You can argue that virtual reality is still a niche activity and you’d… be right, actually. But everyone from Meta to Sony is running full-tilt towards a virtual reality future. Sony’s already shown its hand, with its VR headset sequel launching next year. Now Meta has also revealed its next step, thanks to an interview with Joe Rogan.
Not too much about the headset itself was revealed during Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s interview on Rogan’s podcast. Despite this, it seems likely that Meta’s Project Cambria hardware is the kit we can expect later this year.
An experience for Joe Rogan
Meta’s new VR hardware, whatever it ends up being called, is slated for an October launch. Zuckerberg, looking less robotic than usual (it’s the lighting) explained a few of the features coming to the gear. The main one? Face tracking, of a sort. We just wonder how Meta will turn that into information it can sell to advertisers.
“The ability to now have kind of eye contact in virtual reality. [To] have your face be tracked so that way your avatar — it’s not just this still thing, but if you smile or if you frown or if you pout, or whatever your expression is, have that translate in real-time to your avatar.”
There are suggestions that the hardware revealed on Joe Rogan’s podcast could wind up being called the Meta Quest Pro. That’s the Silicon Valley way, after all. Jack up the features (and the price), slap a ‘Pro’ or a ‘Max’ on the end (sometimes both) and call it a day.
Project Cambria is supposed to cost more than the already pricey-if-you’re-South-African Meta Quest lineup. Sticking a ‘Pro’ at the back of this new kit and giving it facial tracking should put it out of reach of most. Still, it could probably be modded to perform at-home facial motion capture for amateur films. That would be rather awesome.