Last Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg announced on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that Meta’s next VR headset will be launching this October at the company’s Connect conference.
He shared that the VR headset, which will be the sequel to the Oculus 2, will focus on “social presence” with enhanced mixed reality features as well as face and eye-tracking, allowing the device to copy the users’ facial expressions on the avatar.
On the podcast, Zuckerberg stressed the VR can not only enhance non-verbal communication, but also “unlock” a sense of being in the presence of another person. He said: “When you’re on a video call you don’t actually feel like you’re there with the person. To me, what virtual reality unlocks is that it really convinces your brain that you’re there.”
It is likely that Meta’s VR glasses are a vital part of its metaverse strategy, a direction in which the company has been increasingly headed since its rebranding to Meta. Meta’s AR glasses, however, are still a few years away.
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