Facebook and Meta Platforms co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has talked for a long time about artificial intelligence (AI), mixed-reality technologies, and hi-tech glasses that have state-of-the-art capabilities.
But when Zuckerberg spoke of such gadgets, they were only theoretical. Now they are real. Stores will soon make them available to purchase.
“We are starting to see how the future of computing and human connection will look,” Zuckerberg said, before he unveiled these new inventions at Meta Connect 2024.
Zuckerberg held the event at Meta Headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
Meta Quest 3S: This virtual reality headset allows users to take any screen and blow it up into a cinema experience that fills their whole space.
Zuckerberg told Meta Connect audience members that Meta Quest 3S is great for watching Netflix, Amazon Prime, or YouTube. This “giant screen that you can take anywhere” has the same defining features as the Quest 3 and is powered by the same processor. Zuckerberg said customers may already pre-order this product. Shipping begins Oct. 15.
Meta AI: This product is the AI assistant that is the most used throughout the world. This technology can create content and answer almost every question.
But at Meta Connect 2024, Zuckerberg announced that manufacturers have made Meta AI even smarter with new open-sourced Llama 3.2 models. They are now multi-modal and can natively understand images as well as text.
Then there’s Meta AI with Voice.
“I think voice will be a more natural way of interacting with AI than text,” Zuckerberg said.
“I think it has the potential to be one of, if not the most frequent ways that we all interact with AI. It is just a lot better. Now you will have natural voice conversations with Meta AI across all of the major apps.”
Llama 3.2: Zuckerberg told audience members that Llama 3.2 is Meta’s first open-sourced multi-modal model with more and more capabilities.
“They will be widely available everywhere except the EU, unfortunately, but I remain eternally optimistic that we will figure that out,” Zuckerberg said.
Glasses as a New AI-Centric Device: Zuckerberg told the audience that glasses are “a natural computing platform,” great for taking photos and videos.
But now you can use the glasses to livestream and make video calls.
Soon, according to Zuckerberg, you can use the glasses to access Spotify and Amazon Music…with only your voice.
“Glasses are the perfect form factor for AI, for letting an AI assistant see what you see, hear what you hear, and be able to communicate with you privately and help you out with whatever you are doing throughout the day,” Zuckerberg said.
Orion: Speaking of glasses, Zuckerberg told Meta Connect 2024 that Meta’s Orion glasses, currently a fully functional prototype, will make for “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen.”
“You need to be able to see through them. People need to see through them too and make eye contact with you. This isn’t pass-through. This is the physical world with holograms overlaid on it,” Zuckerberg said.
“If someone messages you, you will see that and instead of having to pull out your phone there will just be a hologram. With a few subtle gestures you can reply without getting pulled away from the moment. Or if you want to be with someone who is far away they will be able to teleport as a hologram into your living room as if they are right there with you.”
This technology, Zuckerberg said, is a completely new kind of display architecture. The arms of the glasses have tiny projectors that shoot light into waveguides that have nano-scale 3D structures etched into the lenses. They can diffract light and put holograms at different depths and sizes into the world in front of you.
All of that is directed by custom silicon and sensors, powered by a battery that fits in the arm of the glasses.
“They will do voice and AI and hand tracking and eye tracking so you can select new elements by looking at them, but there is one more way that you will be able to interact with them that is really neat,” Zuckerberg said.
“[That happens through] a neural interface.”
Wearing the glasses makes users emotional.
“They are kind of giddy. They don’t want to take them off,” Zuckerberg said.
“A lot of people say this is the craziest technology that they have ever seen.”
Zuckerberg said manufacturers will continue to tune the display system to make the technology smaller, sharper, and more fashionable…and, last but not least, affordable.
Open Connections: “All of this comes together to build what I think will be the future of human connection in the next generation of computing platforms,” Zuckerberg said.
“In every generation of technology there is a competition of ideas for what the future should look like. At Meta we are trying to build a future that is more open and more accessible, more natural, and more about open connection.”
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