The Price of a Three-Triple VR Headset: Mark Zuckerberg’s Advice to Early Adopters is Not For Professionals
“The pressures Meta’s business is facing in 2022 are acute, significant and not metaverse-related,” said Matthew Ball, an investor and metaverse expert whose advice Mr. Zuckerberg has sought. “And there is a risk that almost everything Mark has outlined about the metaverse is right, except the timing is farther out than he imagined.”
p-r-o is the most expensive letter in technology. When a company releases a product with a trio attached to it’s name, your wallet is going to take a beating. Meta’s newly announced Quest Pro VR headset is a case in point. It costs $1,500, a jump of more than a grand over the previous model, the Quest 2. While the Pro device uses recent breakthroughs from Meta’s research lab to considerably improve on its previous model, the stunning price differential defies the conventional approach to winning over an audience for cutting-edge but unproven technology—making it more affordable over time. Eight years after buying the VR startup Oculus and proclaiming digital reality the next step in computing, Mark Zuckerberg is still talking about selling devices to early adopters, with the idea that its features will eventually trickle down to more affordable gear. For, like, people who are not professional.
The Future of Meetings – Meta, Facebook, Quest Pro, Twitter, and the Future Of Virtual Reality: Why Does Virtual Reality Matter?
Meta said in February that its Horizon Worlds game had grown to roughly 300,000 monthly active users — an increase from a few months earlier, but minuscule in comparison with Facebook’s more than 2.9 billion monthly active users. The company did not give more up-to-date figures.
During Connect today, all eyes will be on whether Cambria — or the Quest Pro as it has been rumored to be officially named — will be enough of an advancement to expand the market for VR. There are software bugs in the flagship metaverse app and any updates to that platform will be noteworthy.
Meta also announced that it would change who got to access its metaverse. VR is the default way in which we socialize, insists Zuckerberg. But he knows as well as anyone that network effects are critical in social apps. What’s the use in buying a VR rig to hang out with your buddies, if they don’t have rigs of their own? It helps that the headsets can track your face expression and don’t make you feel like you’re wearing an anvil. The platform will never reach critical mass if the cost of comfort is prohibitive. So in an effort to broaden the use of the technology in social settings, Meta announced two new features that will arrive in 2023. The company will allow people to access their version of the metaverse via the internet. Companies that use the Meta productivity app Workrooms will be able to accommodate groups of virtual reality explorers.
Anyone who wants to watch will be able to do so online at Meta Connect. If you have a quest 2 you can use it to watch in virtual reality. The event kicks off at 10am Pacific Time and 1PM Eastern Time.
This could be awkward. Meta calls it the future of meetings and during the keynote address at the yearly event for virtual reality developers, Mark Zuck gave people a glimpse of what that might look like. Meta says it is intended to make collaboration feel equally present in a shared space, no matter where they are or what tech they’re using. A company says it is possible to have a presence in virtual reality via your phone.
As much as we gripe about Zoom, one good thing about it is that it equalizes the power dynamic of meetings. Imagine being trapped in those little boxes while everybody else is virtually cavorting.
Mark Zuckerberg and the Metaverse: Embedded Internets in the Living Room of a Kid’s World – A Conversation with Zuckerberg
This October, Meta announced an improvement to its metaverse, Horizon Worlds. To show off the new feature, the company released a clip of Mark Zuckerberg’s Horizon Worlds avatar happily lifting each leg, then jumping. Meta’s virtual space used to be a place where people who wore a $400 headset could seeavatars with cartoon torsos. Now they would have lower bodies, too. Even feet.
In a video from 2021 explaining his vision, Zuckerberg described the metaverse as “an embodied internet.” The key to understanding a delusion is his spiel. He said that video of his kids would make them feel like they were in the moment with him and not looking through a window. “Instead of looking at a screen, you’re going to be in these experiences.” It is not possible for screens to deliver a deep feeling of presence. The metaverse, he says, can.