Facebook Building Quest 3 & 4, Zuckerberg talks about future Oculus headsets



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In an interview with InformationFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continued to project his optimistic outlook on XR as the future of IT, saying the company is already working on Oculus Quest 3 and 4. He also spoke about his thoughts. be the main features and challenges for future Oculus headsets.

In a conversation posted this week, Information Reporters Alex Heath and Mathew Olson spoke to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg about the company’s ongoing XR efforts.

Zuckerberg has said, as he’s already done, that he believes Quest 2 will be a flagship in the VR space.

“[…] I think Quest 2 will be the first mainstream VR product. It is already – just in the few months of its release – much more sold than the first version of Quest. […]. “

He further confirmed that the company is already working on two later versions of the helmet.

“Because of the way the material is developed, you kind of need to know what your next three products will look like, all at the same time. It’s not like software where we change it every week or every two weeks, ”Zuckerberg said. “So we have product teams regrouped now that are working on the next generations of virtual reality and what the Quest 3 and 4 will look like. And then, of course, the fundamental technology that goes into that in terms of improving the optics and its performance, making it smaller and lighter, and adding a lot of features that you would like. “

Zuckerberg said many of the company’s priorities for future VR headsets are driven by a desire to provide “social presence” – the feeling of being physically near someone, even from a distance.

“For example, one of the things that really excites me for future versions [of Quest] is eye and face tracking because if you’re really into social presence you want to make sure the device has all the sensors to really animate realistic avatars so you can communicate well like that. “

While it’s unclear whether such features would be built into Quest 3, 4 or beyond, Zuckerberg also highlighted both varifocal optics and high dynamic range (HDR) displays as key challenges to raise in future helmets.

“[…] you have different challenges on the optics around virtual reality, then what you have had historically with phones or computers. Because, of course, in VR the screen isn’t just in one place. You have objects on different planes. […] in modern virtual reality, screens essentially only project elements at a single focal length, ”said Zuckerberg The Information journalists. “So your eyes try to focus [when looking at close objects] and you can’t because they just project a distance. This is something that needs to be resolved. The problem is basically called varifocal … [you need to make] a kind of liquid lens, or a mechanically moving lens that can throw things at different distances. “

“Probably the most difficult challenge in terms of super vivid display and rendering is… it’s the problem with HDR. TVs have improved a bit in HDR lately, but liveliness – measured in nits [brightness], is the unit for this – the screens we have, compared to what your eye sees in the real world, are an order of magnitude or more [insufficient]Zuckerberg said. “Which means you probably won’t want to live in a passthrough VR world anytime soon, because you won’t want to give up the vividness of what your eyes can really see in terms of contrast and brightness. of colors if everything is slightly duller in VR. “

Zuckerberg said these were just a few of the “basic types of challenges” the company hopes to solve for “some of the upcoming releases. [of our VR headsets] and sort of over the next 10 years […]. “

So, while Quest 3 and 4 are already in the works, it may still be some time before we see more advanced features like varifocal or HDR. We expect that in addition to being made smaller and lighter, eye tracking and mouth tracking will be more likely to become Quest headsets in the short term.

Zuckerberg also spoke more broadly about the company’s XR initiatives, including the Facebook smart glasses set to launch this year and the wrist-worn data the company has hiked. See Information for the full conversation.

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