MetaConnect, a major developer event and hardware showcase from the company that runs Facebook and Instagram kicks off next week, with Meta likely to show off its up-to-date VR and mixed reality tech, gloss over its meandering metaverse ambitions, and delve into all the up-to-date ways it plans to squeeze AI into every crevice of its devices and services.
This event will take place on Wednesday, September 25, starting at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. The keynote, where most of the up-to-date stuff will be announced, will be streamed live. The event will be hosted by Meta CEO and newly-minted frigid guy Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg’s hour-long presentation will be followed by a developer-focused keynote at 11 a.m., led by Meta CTO and Reality Labs boss Andrew Bosworth. You can watch the event on Meta Connect Website or on Meta YouTube channel. And yes, you can also watch it in VR in Meta Horizon.
The main focus of the event will likely be Meta’s combined efforts in mixed reality and AI ambitions across its product line. As with any tech event, there will inevitably be surprises. Here are the key things to look out for.
Blurry Metavision
One thing Meta likely won’t announce is a very exorbitant VR headset. It’s a move that seems to be dictated by the current state of the mixed reality market — and whether people are actually willing to spend the massive bucks to buy one. Instead, rumors of a so-called Meta 3S taskheadset that may be a cheaper version of the Meta Quest 3 with fewer features.
Meta was briefly a leading AR/VR company 10 years ago when Meta (then Facebook) bought VR company Oculus. Facebook changed its name to Meta shortly thereafter and sank 45 billion dollars in his vision of a digital universe that most people just don’t seem to care about. Workplaces don’t operate Meta Horizon Studios so much — we’re all still using Zoom — and despite initial waves of exorbitant corporate acquisitions of digital real estate, users haven’t been particularly eager to migrate to the metaverse.
Other companies have struggled to find a virtual foothold. Apple released its first mixed-reality headset, the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro, in February. Since then, the product has been considered a uncommon misstep by the company, or at least a very clearly first-generation product not intended for the masses. The device it didn’t sell very well and was widely criticized as a costly, cumbersome and ultimately lonely experience. (Apple mentioned Vision Pro only once, in passing, during its otherwise upbeat iPhone announcement event on September 9.)
If the Vision Pro, well, the vision, had panned out, Meta might have been more inclined to pursue the pricey, premium VR headset category. In August, The Information reported that Meta has apparently abandoned — or at least delayed — plans to reveal an update to its Oculus Quest Pro that would have entered the ring against Apple’s Vision Pro. Bosworth, Meta’s CTO, replied to this message on Threads Meta and insisted that the move wasn’t that massive of a deal, but rather a natural part of the company’s device iterations. Still, it’s a move that makes sense after the Apple Vision Pro fell out of favor.