Meta

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth doesn’t reveal anything particularly new here, but I do love looking at prototypes. There’s much more detail in Alex Heath’s Orion hands-on — perhaps most importantly that Meta doesn’t plan to use these expensive silicon carbide lenses whenever it does produce an actual AR product.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the fine against Meta’s EU branch, saying the company “failed to notify”. the DPC that it “inadvertently” stored user passwords without encryption in 2019.

Dimensional Double Shift is a four-player co-op game from Owlchemy Labs, the creators of Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator and Cosmonious High.

Like those games, you’ll be doing hilarious oddball tasks in VR — but now you’re working for an “interdimensional” gas station, diner, and garage, and using your actual tracked hands to manipulate objects.

Meta was using Brady’s face for a goofy and now-discontinued chatbot character program, so maybe he’s just mad about that. No explaining why Kristen Bell, who is part of a current Meta celebrity AI product, also fell for it, though.

The AI Act came into law on August 1st, but some rules for “high risk” systems won’t be enforced until August 2027. Now, companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Samsung are promising to make a head start.

Meta and Apple (which have been critical of the EU’s AI stance) are notably absent, but OpenAI has signed the pledge despite previous grumblings.

They’re on sale now for $429 — an extra $100 more than the other translucent models — and are only available in the “standard” size. The limited-edition frames do come with transition lenses and “an exclusive custom-designed black case.” Meta normally charges a $50 premium for Transitions.

Here’s our story about them and their new features.

The developer portion is over, and now the room is clearing out. Staffers are taking photos onstage and celebrating.

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In an interview with The Verge, Zuckerberg said phone makers like Apple and Google can do a lot with AI in phones that app developers can’t:

If I were at any of the other companies trying to design what the next few versions of iPhone or Google’s phones should be, I think that there’s a long and interesting roadmap of things that they can do with AI that, as an app developer, we can’t.

And later in 2025, users will be able to generate a new avatar with an AI prompt.

5X usage growth in 2024, and the app is a top five Quest 3 app in terms of weekly users, the company says.

Correction: Horizon Worlds is not a Quest 5 app.

Could be a really big deal for developers — the announcement got huge cheers in the Connect keynote room.

In a chat with Decoder, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says:

Over time, I think the glasses are also going to be able to be powered by wrist-based wearables or other wearables

So maybe not a smartwatch — which was reportedly nixed — but... something worn on the wrist that ties into smart glasses. Reminds me a bit of how the now-defunct Focals by North had a little smart ring for controls. Interesting, interesting.

That’s from Meta’s Mark Rabkin, who wants to assure developers that the Meta Quest 3 and 3S are great platforms to develop VR experiences for.

We’re in the developer-focused section of Meta’s Connect keynote. CTO Andrew Bosworth is onstage and starts with an apology: “We have not made it easy to develop for our platforms. I want you to know that we know that, and we’re sorry.”

He goes on to say that the “ground has constantly been shifting under your feet for years now.” Meta just recently killed Spark, its AR effects platform, without warning and has made more changes than I can count to the Quest’s software.

Zuckerberg has wrapped up announcements. We just watched a video made by director Matthew Vaughn filmed on Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

Now Andrew Bosworth is here for the developer keynote.

Meta already let you see some of its smart glasses circuitry through its orange and blue frames, but now there’s an even clearer version. We already got a few photos of our own in our story about them today.

Is it... time for me to buy these things?

Zuckerberg just pulled a pair out of a suitcase brought out to him onstage at Meta Connect. He calls them “our first fully functional prototype” and the “most advanced AR glasses the world has ever seen.”

I’ve got a deep dive on Orion you can read and watch below, which includes a demo I did with Zuckerberg last week. And here’s my full interview with Zuckerberg that just dropped on Decoder.

Zuckerberg is doing a demo with mixed martial artist Brandon Moreno, where they are using the Ray-Ban Metas to do live translation in English and Spanish.

Zuckerberg is speaking in English, Moreno is speaking in Spanish, and it seems like they are able to have a short discussion. This feature is still in the works, but the company says it’s coming soon.

“The demo gods are looking somewhat favorably on us,” Zuckerberg said.

He mentions how “closed” AI labs have been cutting costs since Meta released its Llama model for free and says he thinks open-source AI will win. (Of note: OpenAI rolled out its advanced voice mode to all of its paid subscribers last night, just before Meta rolled out its voice mode today.)

At Meta Connect, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Quest VR headset users will be able to connect to Windows 11 PCs just by looking at their keyboard — much the same way Apple’s Vision Pro can do that when you look at a MacBook.

Here’s a gallery of pics from the presentation.

Zuckerberg says that Meta is experimenting with automatic video dubbing and lip-syncing on Reels so that your videos can reach people in more languages. We didn’t get a live video of this, but he showed a video onstage of Spanish Reels dubbed into English.

YouTube has been exploring auto-dubbing, too.

You’ll be able to video chat with a creator’s AI persona. I’ve tried this, and it’s wild. We’re getting a demo of it now onstage. The crowd is into it.

He says voice will be “one of if not the most frequent ways we interact with AI.”

One of the featured AI voices is that of actor Awkwafina. Zuckerberg asked AI Awkwafina if “live demos are risky” and it gave a natural-sounding response. (Yes, it is risky and potentially embarrassing.)

Meta AI has 500 million monthly active users already, according to Zuckerberg.

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is wearing a shirt that says “Zuck or nothing” in Latin. Still with the Roman emperor thing, then. At least he left the chain at home.