both on our Services and on third party sites. Third-party sites and services also use Targeting Cookies to deliver content, including advertisements relevant to your interests on the Services. If you reject these Cookies or SDKs, you will see less relevant advertising.

Data collected under this category through Cookies and SDKs can also be used to select and deliver personalized content, such as news articles and videos.

Continue Reading

Technologies

U.S., Iran hold separate mediator talks as Mideast oil exports hit war-time high

Iranian and U.S. officials reportedly met separately with mediators Monday to push for a ceasefire, as Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded to war-time high.

Iranian and U.S. officials reportedly met separately with mediators Monday to push for a ceasefire.

Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February.

An outright export ban by Washington on diesel would keep roughly 1.2 million barrels a day at home, and risks overwhelming Gulf Coast storage, according to Kpler.

The building of the destroyed Shajareh Tayebeh primary school is pictured surrounded by rubble in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province on August 10, 2026. Six months on, a team of AFP journalists obtained rare access to the school which has remained largely in ruins, its collapsed walls and twisted steel now surrounded by portraits of the children killed as Iranian flags flutter above the rubble. Iran says the attack on the school involved two separate US Tomahawk missiles but neither the United States nor Israel has officially claimed responsibility for the strike. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty Images) /

Atta Kenare | Afp | Getty Images

U.S. and Iranian officials have reportedly held separate indirect talks with mediators on Monday, reviving efforts to end seven months of war as Tehran presses for a response to a revised ceasefire framework and Middle East crude exports climb to their highest level since the conflict began.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Qatari mediators in New York, where he remained after the United Nations General Assembly, and reportedly said he expects Washington’s reply by Tuesday. “We talked about ideas and how to find solutions to fulfil Iran’s conditions,” Araghchi said, adding that he planned to return to Tehran once a response arrives. “Whenever the Qataris have a response, they know how to get it to us.”

Iran’s proposal, first presented on the sidelines of last week’s General Assembly, calls for a four- to five-day U.S. timeline to release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions on Iranian oil and end the naval blockade of Iranian ports, with nuclear talks beginning within seven days. Tehran has tied any reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to those steps.

President Donald Trump had on Sunday called the plan “unacceptable” and rejected it, telling reporters Iran wants a swift deal because of the economic pressure it is under. Speaking at the White House Monday, Trump said U.S. officials had spoken separately with mediators but gave no further details, adding: “We’re going to win. It’s going to go pretty quickly.”

The diplomatic push comes as physical supply data shows the war’s toll on the oil market easing. Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February, Kpler data showed. “Middle East crude exports at just under 80% of pre-conflict levels,” the tracking firm said in a note on Monday.

The Strait of Hormuz itself remains far from normal. Kpler’s real-time tracking showed total clearance through the strait at 10,591 kilobarrels a day on Saturday, against a pre-war baseline of 17,133.

Continue Reading

Technologies

Oil prices fall as crude exports recover at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports

Saudi Arabia has restored flows through the pipeline to around 3.5 million barrels per day, according to media reports.

Your Privacy

On this service, we and our vendors use cookies and other tools (“Cookies”) to store and access information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP address, and your browser type. Your data may be used to save and communicate your privacy choices; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; for advertising and content measurement; to conduct audience research and services development; so we can improve our services and develop new ones; to match and combine offline data with your online activity; and for social features. We may share this data with select vendors with your consent. You can adjust your choices any time through the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings.

We will also use other Cookies that are essential or related to our services, including for security and fraud prevention. To learn more about some of our vendors, see the IAB and Google Vendors under each purpose. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy to learn more.

These Cookies and SDKs are required for Service functionality, including security and fraud prevention, and to enable any purchasing capabilities. You can set your browser to block these tracking technologies, but some parts of the site may not function properly.

The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.

Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.

Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.

– Use limited data to select advertising 791 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).

– Create profiles for personalised advertising 637 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.

– Use profiles to select personalised advertising 640 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.

– Create profiles to personalise content 261 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.

– Use profiles to select personalised content 234 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.

– Measure advertising performance 916 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.

– Measure content performance 405 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.

– Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 579 partners can use this purpose Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).

– Develop and improve services 688 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.

– Use limited data to select content 180 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).

These Cookies and SDKs are used to collect data about your browsing habits, use of the Services, your preferences, and your interaction with advertisements across platforms and devices for the purpose of delivering targeted advertising content, both on our Services and on third party sites. Third-party sites and services also use Targeting Cookies to deliver content, including advertisements relevant to your interests on the Services. If you reject these Cookies or SDKs, you will see less relevant advertising.

Data collected under this category through Cookies and SDKs can also be used to select and deliver personalized content, such as news articles and videos.

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © Verum World Media