What went on at Facebook's Connect event this year? A new focus for the company, an XR headset, and AR glasses.
Read on!
Facebook Connect 2021: Meta, Project Cambria & Project Nazare
Facebook is now Meta
Facebook's new direction towards a Metaverse company comes as no surprise to anyone in our little XR bubble. The social media giant's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced a re-brand from Facebook to Meta in his keynote speech at the Connect event.
Meta will become the official name for the umbrella company that oversees Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and its other subsets.
According to Meta (ancient Greek for beyond), the name was chosen because it captures the company's commitment to building social technologies taking us beyond what is possible today.
New high-end headset codenamed Cambria
Meta also announced a new high-end standalone XR headset codenamed Project Cambria. Zuckerberg described it as a new product line separate from the Quest headsets. Cambria will include eye and face tracking, have a high-resolution colour passthrough, and multi-element pancake lenses.
Meta says more information will be shared next year, and the company is now working with developers on apps that take advantage of the new capabilities. Project Cambria will launch in 2022.
AR glasses prototype Project Nazare
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the glasses as the company's first full augmented reality glasses. He also indicated that they are still a work-in-progress.
"There's a lot of technical work to get this form factor and experience right. We have to fit hologram displays, projectors, batteries, radios, custom silicon chips, cameras, speakers, sensors to map the world around you and more into glasses that are about 5mm thick. So we still have a ways to go with Nazare, but we are making good progress," Zuckerberg stated.
That's all for now, see you next time!
