Meta Connect 2023 – Road to the Metaverse

Quest 3, AI Advances, Next-Gen Smart Glasses, & the Road to the Metaverse

Yesterday, on the 10th anniversary of Connect, Meta CEO & Founder Mark Zuckerberg shared how the rise of AI and metaverse technologies are reshaping the way we experience our physical and digital worlds.

While the physical world around us is amazing, it’s the combination of our physical and digital worlds that defines our reality. Yet too often, we rely on screens to tap into virtual spaces and content. This can pull us away from the moment and the people we’re physically with.

Imagine replacing your TV with a fully customisable home theater you can take with you anywhere. Or sitting around a table with friends, some of whom are in the same physical room while others are avatars of those living miles away. Yet still feeling fully present in the same space and experience.

Or a meeting where some of the avatars are embodied AIs that can help you accomplish a variety of tasks. All of that could be possible when our physical and virtual worlds come together seamlessly.

Many of the foundational technologies needed to make that vision a reality are either already here or on the way. Mixed reality lets us bring digital objects into the physical world or create fully immersive experiences.

Advances in AI let us create unique characters that we can interact with in different ways. And future AR glasses will eventually bring these technologies together in a stylish form factor.

Yesterday at Connect, Zuckerberg shared progress on all three fronts.

Mixed Reality Goes Mainstream with Meta Quest 3

Meta Quest 3 is the world’s first mainstream headset built for mixed reality and Meta’s most powerful headset yet. With double the graphic processing power of Quest 2. Quest 3 is also the world’s first device to feature the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 platform. Meta helped develop this in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. And it’s completely standalone.

No PC, no console, no battery packs! Nothing to break the feeling of presence. It understands your physical space, so you can play with the world around you. With mixed reality, the limits of your physical space can expand. You can be part of a much larger world. Like opening a portal to the Upside Down from your living room in Stranger Things VR.

With Quest 3, you can immerse yourself in an expansive content library. Offering games and experiences to suit every taste and mood. More than 100 new and upgraded titles are coming to Quest 3 this year. Many of them will incorporate mixed reality.

Because Quest 3 is backwards-compatible, you get access to a vast library of 500+ VR and MR experiences on day one. With Xbox Cloud Gaming coming to Quest in December, you’ll be able to play Halo Infinite, Minecraft Legends, Forza Horizon 5, and hundreds of other high-quality Xbox games. All on a massive 2D screen you can take with you anywhere.

Starting at $499.99 USD [about R9 600], Quest 3 ships October 10, and pre-orders are open now. Click here for all the details.

Advances in Artificial Intelligence

While it’s been an amazing year for AI, most people still haven’t experienced this new technology firsthand. Meta have an opportunity to change that by building state-of-the-art AI into apps that billions of people already use.

They’ve talked about the Llama ecosystem of large language models, and yesterday, Meta unveiled their image generation model. Emu uses your text prompts to generate high-quality, photorealistic images in just seconds. And thanks to Emu and technology from Llama 2, you can create your own custom AI stickers in chat to liven up conversations.

Restyle and Backdrop

Meta also introduced restyle and backdrop. Two new features coming soon to Instagram that use technology from Emu. This lets you transform your photos or even co-create AI-generated images with friends. Restyle lets you reimagine your images. By applying the visual styles you describe (you might type out “watercolor” or “collage from magazines and newspapers, torn edges,” for example).

Backdrop leverages learnings from Meta’s Segment Anything Model so you can change your image’s scene or background. Prompts like “put me in front of a sublime aurora borealis” or “surrounded by puppies” will keep your subject in the foreground while creating the background you’ve described.

Images created with restyle and backdrop will indicate the use of AI to help reduce the odds of people mistaking them for human-generated content. They are also experimenting with forms of visible and invisible markers to help people distinguish AI-generated content.

Meta AI Assistant

Meta AI is a new assistant you can interact with like a person. It uses a custom model based on Llama 2 technology. It has access to real-time information through a partnership with Bing search. And, Emul is built into Meta AI. By this, you can generate high-quality photorealistic images for free in seconds.

The brand have also been creating AIs that have more personality, opinions, and interests. These are more fun to interact with. There’s Victor, a motivational coach who encourages you to hit your goals. The Dungeon Master can take you on an old-school text-based adventure. And sous chef Max who can take the random assortment of ingredients in your pantry and come up with a delicious recipe.

Those are just a few of the AIs Meta have trained so far. There are several more coming over the next few weeks across a range of interests. From gaming and philosophy to sports, fashion, and beyond.

Meta want to give people the chance to build AIs of their own. AI studio will ultimately let developers build third-party AIs for their messaging services. They’re building a sandbox that will let people who don’t code create their own AIs.

Building your own AI

Meta are working on a way for creators to build AIs that represent them. To help them engage and grow their communities. Additionally, Meta are making it so businesses can create AIs that interact with customers and help with commerce and support.

Generative AI will bring with it new challenges. Meta are putting in the time and effort to make sure they get this right. That includes training and fine-tuning models. To fit safety and responsibility guidelines, red-teaming with external experts and internal teams to help ensure models are safer and more inclusive. Also, programming in guardrails around inappropriate conversations, and sharing system cards publicly so people better understand how these models work.

This next generation of artificial intelligence will enable a wide range of experiences and interactions. This will transform how people, businesses, and creators use all of their products. Meta continue innovating to ensure everyone has a chance to participate in the upside. Click here to learn more.

Introducing the Ray-Ban | Meta Smart Glasses Collection

Built in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, Metas’ next generation of smart glasses are designed so you can stay connected. To capture the moment without having to take out your phone. Easily sharing your experiences with friends, family, or the world.

Unlike most others in the industry, Meta don’t believe there will be one single super-intelligent AI that everyone uses. Rather, they think you’ll want different AIs for different things.

Like finding information, communicating, being entertained, playing games, helping you get work done, and more. You might even want to create your own AI that’s aligned with your goals. Whether you’re a small business, a creator, or anyone really.

That’s why Meta are building AI studio. A new platform for creating AIs that can help you get things done and just have fun. People will be able to interact with these AIs across the whole Meta universe of products.

They’ll have profiles on Instagram and Facebook. You’ll be able to chat with them in WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Eventually, they’ll be embodied as avatars in the metaverse too.

The Rollout of Smart Glasses

The brand have created some AIs of their own using AI studio that they started rolling out in the US in beta yesterday.

Meta have upgraded them from the first generation in basically every way. For the first time, you’ll be able to livestream directly from your smart glasses to your friends and followers on Facebook and Instagram.

These are also the first smart glasses to ship with Meta AI built in. Starting in the US in beta. You’ll get their state-of-the-art AI hands-free, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, in real time.

Next year Meta roll out a free update so your smart glasses will be able to understand what you’re looking at and help you out. If you want to know what building you’re standing in front of or get a translation of a sign on the fly, your Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses will have the answer.

Smart glasses will be an important platform in the future. They’re a natural way to see digital holograms in the physical world. Also, you’ll be able to let your AI see what you see and hear what you hear. This will make your smart glasses more useful over time.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses Pricing

Starting at $299 USD [about R5 700], the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses collection will launch on October 17. They’re available for pre-order today on meta.com and ray-ban.com. Click here for more information.

While they’re hard at work delivering new technologies the world has never seen before, they are equally focused on making those advances available to everyone. Innovation to bring the future to millions and eventually billions of people, affordably, is what Meta does best.

There’s a long road ahead, but Meta look forward to traveling it with the developer community and you.

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