(AP) – Facebook parent Meta unveiled a high-end virtual reality headset Tuesday in hopes that people will soon use it to work and play in the still-elusive site called the “metaverse.”
The $1,500 Meta Quest Pro headset has high-resolution sensors that allow people to see virtual and augmented reality in full color, as well as eye tracking and so-called “natural facial expressions” that mimic the facial movements of the user to make their avatars look natural when interacting with other avatars in virtual reality environments.
Formerly known as Facebook, Meta is in the midst of a corporate transformation that it says will take years to complete. It wants to evolve from a social platform provider to a dominant power in a nascent virtual reality construct called the metaverse, a bit like the Internet brought to life, or at least rendered in 3D.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described the metaverse as an immersive virtual environment, a place where people can virtually “step into” rather than look at it on a screen. The company is investing billions in its metaverse plans that will likely take years to pay off.
VR headsets are already popular among some gamers, but Meta knows that won’t be enough to make the metaverse mainstream. As such, it puts office and home office workers in its sights.
“Meta is positioning the new Meta Quest Pro headset as an alternative to using a laptop,” said Rolf Illenberger, founder and CEO of VRdirect, which creates virtual reality environments for businesses. But he added that for businesses, operating in the virtual worlds of the metaverse is still “quite a long way off.”
Meta also announced that its metaverse avatars will soon have legs, an important detail that has been missing since the avatars debuted last year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.