Image: Meta
The tech giant’s latest event revealed a spate of new hardware, including the long-teased augmented reality glasses.
Among the big reveals at Meta Connect was what CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims to be “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen”.
The event, which kicked off yesterday (25 September), showcased Orion, a set of augmented reality (AR) glasses which were a decade in the making and were first announced five years ago. The Orion reveal comes a week after Snap announced its own attempt to break into the AR glasses sector.
As well as claiming them to be the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made, Meta also says they will “enable digital experiences that are unconstrained by the limits of a smartphone screen”. The glasses are designed to superimpose visualisations onto users’ real-world environment.
The glasses are still very much in prototype stage, which will be shared with company employees and “select external audiences” throughout the year.
New AI features
As well as its promise of AR glasses, Meta also announced new features for its Ray-Ban smart glasses, such as AI tools for reminders and the ability to record and send voice messages on WhatsApp and Messenger. The company also said the glasses will soon be able to translate speech in real time.
Outside of its glasses technology, Meta also announced that it’s AI tool now has a voice. “You can now use your voice to talk to Meta AI on Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram DM, and it’ll respond back to you out loud,” the company said.
Users will be able to choose from a range of different voices including AI voices of familiar celebrities such as Judi Dench, John Cena and Kristen Bell.
Of course, no major tech event would be complete without another new AI model and Meta Connect was no different, with the latest Llama model announced.
Llama 3.2 is Meta’s first “major vision model”, which means it now has the ability to process images. This model comes just two months after Llama 3.1, but this new multimodal version will not be accessible in Europe.
A new Quest
Zuckerberg also revealed the company’s latest virtual reality (VR) headset, Quest 3S, with many of the same features as Quest 3 but at a cost that matches the Quest 2’s original starting price.
However, in order to simplify its VR offering, Meta will discontinue the Quest 2 and Quest Pro, the latter of which was only announced two years ago.
Forrester’s VP research director, Mike Proulx, noted that there was a “stark contrast” in the Meta CEO’s excitement around AI and AR glasses compared to the Meta Quest headset.
“VR headsets, despite Meta’s assertion, won’t go mainstream. They’re too cumbersome and people can only tolerate them in short bursts,” he said.
“Glasses, however, put computing power directly into a common and familiar form factor. As the smart tech behind these glasses mature, they have the potential to disrupt everyday consumers’ interactions with brands.”
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