SAN FRANCISCO, United States — A year after it rebranded itself
in the name of building a metaverse,
Meta on Tuesday unveiled a new version of
its virtual reality headset tailored for working professionals.
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The $1,500 Meta Quest Pro features a number of new features
that are meant to improve users' perception of truly being in the presence of
other people.
The headset makes it possible to view not only virtual
worlds but also the real environment of the user, thanks to high-resolution
outward-facing cameras.
"The moment that they begin to break into a smile or
when they raise their eyebrow... your avatar should be able to express all of
that and more," Meta chief
Mark Zuckerberg said at Meta Connect, the
company's giant's annual conference focused on virtual reality.
Customers can begin ordering the Quest Pro starting on
Tuesday, and the device will ship at the end of the month.
A year after it rebranded itself in the name of building a metaverse, Meta on Tuesday unveiled a new version of its virtual reality headset tailored for working professionals.
Meta said it is partnering with
Microsoft and others to tune
popular business and productivity software to virtual worlds using Quest Pro.
Capabilities being worked on include using Quest Pro during
virtual meetings on the Microsoft Teams platform, according to the two
companies.
"At Microsoft, we're incredibly excited about the
metaverse and how digital and physical worlds are coming together,"
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the presentation.
Facebook renamed itself Meta in October 2021 to signal a
pivot to building its vision for an interactive virtual and augmented reality
world that it sees as the future.
The move came as the company was facing backlash after a
whistleblower leaked documents suggesting the social media giant put profits
over safety.
Meta is undergoing a difficult period financially due to
dropping advertising revenues and fierce competition from other platforms such
as TikTok, whose popularity has exploded.
The $1,500 Meta Quest Pro features a number of new features that are meant to improve users' perception of truly being in the presence of other people.
About a third of the apps in the Quest app store brought in
millions of dollars in revenues since launching there, according to Meta chief
technology officer Andrew "Boz" Bosworth.
Some $1.5 billion has been spent overall on games and apps
in the Quest store, and titles on the way to its virtual shelves include an
"Iron Man" game set for release in November by Marvel Entertainment
and Sony Interactive Entertainment, according to Meta executives.
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