Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that his company will debut a new virtual reality headset in October, which is usually the time when the company holds its Connect VR conference. He made the announcement during an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and said the upcoming VR headset will contain new features intended to help users experience a feeling of “social presence”.
The sequel to the popular Oculus 2 will come with features like eye-tracking and face-tracking and the headset is designed to capture users’ facial expressions and have them mirrored on their avatars in real time to enhance non-verbal communication. At the same time, he noted that while Meta’s AR glasses are a few years away, the headset launching in October will have some mixed reality features.
“For the next device that’s coming out in October, there are a few big features…. The ability to now have kind of eye contact in virtual reality…. Have your face be tracked so that way your avatar — it’s not just this still thing, but if you smile or if you frown or if you pout, or whatever your expression is, have that translate in real time to your avatar,” said Zuckerberg.
During last year’s Connect conference, Meta teased a high-end headset codenamed ‘Project Cambria’ and it seems that the headset launching in October is the consumer version of it. Also, a report from Bloomberg last month noted that code in Meta’s companion iPhone app for VR headsets suggested that the upcoming headset would be named Meta Quest Pro.
Ever since Facebook has been rebranded Meta, the company has been investing a lot on the concept of “metaverse”, pitching its strategy as one of building a universe of multiple, virtual worlds for all users.
During the conversation, he also contrasted the user experience of Instagram against rival Twitter. “You get all these people who are super witty and are saying super insightful things, but a lot of them are very cutting. I find that it’s hard to spend a lot of time on Twitter, without getting too upset,” said Zuckerberg.