This Week In XR: The Quest Pro And Everything In Meta’s Metaverse

Consumer Tech This Week In XR: The Quest Pro And Everything In Meta’s Metaverse Charlie Fink Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. A former tech executive covering XR and The Metaverse for Forbes. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Oct 13, 2022, 09:48pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a photorealistic Codec avatar. Meta Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Connect developer conference keynote on Tuesday introduced the new $1,499 Meta Quest Pro , which is focused on first adopters/prosumers and enterprise users. It got great reviews from the press, notably CNet and RoadtoVR .

Pre-orders are being accepted for an October 25th ship date. The new $1,499 Meta Quest Pro. It means business.

Meta The Quest Pro is smaller, thinner, and sleeker than the Quest 2, thanks to pancake optics, resulting in its 40% reduction in size. The battery has been relocated to the back of the headset, improving the ergonomics. There are new haptic self-tracking controllers, too.

Outward facing color cameras enable new mixed reality experiences. The device and controllers fit nicely together in a desktop charging pad. Face tracking will make avatars more expressive.

This is also the first device to use the new Snapdragon XR2+ processor which is optimized for VR to run at 50% more power than Quest 2. Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp. , speaks during the virtual .

. . [+] Meta Connect event in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct.

11, 2022. Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his company’s newest virtual-reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro, the latest foray into the world of high-end VR devices that Meta Platforms hopes will entice creators and working professionals to adopt its vision for a virtual future. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg © 2022 Bloomberg Finance LP Meta emphasized that the Quest Pro is for business and prosumers.

It has a stylus to enhance writing while in Workrooms. The new lenses make reading much easier. The Meta CEO was met (virtually) by the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, to announce the integration of Horizon Workrooms with Microsoft Teams.

It will also be integrated with Zoom. MORE FOR YOU They Inherited Billions Upon Billions: Meet America’s Richest Heirs Carlos Correa Plans To Enter Another Deep Free Agent Shortstop Pool 2022-23 NHL Preview: For The New York Islanders, Answers Are Coming To Long-Asked Questions Julie Sweet, chief executive officer of Accenture PLC, speaks during the virtual Meta Connect event . .

. [+] in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his company’s newest virtual-reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro, the latest foray into the world of high-end VR devices that Meta Platforms hopes will entice creators and working professionals to adopt its vision for a virtual future. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg © 2022 Bloomberg Finance LP Accenture CEO Julie Sweet dropped in to emphasize their commitment to VR’s role in the future of work. Over the last two years, Accenture has deployed 60,000 Quest 2 headsets to help onboard new employees on virtual campus called the “Nth Floor,” co-created with Microsoft on AltspaceVR, has welcomed 150,000 people.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc. , left, and Andrew Bosworth, chief . .

. [+] technology officer of Meta Platforms Inc. , speak during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct.

11, 2022. Zuckerberg unveiled his company’s newest virtual-reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro, the latest foray into the world of high-end VR devices that Meta Platforms hopes will entice creators and working professionals to adopt its vision for a virtual future. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg © 2022 Bloomberg Finance LP This year’s keynote was more restrained than last year’s dramatic visualizations of the Metaverse, climaxing with Facebook’s name change.

Tuesday, the earnest, super sincere founder and CEO takes us on a two hour tour of his Metaverse. He is joined by his version of the Disney Imagineers, led by his sideman CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth. They trotted out each piece of the hardware and software puzzle Meta says is necessary to create the Metaverse.

Topics included work and productivity, deals with Adobe and Autodesk, avatar updates, including much requested legs, photorealistic avatars, fitness, entertainment, AR, capture technologies, game engines, developers, and future technologies. Meta will soon begin selling avatar clothing in Horizon. This could be the sleeper revenue bomb of Connect.

Epic Games makes an estimated $5 Billion dollars a year selling avatar “skins” in Fortnite. The future avatar store. Meta The Meta Quest app store has generated over $1.

5 Billion dollars. One in three of its 400 titles have made more than a million dollars. 33 titles have made over $10M in gross revenue.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners has surpassed $50M in revenue on Quest alone, nearly double its revenue on all other platforms. In its first 24 hours, Resident Evil 4 made $2M. With games making that kind of dough, Meta notably revealed it had purchased three more of its best game developers.

Meta believes their new Quest Pro headset will enable people to work inside VR more efficiently than . . .

[+] they would in the physical world. Meta The haters were at work before Connect. Last Friday (Oct 6th) The NY Times dropped This Is Life in the Metaverse .

Author Kashmir Hill acknowledged Meta’s challenges, while admitting she had a pretty good time chatting people up in Horizon and visiting a comedy club, although she encountered trolls and pre-teen children who should not be there. On the same day, Alex Heath’s story Meta’s flagship metaverse app is too buggy and employees are barely using it, says exec in charge went up in the Verge. Monday, the Times published this notably negative story, Skepticism, Confusion, Frustration: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Struggle .

Within an hour of Connect, Bloomberg fired this dart: A $1499 Headset Won’t Help Meta . Wired is already speculating on how face tracking data can be used to violate our privacy. There was other news this week in XR: Didimo avatars Didimo Didimo raises $7.

1M Series A led by Armilar The Portuguese company makes realistic 3D avatars from 2D photos. Armilar Venture Partners led the round which included investment from Bright Pixel Capital, Portugal Ventures, and Techstars. ORamaVR Raises $2.

4M for VR Medical training tools The Swiss start up, founded in 2020, provided a low/no code platform for medical institutions to create training modules with increased speed and efficiency. The round was led by the European Union NextGenerationEU and Horizon Europe programmes, as well as the Geneva Foundation for Technology Innovation (Fongit) and FORTH-ICS. Soldiers in the 82nd Airborne in the field with IVAS headsets.

US Army Microsoft (MSFT) US Army HoloLens Goggles Gave Soldiers Nausea, Headaches According to a summary of the exercise compiled by the Pentagon’s testing office, US soldiers using new goggles based on the HoloLens suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments. ” Acceptance of the goggles by soldiers “remains low” and doesn’t “contribute to their ability to complete their mission. ” Epson Moverio BT-40S Smart Glasses with Intelligent Touch Controller Epson Epson announces launch of new Moverio Augmented Reality smart glasses The company says its Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS AR headsets have been designed to support remote collaboration, troubleshooting, maintenance, inspection, and training.

It will be showing off the headset at the Augmented Enterprise Summit in San Diego next week. Apartments here command a premium right now. Decntraland DappRadar Data Says Sandbox and Decentraland are “Ghost Towns” The Data Suggests Decentraland Has 38 “Daily Active Users,” and The Sandbox has fewer than 1,000.

Each has a valuation over a billion dollars. However, Dapp radar defines “active users” as those making SAND or MANA transactions and doesn’t count people who simply log in and interact with other users on a Metaverse platform or drop in briefly for an event. It may also mean that fewer transactions, like buying or selling a non-fungible token (NFT), take place on these platforms than the number of people that visit.

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What We’re Reading Epic interview with FXG about Pico’s huge VR concerts in China (Tony Vitillo/Skarred Ghost Blog) Apple’s AR or VR wearable device is now even closer to release (Adario Strange/Quartz) Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Check out my website or some of my other work here . Charlie Fink Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.