Recently, on 25th September 2024, Meta company organized an event called Meta Connect 2024 which was held physically and virtually. In case you missed it, here we are sharing with you the top main highlights during the Meta Connect 2024 keynote event.
Like a Rock Star, Mark Zuckerberg, the Founder and CEO of Meta, came in to the stage and started the day with his inspiring keynote. As you can see in picture below, the physical event, took place at Meta Headquarter (HQ) located in Menlo Park, California.
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Now, let’s go through the key highlights below…
1) Meta Quest 3S
Mark Zuckerberg started the day by introducing the new addition of the MR/VR device to the Meta Quest family which is the ‘Meta Quest 3S‘.
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Below is Kenny Altman demoing the Meta Quest 3S to the attendees while Mark explaining more details about it.
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Below is how Kenny Altman’s view looks like from the Meta Quest 3S…
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The main selling point of Meta Quest 3S is its incredibly low price for a very quality MR/VR device. The price is USD299.99 which is less around USD200 compared to Meta Quest 3. Meta Quest 3 starting price is USD499.99.
The pricing strategy can make this Meta Quest device to become more affordable to the mass market and hence can make it become mainstream.
For your info, it will be shipped starting from 15th October 2024.
Update to Applications….
Mark also shared some improvement of applications that works in Meta Quest device such as Microsoft Office.
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And also the introduction of Horizon Central inside the Meta Horizon World.
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As for the YouTube apps, you can watch it together with your friends in VR.
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They also touch on the capability to generate the hyper realistic model virtual model based on the real objects. Below is the example from Daniel Arsham’s Studio.
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New Games….
There are also few new games introduced during the keynote such as the highly-anticipated ‘Batman: Arkham Shadow’ and ‘Triangle Strategy’.
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There is also update on the ‘Supernatural’ fitness game app where now you can play and do workout together with your friends in the same virtual environment.
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2) Meta AI
Mark also introduced the updated Meta AI platform that has many new features such as AI assistant with natural voice. Furthermore, this Meta AI is supported by the Llama 3.2 multimodal.
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There is also the AI Studio and the Meta AI translation as well. Meta AI translation is really beneficial to translate the same video in different languages.
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3) Llama 3.2
Mark also introduced the latest Llama version which is ‘Llama 3.2’. Llama 3.2 is the latest open source multimodal and on-device models.
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Below is the comparison between the newly introduced Llama 3.2 with its predecessor which is Llama 3.1.
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4) Ray-Ban Meta
There are many improvements on this Ray-Ban Meta especially the updates on its AI capabilities. They also come up with the new styles of the glasses especially the Limited Edition glasses that transparent and showing what’s inside the glasses.
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When we read some pamphlet while wearing the glasses, we can ask the glasses to call the number on the paper or scan the QR code on it.
We also found out that the use case to get the glasses to remember where we parked our car is beneficial especially those who always rushing.
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Among all the demos for this Ray-Ban Meta glasses, we think the one that demo the Live Translation capability is the most impressive. The capability can help people to have conversation with each other in their own native language. The glasses will act like the ‘translator’ for both parties. Nice!!!
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5) Orion
This is another interesting project from Meta that took quite a long time to deliver and perfecting it. The project called Orion is about the making the most advanced AR glasses in the world.
During the keynote, Mark introduced Orion’s first fully functioning prototype to the world.
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Orion also can be considered as the first consumer, full holographic AR glasses. Besides that, this device is so cool that it is the first device that is powered by the ‘Wrist-Based Neural‘ technology.
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When contacting your friend using Orion, you can create the holographic images of your friend in front of you. Seems like in ‘Star Trek’.
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With Orion, you can play the mixed reality (MR) games with your friend without wearing the heavy VR/MR headset. From the ‘outside’, it seems that both of them are playing with the wind or nothing. But from the ‘inside’, it is an exciting and wonderful view that they both see.
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You must know the guy below. He is Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia. When he trying out the Orion AR glasses, he seems very impressive with the outcome and results.
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The challenges is to simplify all the technologies and to make it as compact as possible. This is done by creating a completely new kind of display architecture to fit the size of normal glasses.
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Lastly on Meta Connect 2024 Highlight…
For more details and other highlights during Meta Connect 2024, you can read it at their website at https://www.metaconnect.com/.
You can also watched the recorded keynote sessions in their Facebook page at “Meta for Developers“. If you would like to see other events related with VR, you can get it from here as well.
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