Meta unveils $1,500 headset that seeks to make virtual reality seem more real - CBS News

2 years ago 57

A twelvemonth aft it rebranded itself successful the sanction of gathering a metaverse, Meta connected Tuesday unveiled a caller mentation of its virtual world headset that's tailored for moving professionals.

The $1,500 Meta Quest Pro features a fig of caller features that are meant to amended users' cognition of genuinely being successful the beingness of different people.

The headset makes it imaginable to presumption not lone virtual worlds but besides the existent situation of the user, acknowledgment to high-resolution outward-facing cameras.

"The infinitesimal that they statesman to interruption into a grin oregon erstwhile they rise their eyebrow ... your avatar should beryllium capable to explicit each of that and more," Meta main Mark Zuckerberg said astatine Meta Connect, the company's giant's yearly league focused connected virtual reality.

Customers began ordering the Quest Pro connected Tuesday, and the instrumentality volition vessel astatine the extremity of the month.

The Meta Quest Pro virtual and mixed world headset

Meta said it's partnering with Microsoft and others to tune fashionable concern and productivity bundle to virtual worlds utilizing Quest Pro.

Capabilities being worked connected see utilizing Quest Pro during virtual meetings connected the Microsoft Teams platform, according to the 2 companies.

"At Microsoft, we're incredibly excited astir the metaverse and however integer and carnal worlds are coming together," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the presentation.

Facebook renamed itself Meta successful October 2021 to awesome a pivot to gathering its imaginativeness for an interactive virtual and augmented world satellite that it sees arsenic the future.

A pistillate uses Meta's Quest Pro instrumentality to constitute and gully connected a whiteboard successful mixed world

The determination came arsenic the institution was facing a backlash aft a whistleblower leaked documents suggesting the societal media elephantine enactment profits implicit safety.

Meta is undergoing a hard play financially owed to dropping advertizing revenues and fierce contention from different platforms specified arsenic TikTok, whose popularity has exploded.

About a 3rd of the apps successful the Quest app store brought successful millions of dollars successful gross since launching there, according to Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew "Boz" Bosworth.

Some $1.5 cardinal has been spent wide connected games and apps successful the Quest store, and titles connected the mode to its virtual shelves see an "Iron Man" crippled acceptable for merchandise successful November by Marvel Entertainment and Sony Interactive Entertainment, according to Meta executives.