Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, announced a new high-end virtual and augmented reality headset codenamed ‘Project Cambria’ on Thursday.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke very briefly about the device during the live-streamed virtual and augmented reality Connect 2021 keynote conference that focused on the metaverse and revealed the new name of the social media platform.
However, Zuckerberg discussed several Project Cambria features including sensors that enable a user’s avatar to make natural eye contact and facial expressions in real time while in the metaverse.
The headset will also allow for mixed reality – the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments – using cameras that pass high-resolution full-color video to the headset’s screens.
Zuckerberg said Project Cambria is ‘not the next Quest,’ although it will be compatible with the device, but will be its own product and cost more than the current headsets.
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Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, announced a new high-end virtual and augmented reality headset codenamed ‘Project Cambria’ on Thursday
Meta has long boasted about its goal to transition into a metaverse company, rather than being just a social media platform and it feels shifting its name to represent their goal brings them one step closer to achieving it.
The fictional realm will let people put on a headset and enter a virtual world where they can be anybody or do anything, all from the comfort of their own home.
In Meta’s metaverse, people create avatars of themselves that can include specific skin colors, clothes facial features and other characteristics unique to the individual.
These avatars can then go anywhere within virtual world – visit friends across the globe, attend a meeting without leaving their home office or even dine with family at an exotic restraint while sitting in their own kitchen.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke very briefly about the device during the live-streamed virtual and augmented reality Connect 2021 keynote conference that focused on the metaverse and revealed the new name of the social media platform
In Meta’s metaverse, people create avatars of themselves that can include specific skin colors, clothes facial features and other characteristics unique to the individual
And Project Cambria is the key to brining it all together.
Zuckerberg said Project Cambria is ‘the future of hardware to help bring the bring the metaverse to life.’
The product, according to the CEO, will unlock social interactions and make it a lot easier to be productive.’
With the Project Cambrai, for example, a user’s avatar can make natural eye contact and facial expressions in real time to provide others in the virtual world a glimpse into real reactions.
These avatars can then go anywhere within virtual world – visit friends across the globe, attend a meeting without leaving their home office or even dine with family at an exotic restraint while sitting in their own kitchen
With the Project Cambrai, for example, a user’s avatar can make natural eye contact and facial expressions in real time to provide others in the virtual world a glimpse into real reactions. In order to perfect this, the device will likely be packed with a range of sensors to pick up the wearer’s every move
In order to perfect this, the device will likely be packed with a range of sensors to pick up the wearer’s every move.
Zuckerberg discussed using the headset to work at a virtual desk while seeing your real desk so clearly that you can write notes with a pen without taking your headset off, which is called mixed reality.
To achieve this feat, Project Cambria will feature full color mixed-reality passthrough (AKA the ability to see what’s physically around you while wearing the headset), as opposed to black and white passthrough view you can use on Oculus Quest right now.
Meta will design an array of sensors with reconstruction algorithms to represent your physical world.
The headset is supposedly very light and likely works either wirelessly or with a mobile OS built-in to the headset.
Zuckerberg discussed using the headset to work at a virtual desk while seeing your real desk so clearly that you can write notes with a pen without taking your headset off, which is called mixed reality
To achieve this feat, Project Cambria will feature full color mixed-reality passthrough (AKA the ability to see what’s physically around you while wearing the headset), as opposed to black and white passthrough view you can use on Oculus Quest right now
A pair of controllers are shown with control indicators like those of the Oculus Quest – without the extra loop above the buttons.
A release date was not revealed during the live event, but Zuckerberg hinted that the new headset will be out sometime next year.
Although the Connect 2021 keynote conference mainly focused on Meta’s metaverse, those watching were more interested in the rebrand of the company.
The headset is supposedly very light and likely works either wirelessly or with a mobile OS built-in to the headset
The social media platform announced last week that it was changing its name in a rebrand that focuses on its ambitions building the ‘metaverse.’
The name change comes as the world’s largest social media company battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market power, algorithmic decisions and the policing of abuses on its platforms.
‘Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future,’ said Zuckerberg.
The company, which has invested heavily in augmented and virtual reality, said the change would bring together its different apps and technologies under one new brand. It said it would not change its corporate structure.