A year after Facebook transformed to Meta at the event, the company is hosting its second Connect conference on October 11 this year. Prior to the Meta rebranding, the company hosted the conference under the Oculus Connect name.
The firm is describing this event as a “one-day virtual event that explores the building of the metaverse and the future of augmented and virtual reality.” Currently, there is no information about expected sessions and speakers appearing at the event. But Meta will surely present its top brass to sing the metaverse song.
Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month, we know that the company will release its next-gen VR headset at the event. This headset, likely to be called the Oculus Pro, will have features like eye-tracking and face-tracking. It will also mimic users’ facial expressions so their virtual avatars are not lifeless blobs.
On the podcast, Zuckerberg noted the upcoming headset will cost a lot more than the $400 Oculus, and sport some mixed reality features.
The event might feature announcements geared toward virtual worlds. Over the last year, Meta has released its VR-based social platform Horizon Worlds, first in the U.S. and Canada followed by the U.K., France and Spain. After facing harassment complaints from users, the firm has also talked about its plans for developing a web version of this platform and providing tools to creators to sell items in Horizon Worlds. Given the user concerns about privacy in the virtual worlds, the company might announce some brand new safety tools, too.
Meta has been also experimenting with NFTs on both Instagram and Facebook over the last few months. So there can be some talk about how they tie into potential marketplaces for digital creators and the firm’s larger vision of selling items in the metaverse.
The company has spent billions of dollars on developing its vision for the metaverse, so the company execs will expectedly talk about its progress to date, and what’s coming next. Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as Zuck’s now infamous “metaverse selfie.”