Mark Zuckerberg has spent billions of dollarscrazy ball, hired thousands of employees and worked for roughly a quarter of his life in pursuit of a vision: a future in which the physical and digital worlds are interwoven to connect people around the globe.
The dream still seems far-fetched. But on Wednesday, his company, Meta, took one step closer.
Meta introduced a series of new products during an event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., including an updated, low-cost version of its Quest 3S virtual reality headset, a pair of prototype glasses with holographic technology built into the lenses and a series of enhancements to its artificial intelligence assistant, Meta AI.
Those updates will bring a host of celebrity voices to the A.I. assistant — including those of Awkwafina, John Cena and Dame Judi Dench — that will respond to users when asked questions. The assistant is incorporated across most of Meta’s largest apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook.
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The new products are Mr. Zuckerberg’s attempt to meld his vision of what social networks can be with what is possible now. Though Meta has had some success selling its virtual reality headsets and a surprise hit in its Ray-Ban augmented reality glasses, Mr. Zuckerberg’s metaverse is still years from reality.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENT“We can start to see how the future of computing and the future of human connection are going to lookcrazy ball,” he said at the event on Wednesday. “It’s happening.”