This week, headset vendor Pico quietly teased a new device announcement for August 20th at 14:00 China Standard Time. The firm posted an elusive image on its social media channels with the quote “reality, amplified.”
No further details surround the post. However, the launch date carefully places the announcement ahead of Meta Connect 2024. Moreover, the August 20th reveal date occurs just weeks after HTC VIVE posted a YouTube video hinting at the impending release of a ‘game-changing’ headset.
Expanded XR Romours and Rumbles
This perhaps signifies a rising interest in the XR hardware vendor space to group hardware releases around the Meta Connect 2024 lead-up and event, hoping that the Zuckerberg-fronted firm will raise mainstream interest in XR for another moment. This is not dissimilar to how XR firms followed on the back of WWDC and Vision Pro news earlier in the year.
Meta Connect will take place next month, on September 25-26, 2024. The event will showcase Meta’s latest digital solutions from its social media and XR portfolio.
Meta has not yet revealed details about the event. Still, it will feature several expected sessions, featured technology, speakers such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and maybe a rumoured Quest 3 Lite model.
Pico Faces Employment Roadblocks?
Late last year, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and Pico, reportedly cancelled its upcoming VR headset. ByteDance announced that it would not be releasing the Pico 5 headset due to disappointing revenues from the Pico 4.
After laying off about 400 employees and restructuring 600 others in 2023, ByteDance has reduced its workforce from 1800 to 800, a 60 per cent reduction.
Reports from the time highlighted that the layoffs are expected to affect thousands of employees. The company initially planned to reduce its workforce by 20 to 30 per cent by 2023, but the latest report indicates a much higher reduction.
