After Apple and Google, it was Meta’s turn to organize its big annual conference, from California. An important event for the group entangled in many controversies. What to remember from the night? Not a surprise, but a lot of metaverse and a new high-end headset.
• The MetaQuest Pro
It was obviously highly anticipated. Meta’s new virtual reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro, was unveiled to great fanfare by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. Less light (700 grams) but more efficient than the Meta Quest, the helmet – which was leaked in the press last month – is not a design disorder but is packed with technologies of all kinds to make it more advanced.
In concrete terms, it has 50% more power. The optics have been refined by 40% while the LCD screens include 37% more pixels and contrasts have been increased by 75%.
Small detail that matters, the battery is no longer in the front part of the helmet to be better distributed on the face and therefore less tiring to wear.
The helmet, which will be available for sale on October 25, is clearly a high-end product: it will cost $1,499 in the United States and €1,799 in France.
The horizon metaverse
Headphones aside, Facebook’s Horizon Worlds metaverse was the star of the event. Throughout the conference, Mark Zuckerberg continued to boast of his somewhat cartoonish universe, always promising more social, personal, and professional applications.
Also, there is a distinguished guest who came to appear on the screen: Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. The latter notably announced that his Teams meeting software would be compatible with the metaverse; it remains to be seen whether workers will be interested.
The professional aspect of the metaverse has also been extensively developed by Mark Zuckerberg, while on a more playful level, he announced that games from the Xbox Cloud Gaming offering will be accessible with Meta Quest.
The return of Mark Zuckerberg’s avatar
Teased during his introduction, Mark Zuckerberg’s avatar re-introduced interest from the metaverse and the helmet. Better defined, this virtual representation, even with a somewhat childish design, is even more precise. Above all, the video released by Meta shows that all body movements are recorded by the helmet – and sensors – to allow a much more interesting virtual representation than the first.
The first realistic avatars.
It was a bit of the expected surprise effect. Beyond the cute Horizon World avatars, Meta showed off work in progress on realistic facial modeling. And the effect is spectacular: according to the company, all it takes is a smartphone and a few hours of computing to display an incredibly realistic avatar. Meta did not elaborate on the arrival of such technology.
Did Mark Zuckerberg convince? Certainly, he once again praised his metaverse for a long time and promised the possible uses. But at present, we are still far from the original promises.
Source: BFM TV
