It seems that Meta has succeeded. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, Orion showed this afternoona prototype of holographic lenses that look like slightly thicker sunglasses, but that allow you to see holograms. The device, which is not yet ready to be marketed, is accompanied by a kind of bracelet that reads the user’s movements and that would replace the controls that usually accompany virtual reality viewers. This is the big novelty presented this afternoon at Meta Connect 2024, the big annual event where the company usually presents its flagship products or reveals what it is working on.
The Orion glasses, which Zuckerberg has called “the world’s most advanced augmented reality glasses,” turn the physical world into an interactive one. For example, they allow the user to see a floating virtual screen when looking at a real object, and an explanatory video to appear on that screen. The Orion prototype stands out for its appearance, which is much lighter and less bulky than any other headset available on the market. It does not have any cables and, although the glasses show videos to the wearer, their eyes are visible.
There were rumors that Zuckerberg, the master of ceremonies of the event, could present today a new version of the augmented reality glasses (those that show digital elements in the physical environment) Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. The rumors were confirmed: the CEO of the company showed an advanced version of the smart glasses, capable of translating a conversation in real time into 200 languages. The lenses incorporate other functionalities, such as voice control of applications such as Spotify. He first showed these and then the Orion prototype, which has the potential to make them obsolete.
It would be difficult for a major technology company to present new products without mentioning artificial intelligence (AI), the technology of the moment. The announcement in this area was the multimodal Llama 3.2 model, which combines text, photos and video. Meta’s applications, such as WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram, will incorporate an intelligent voice assistant that will speak to the user with personalised voices, such as those of the wrestler and actor John Cena or the actress Judi Dench. “I think that speaking directly to the assistant is going to be a much more natural form of interaction than the keyboard,” said Zuckerberg.
There was also speculation that, instead of releasing glasses that were better than the Quest Pro, Meta was going to present a cheaper and lighter version of the Meta Quest 3, the most affordable model to date in virtual reality (in this case, everything the user sees is digital). The aim would be to begin to democratise access to this technology, which is still very expensive for the general public: the Quest 3 is sold from 500 euros and the Quest Pro, the most advanced model, from 1,200.
And so it has been. Zuckerberg has announced that the new Quest 3S, an improved version of the Quest 3 but not quite at the level of the Quest Pro, will cost $299 and will be available in the US starting October 15. “It’s the first affordable quality mixed reality experience. We want to bring this experience to everyone,” Zuckerberg said.
The Quest 3S has better graphics resolution than the Quest 3 and a new surround sound system. As a result of the collaboration with Microsoft, Meta’s glasses now allow for easy connection to a computer using the Windows operating system, so that the virtual screens seen with the lenses are an extension of the computer’s screen.
The big bet of the metaverse
The metaverse has lost visibility in recent years due to the emergence of AI, but its development remains a priority in the top offices of Menlo Park. Facebook decided to rename itself Meta in October 2021 (it announced it precisely at that year’s event, Facebook Connect), at a time when it was mired in a serious reputational crisis triggered by the leaks of its former employee Frances Haugen, which revealed that Facebook and Instagram executives knew that their products caused psychological damage among minors.
Beyond the facelift, the name change showed the seriousness of the commitment to the metaverse, that immersive virtual world that is accessed through special viewers. The name change was accompanied by an initial investment of 45 billion dollars. It was not a whim: this year marks ten years since Facebook bought the company Oculus, one of the main manufacturers of virtual reality viewers. This technology has been an obsession for Zuckerberg for some time.
Despite the emergence of generative AI, the great shaker of the technology sector in the last two years, Meta executives say publicly and privately that the metaverse remains the beacon. The constant allusions to AI in Zuckerberg’s speeches show that it is a key technology for the company, but they can also be read as a nod to investors.
The news shown today confirms that Meta’s main goal is still to advance in the metaverse. However, there is little news in the section of the software: Horizon Worlds, the social network of the metaverse, continues to remain unchanged, beyond some improvements in the appearance of avatars and the introduction of more photorealistic scenarios.
From the start, the Californian magnate predicted that the way to enter this new virtual world would be augmented reality (which mixes physical reality and holograms). This would be both more intuitive for non-digital natives and more technically feasible. However, there was still a big barrier to achieving this goal: the glasses had to be manageable, and no one was going to use bulky headsets. The Orion prototype may begin to break down this barrier.
