A year after Facebook transitioned to Meta at the event, the company will host its second Connect conference on October 11 this year.
The company describes the event as a “one-day virtual event exploring the construction of virtual worlds and the future of augmented and virtual reality.” Currently, there is no information on expected conferences and speakers at the event. But Meta will definitely be showing its top brass for Metaverse songs.
Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last month, we know the company will be releasing its next-generation VR headset at the event. Likely to be called the Oculus Pro, the headset will feature eye-tracking and face-tracking. It will also mimic the user’s facial expressions, so their avatar isn’t some lifeless blob.
During the podcast, Zuckerberg pointed out that the upcoming headset will be significantly more expensive than the $400 Oculus and have some mixed reality features.
The event may feature announcements geared towards the virtual world. Last year, Meta first released its VR-based social platform Horizon Worlds in the US and Canada, followed by the UK, France and Spain. The company also talked about plans to develop a web version of the platform and give creators tools to sell items in Horizon Worlds after facing complaints of harassment from users. The company may also release some brand new security tools, given users’ concerns about privacy in the virtual world.
Meta has also experimented with NFTs on Instagram and Facebook over the past few months. As such, it can be discussed how they relate to the addressable market for digital creators, and the company’s larger vision for selling goods in the metaverse.
The company has spent billions developing its vision for the metaverse, so company executives are expected to talk about its progress so far and what’s coming next. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as Zuck’s now infamous “hypercosmic selfie.”
