US tech giant Facebook, now known as ‘Meta’ in a major company rebranding, livestreamed its ‘Facebook Connect 2021’ event on Thursday, where Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO and Founder, revealed the company’s new Oculus virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) devices.
During the virtual event, Zuckerberg unveiled Project Cambria and Project Nazare, a pair of wearables that enable users to harness Meta’s new vision for online communication.
Despite revealing the devices at this year’s event, Zuckerberg claimed the headsets are in the concept phase and would not be available until next year.
Project Cambria
Project Cambria is not the Quest 3 or Pro, but instead the headset is part of an advanced high-end product line compatible with Quest users for cross-platform communications.
Meta is advertising the Cambria headset as a luxury product with a matching initial price, which Zuckerberg says will drop over time, adding,
“Our plan here is to keep building out this product line [and] to release our most advanced technology before we can hit the price-points of Quest”
Project Cambria stands out from the current Oculus product lineup with its numerous advancements such as facial biometrics, which use advanced eye and face-tracking systems to gather biometric data to create real-time animations for VR/AR avatars.
Additionally, Meta is improving its mixed reality (MR) Passthrough API and going forward, the Menlo Park-based firm will enhance the API’s digital depth perception with a higher-resolution and colour.
At the Connect event, Unity revealed its ‘Slices: Table!’ project, which uses the Passthrough API to seamlessly blend augmented, virtual, and physical worlds.
The Facebook Reality Labs team also explained Project Cambria use of pancake optics, which folds various layers of lens that bend light to create high-fidelity visuals while remaining slim and lightweight.
Project Nazare
Additionally, Zuckerberg announced Project Nazare, a pair of concept smart glasses, which fit powerful AR hardware into a slim 8mm frame.
Meta did not disclose many details at the event, but Zuckerberg confirmed the lightweight device is powerful enough to display interactive, shared holograms of avatars, games, and applications.
Unlike competitors such as Nreal, Meta’s smart glasses will not require smartphone tethering to offload processing power or user navigation.
Meta is also designing an EMG wristband device to translate hand gestures into AR inputs such as scrolling, clicking, or typing.
The developments come after the tech giant struck a partnership with Ray-Ban to develop a pair of AR glasses to as a foundation for work on Project Nazare.
