Facebook Connect: all the news about ‘Meta’ and Mark Zuckerberg’s VR dream – The Verge

Amid the fluff, Meta showed an impressive demo of its Codec Avatars

2021-10-28T17:39:47-04:00

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, held a presentation today where it announced its rebranding and showed off what it imagines the future of computing will look like - but amid all the fluff, it actually had some interesting tech demos. The first showed off its life-like Codex avatars and an environment for them to exist in, which the company says was rendered in real-time and reacted to real-world objects. Mark Zuckerberg also talked about the company's work with neural interfaces that let you control a computer just by moving your fingers.

We'll discuss the demos in just a moment, but it's really worth seeing them for yourself. …

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With Facebook’s change to Meta, what’s the new Big Tech acronym?

2021-10-28T16:07:43-04:00

A collage of Meta logos. | Image: Meta

The company formerly known as Facebook just revealed its new name, Meta. And while that change brings a whole lot of questions, there's one that many of us at The Verge have been pondering for about 30 minutes: how does the Meta name change the acronym used to refer to the biggest tech companies in one fell swoop?

Before Thursday, FAANG - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google - was perhaps the most commonly used one. But that acronym already doesn't quite work. Google is technically a part of Alphabet now, so there should be a third A. (FAAAN?) It's missing Microsoft, which is just as mind-bogglingly huge as some of the other compani …

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Facebook’s Oculus Quest will soon be called the Meta Quest

2021-10-28T15:47:09-04:00

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is rebranding its hardware to match its new name. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth announced that the company is phasing out its Oculus branding, including on the Oculus Quest virtual reality headset. Starting in 2022, the Oculus Quest product line will be known as the Meta Quest, while the Oculus App will become the Meta Quest App. The Facebook Portal video device is also getting rebranded to "Meta Portal" sometime in the next few months.

"When people buy our products, we want them to clearly understand that all of these devices come from Meta and ladder up to our metaverse vision," Bosworth's post reads. That mea …

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Facebook’s famous thumbs-up HQ sign has been replaced with Meta

2021-10-28T14:59:21-04:00

Facebook just announced that it will change its company name to Meta. The new name comes with a new logo, a blue M that looks kind of like a pretzel, and now that logo has replaced the iconic thumbs-up Like icon at the company's global headquarters in Menlo Park.

Here are two more images of it, taken by The Verge's own Vjeran Pavic:

It did not take long before people began to pose for photos. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge" data-portal-copyright="Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge">A larger group. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge" data-portal-copyright="Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge">

For comparison, here's what the old sign looked like:

The new sign had been teased ahead of its official reveal. At one point, it was covered in a canvas with the Like icon:

Hmm. The "Facebook ðŸ‘ Sign" at 1 Hacker Way is covered in a temporary canvas/cover which also shows ðŸ‘. Earlier a small security tea …

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Mark Zuckerberg on why Facebook is rebranding to Meta

2021-10-28T14:20:58-04:00

For the first time in 17 years, Mark Zuckerberg has a new job title.

On Thursday, he officially became the CEO and chairman of Meta, the new parent company name for Facebook. The rebrand is about solidifying the social media giant as being about the metaverse, which Zuckerberg sees as the future of the internet. Zuckerberg is staying in control of everything. He told me in an interview that, unlike the founders of Google who stepped aside in 2015 when it became part of a holding company called Alphabet, he has no plans to give up the top job.

"I think we're basically moving from being Facebook first as a company to being metaverse first."

I …

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Facebook just revealed its new name: Meta

2021-10-28T14:19:10-04:00

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s new name will be “Meta.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday at his company's Connect event that its new name will be Meta. "We are a company that builds technology to connect," Zuckerberg said. "Together, we can finally put people at the center of our technology. And together, we can unlock a massively bigger creator economy."

"To reflect who we are and what we hope to build," he added. He said the name Facebook doesn't fully encompass everything the company does now, and is still closely linked to one product. "But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company."

Zuckerberg owns the Twitter handle @meta (whose tweets are protected as of this wr …

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Facebook teases ‘Project Cambria’ high-end VR / AR headset

2021-10-28T14:06:21-04:00

Teaser image of the Project Cambria headset | Meta

Facebook is planning a high-end virtual and augmented reality headset codenamed "Project Cambria." The device, which was teased briefly during Facebook's Connect keynote, features cameras that pass high-resolution full-color video to the headset's screens. It's supposed to include cutting-edge features that Facebook can't yet include in the Oculus Quest lineup, but there's no price or exact release date yet - although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it's a "completely new" product that will sit at the "high end of the price spectrum," and we'll apparently see the device released next year.

The device is focused on mixed reality applicatio …

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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is coming to Oculus Quest 2

2021-10-28T13:41:03-04:00

Behold, one of many strange screenshots you may see at Facebook Connect 2021. | Facebook

During Facebook Connect 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is in development for the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset. No other details, like price, release date, or even a brief snippet of the game running, were shown during the event. There's a blog post up at Oculus' site that confirms that the game is coming. It says, "This is a project many years in the making, and we can't wait to show you more of it."

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, along with GTA III and Vice City are being remastered, and that collection is releasing on November 11th for several platforms. The company didn't share if the VR vers …

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Active Pack accessories prepare your Oculus Quest 2 for sweaty VR workouts

2021-10-28T13:30:04-04:00

Facebook has announced the Active Pack, a set of fitness-focused accessories for the Oculus Quest 2 that are designed to help turn the VR headset into a piece of gym equipment.

Included in the Active Pack are a set of grips designed to keep the Touch controllers from flying out of your hands when you're, for example, doing a boxing workout in Supernatural. There's also an easy-to-clean face pad, so you don't have to gunk up your normal foam one if you use your Quest 2 for both exercise and entertainment.

The Active Pack will ship "next year," according to Facebook. While Facebook is clearly making it for those who have been turning to VR f …

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Oculus users are getting a new metaverse home

2021-10-28T13:18:38-04:00

Facebook is announcing a new, "more social" home space for Oculus users. Called Horizon Home, it looks a lot like the virtual home that people already have in their virtual reality headsets. But users will be able to invite friends to hang out and watch videos or start multiplayer games together, and they'll eventually be able to customize their space, although that's "a little further out." Horizon Home will launch in an Oculus update soon.

Home joins Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms - as well as events app Horizon Venues, previously known as Venues - as part of Facebook's "metaverse" hub. A video shows users getting pop-up messages in …

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