Meta Platforms Inc. unveiled its\u00a0newest virtual-reality headset on Tuesday,\u00a0a foray into the world of high-end VR devices designed to entice creators and working professionals to adopt Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s vision for an immersive digital future.<\/p>\n
The Meta Quest Pro is the company\u2019s latest offering in a product line\u00a0previously branded as Oculus.<\/p>\n
The Quest Pro includes a number of technological advancements from the company\u2019s Quest 2 headset, which was launched in late 2020.<\/p>\n
The new headset is also much pricier than its predecessor \u2014\u00a0it will cost $1,500, or three times the price of the Quest 2, in part because the company is targeting more serious working professionals.<\/p>\n
With the new device, Facebook parent Meta is seeking to transcend the notion that VR is primarily the realm of gamers, an effort to broaden its audience.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s Quest 2 headset has sold an estimated 15 million units.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s work-focused,\u201d Meta Chief Executive Officer Zuckerberg told a small group of reporters in late\u00a0September.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ideal customers for this [are] gonna be either people who just want the highest-end VR device \u2014 so enthusiasts, prosumer type folks \u2014 or people who are trying to get work done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the Quest Pro\u2019s new features are built for this\u00a0work-focused audience, and would be particularly useful for people taking meetings in VR\u00a0while working remotely.<\/p>\n
The device includes face-and eye-tracking, which can be used to humanize avatars so that conversations in VR feel more personal.<\/p>\n
It also has what Meta calls a \u201cfull-colour mixed reality experience,\u201d which uses cameras on the outside of the headset to let people see the world around them and overlay graphics while wearing the device. (The Quest 2 also has this mixed reality feature, but only in black and white.)<\/p>\n
Meta is also launching new \u201cself-tracking\u201d controllers alongside its new headset, which means each controller has built-in sensors\u00a0that can \u201ctrack their position in 3D space independent of\u00a0the headset,\u201d according to Meta\u2019s blog post about the product.<\/p>\n
Meta and Zuckerberg have been teasing the Quest Pro for months, and many of the gadget\u2019s details\u00a0leaked<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0ahead of Tuesday\u2019s announcement at the company\u2019s annual Connect conference.<\/p>\n Still, Meta\u2019s research in developing virtual and augmented reality headsets is key to\u00a0plans for the so-called metaverse, an immersive version of the internet where Zuckerberg hopes people will eventually work and play.<\/p>\n Someday users may access the metaverse as digital avatars through devices like the Quest Pro, and eventually through augmented reality glasses intended to look like ordinary reading spectacles.<\/p>\n That vision is still far off \u2014 and costing Meta tens of billions of dollars in the interim.<\/p>\n The company said investments in its Reality Labs division, which is responsible for building the metaverse,\u00a0cut operating profits<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by $10 billion in 2021.<\/p>\n Meta\u2019s shares have tumbled more than 60% this year.<\/p>\n For now Meta is\u00a0promoting the Quest Pro as an important tool for working remotely, and is teaming up with Microsoft Corp. to offer\u00a0Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 office-productivity software on the new devices.<\/p>\n Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared on video alongside Zuckerberg Tuesday announcing the partnership and promoting the new headset, saying, \u201cwe are going through a once-in-a-lifetime change in how we work.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite\u00a0buy-in from some of the world\u2019s biggest tech companies, many observers have raised doubts as to whether Zuckerberg\u2019s vision is even possible.<\/p>\n After the CEO recently posted a picture of his own avatar to his Facebook page, he was mocked ruthlessly by people who felt the image looked\u00a0amateur.<\/p>\n He quickly ordered a more advanced version, and Meta is creating much more sophisticated-looking avatars than the one Zuckerberg initially posted.<\/p>\n For one thing, some of the new avatars have legs as Zuckerberg demoed them Tuesday \u2014 a notable change from previous ones that drew ridicule for looking like floating cartoon torsos.<\/p>\n Meta is building other technology besides headsets that will play into this vision.<\/p>\n While some advances, like the full colour mixed reality and facial-tracking technology, are already available, a lot of the innovations are much further off.<\/p>\n That category includes things like easy-to-use 3D scanning so people can photograph or take a video of personal items and quickly upload digital versions of those items to a virtual world.<\/p>\n It also\u00a0includes improved spatial audio so that conversations happening in the metaverse will have the same acoustic feel as those in real life.<\/p>\n The company is working on a wristband that can detect neurological signals in humans\u00a0and turn those signals into outputs on a digital screen.<\/p>\n The technology essentially turns the human hand into a remote control, a helpful tool when trying to operate a pair of smart glasses.<\/p>\n Zuckerberg demonstrated\u00a0this technology to a group of reporters late last month from one of the company\u2019s office buildings near Seattle.<\/p>\n The wristband is bulky right now, he acknowledged, but eventually, he thinks it will be stylish enough that people always wear it to control the devices around them.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in the future people will use this to control their phones and computers and all this other stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ll just have a little band around your wrist.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that far off.\u201d He added. \u201cIt\u2019s not this year, but it\u2019s not that far off.\u201d<\/p>\n The Quest Pro goes on sale starting Tuesday\u00a0and Meta will begin shipping it on Oct.\u00a025.<\/p>\n With the new device, Facebook parent Meta is seeking to transcend the notion that VR is primarily the realm of gamers, an effort to broaden its audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":464131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[161,1767,40812,73842,81915,29210],"class_list":["post-464121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-facebook","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-meta","tag-meta-platforms","tag-oculus-quest-pro","tag-virtual-reality-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now 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