🕶️ Meta's 10-Year Struggle in VR

Good morning!

It's been ten years since Meta, then known as Facebook, acquired the VR company Oculus. Since that pivotal moment, much has changed, particularly Zuckerberg's ultimate vision of a future where digital interactions play a fundamental role. But how is his mission progressing so far? It's time to find out.

Today’s Topics:

• 🕰️ Meta and Oculus Rift: A Look Back at 10 Years of Virtual Reality Evolution

• 🍏 The Apple's Vision Pro is Getting Updates

• 👀 Meta is about to combine Smart Glasses with AI

Reading time: 5min

THE BIG READ

🕰️ Meta and Oculus Rift: A Look Back at 10 Years of Virtual Reality Evolution

Ten years have passed since Facebook, now Meta, acquired Oculus, sparking widespread speculation about the dawn of a new technological era. The acquisition, valued at $2 billion 💰, was heralded as the next giant leap for digital interaction, similar to the revolutionary impact of computers, the internet, and smartphones 📱. Mark Zuckerberg envisioned a future where virtual reality (VR) headsets would transcend gaming, offering unprecedented experiences from courtside game seats to global classrooms, all from the comfort of one’s home 🏠.

“Virtual” Reality Check…

Despite these high hopes, the anticipated world-changing impact of VR technology remains elusive. A decade on, the Oculus Rift and its successors have not fundamentally altered our daily lives, yet they haven’t exactly flopped either. Meta's rebranding effort and a $500 billion investment into the concept of the metaverse reflect a continued commitment to Zuckerberg’s vision, even as the tangible definition of the metaverse remains nebulous 💭.

Financially, the journey has been tumultuous. Meta's metaverse division reported a staggering $42 billion loss over four years, underscoring the immense challenge of making VR a mainstream staple 💸. The strategy to sell Quest headsets at a loss aims to build a critical mass of users and developers, betting on long-term success over immediate profitability ➡️.

Meta dominates the VR headset market, boasting a 50.2% share by mid-2023 📈. Yet, the reality is that VR has not yet become ubiquitous, with even the successful Quest 2 outselling its newer iteration. The recent entry of Apple's Vision Pro into the market, despite its high price, has been seen as a validation of VR’s potential, though Meta remains committed to making VR accessible to a wider audience 🌍.

Looking Forward: As we stand in 2024, it’s clear that Zuckerberg’s dreams for VR were not misguided, but perhaps premature. The pandemic has indeed accelerated virtual interactions, making virtual meetings, education, and healthcare more commonplace and socially accepted, albeit without the need for headsets. The future of VR and the metaverse, as envisioned by Meta, is still in flux, with the journey so far painting a picture of ambition, resilience, and the complex interplay between visionary technology and market realities. The next chapter for Meta and VR remains unwritten, filled with potential yet constrained by the tangible limits of current technology and societal adoption 🔮.

If you want to read more about this check TechCrunch's article here.

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🍏 The Apple's Vision Pro is Getting Updates

/The Apple Vision Pro just got a new update significantly improving its Persona avatar system, and enhancing remote immersive collaboration. The upgrade addresses previous criticisms of the Persona's uncanny appearance, highlighting Apple's dedication to listening to feedback and becoming a staple in immersive conferencing through the advanced spatial integration of digital avatars.

What's New:

• Users can now place caller avatars anywhere in their environment, breaking free from the previous static display limitations. This is part of the SharePlay feature, supporting up to five personas for collaborative and entertainment purposes 🎭.

• Users can create a digital representation of themselves through a simple photo, which the system digitizes 🖼️.

• The update lets users adjust the eye-tracking system to reveal application usage during remote sessions, enhancing transparency and collaboration.

• Version 1.1 Highlights: Beyond Persona enhancements, the update boosts overall device performance 🚀, simplifies enterprise application enrollment 📲, and improves 3D asset interaction for a more seamless work-from-home experience 🏡.

Our thoughts: With up to five ghostly companions now capable of joining you in a movie night, the line between solitude and togetherness blurs intriguingly. Who knew that being haunted by digital phantoms could feel so much like home?

Get more information about the update here.

👀 Meta is about to combine Smart Glasses with AI

Meta is enhancing its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses with new AI features, broadening the horizon for immersive user experiences. This update aligns with Meta's vision of integrating AI across its device ecosystem, promising an enriched interaction with the world 🌍.

Quick takes:

• The upcoming AI features aim to enrich the user experience by enabling the glasses to recognize and provide information on various objects, brands, and even languages within the user's environment 🔍.

• For example, the glasses will have the ability to discern the nutritional value of any food item and to provide step-by-step cooking instructions, becoming your ultimate culinary assistant 👨‍🍳.

• Despite not offering full AR or MR capabilities, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses provide a stylish and practical entry point into augmented experiences at a starting price of $299 💼.

Our thoughts: The integration of AI vision through Smart Glasses into our daily lives compels us to reevaluate the fundamental nature of perception, blending the boundaries between the human experience and artificial interpretation 🤖👓. By offering a ceaseless, analytical gaze upon our world, it challenges us to reflect on the nature of reality itself; how we understand it, interact with it, and ultimately, how we coexist with machines that see and comprehend alongside us 🔄🤔.

Read the full NY Times article here.

In Other XR News

• Disney's HoloTile floor has the potential to change the future of immersive VR and become the next big thing for theme park magic.

• Long distance relationships are solved as Smart textiles are making virtual hugs tangible.

• Vision Pro is hands-down the best movie experience you can have on a plane. plane.