We’ve got to talk about the exciting announcements Meta made at their “Connect Conference” last week!
As far as physical products are concerned, the Quest 3 was the star of the show…
It launches on October 10th with the following upgrades from the last iteration:
1.) Augmented Reality (AR) Capabilities
2.) Enhanced Resolution (due to stronger processor and higher-resolution display)
3.) Improved Controls
4.) Slimmer Design
The biggest change is obviously the integration of AR!
In this way, Meta effectively positions the new headset as a direct competitor to Apple’s Vision Pro headset, coming out next year.
While the two headsets are similar in functionality, they are worlds apart in terms of price…
The Quest 3 is expected to retail for $499, while the Vision Pro is set at a premium of $3499.
With this price difference, I expect Meta’s offering to absolutely obliterate Apple’s...
With that said, I do believe that Apple is using its first model as a “tester kit” for developers.
That way they can develop a network of VR apps under their brand, before making it more easily accessible to the general population.
We are likely talking 2-3 years minimum for this to actually happen though!
This means Apple will have to play a strong game of catch-up to reach or surpass Meta in the space.
Next up, we’ve got their AI chatbot announcement!
Technically, it’s a suite of multiple chatbots designed for different functions such as answering sports-related questions or cooking.
Meta likely designed it in this way in order to attempt to “personalize” the chatbots, even going as far as creating avatars for them…
They are being integrated into different facets of the company’s ecosystem such as WhatsApp messenger.
While it’s difficult to predict the impact these tools will have on the company long-term, it’s a pretty big deal in terms of how the company is perceived in the AI space moving forward.
Finally…
Meta announced the brand-new model for their Ray-Ban smart glasses.
While they made substantial upgrades as far as the camera is concerned, the biggest difference from the old model is the integration of a voice-controlled AI assistant.
I certainly think that the upgrades made will help in the marketability of the glasses over the previous model, but I’m not sure that it will be enough to make this a massive success story.
The video recording may be of particular interest to some content creators though…
But we are talking about a relatively small group.
Nonetheless, the new technological advancements for these smart glasses are very exciting!
That’s all for now…
Until Next Time,
-Damian