All the news from Meta Connect 2025 – The Verge

I know why Mark Zuckerberg risked live demo failure

2025-09-20T01:03:36-04:00

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO. | Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images

On Wednesday evening, I had a profound sense of déjà vu. When I watched Mark Zuckerberg open his Meta Connect keynote by giving the world a live backstage tour from his new glasses, I was transported back to 2012.

I was in the live audience at Google I/O when Sergey Brin introduced the world to some friends about to jump out of an airship, high above the event. I watched, agape, as athletes dove through the sky, launched bikes across the roof, rappelled down the side of the Moscone Center in San Francisco, then strode onto the stage right in front of me - all while streaming the whole thing live from their Google Glass headsets.

We'd nev …

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Meta is opening up its smart glasses to developers

2025-09-18T14:09:28-04:00

Meta is going to let apps access the vision and audio capabilities of its smart glasses thanks to a new Wearable Device Access Toolkit for developers.

"Our first version of the toolkit will open up access to a suite of on-device sensors- empowering you to start building features within your mobile apps that leverage the hands-free benefits of AI glasses," Meta says. "With our toolkit, you'll be able to leverage the natural perspective of the wearer and the clarity of open-ear audio and mic access."

The company has highlighted a few examples of how early testers are thinking about the toolkit: Twitch will let creators livestream from their …

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Meta Connect 2025: the 6 biggest announcements

2025-09-18T14:18:38-04:00

Meta just showed off all the latest in wearable technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, and more at its annual Connect keynote. In addition to the long-awaited reveal of Meta's updated Ray-Ban smart glasses, the company had some other exciting surprises to share, too.

Here's a roundup of all the new tech and software updates announced by Meta.

Meta's display-equipped smart specs make their debut

Rumors have swirled for months about Meta launching a pair of smart glasses with a display, and now they're finally here. The glasses, dubbed the Meta Ray-Ban Display, feature a full-color, high-res screen in the right lens that you can us …

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Meta is bringing an all-in-one movie and TV streaming hub to Quest headsets

2025-09-17T22:15:43-04:00

Horizon TV puts your streaming apps in one spot. | Image: Meta

Meta is making it easier to stream movies and TV shows on your Quest headset. During its Meta Connect keynote on Wednesday, the company announced that it's rolling out a Horizon TV hub with access to streaming apps like Prime Video, Peacock, Twitch, and - finally - Disney Plus with Hulu and ESPN.

The image shared by Meta shows content recommendations and streaming apps lined up on the homepage, along with tabs to switch between movies, TV shows, "immersive" experiences, sports, music, and your watchlist. It's unclear whether the tabs will show content from all of these platforms, or just the ones you subscribe to.

As part of the launch of …

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Meta is making the metaverse look better

2025-09-17T20:39:07-04:00

Meta is making improvements to its Roblox-like social platform Horizon Worlds, with the biggest upgrades being the introduction of a new game engine with better graphics as well as the Meta Horizon Studio to help creators to make custom in-game experiences.

Meta Horizon Studio is an editor that lets creators make VR worlds. Creators can already use generative AI tools to create things like textures and audio, and Meta will bring an AI assistant to the editor later this year to help creators with development. In a demo I saw at Connect 2025, a developer had a conversation with an AI chatbot to request changes like a new environment and tweak …

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Meta will let you use a Quest VR headset to turn your real-world space into a virtual world

2025-09-17T20:38:36-04:00

Gordon Ramsay’s home kitchen as made by Hyperscape.

Meta is rolling out tech that lets you capture a real-world space with a Quest VR headset so you can create a digital, photorealistic VR replica. The company calls the tech "Hyperscape," and as part of a gradual rollout beginning today, users will be able to use the beta Hyperscape Capture app with their Quest 3 or Quest 3S to make the virtual copies. Initially, you'll only be able to visit the rooms you've scanned by yourself, but Meta says that users will be able to visit rooms together by sharing a private link sometime "soon."

Meta showed off Hyperscape as part of a demo introduced at Connect 2024 last year, and while it seems like the …

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I sat down with Mark Zuckerberg to try Meta’s impressive new Ray-Ban Display glasses

2025-09-26T15:37:27-04:00

Mark Zuckerberg wearing the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses on Access.

This is Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.

Mark Zuckerberg mostly uses the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses to send text messages. Lots of them.

He has been wearing the glasses around the office, firing off WhatsApp pings to his execs throughout the day. "I run the company through text messages," he tells me recently.

"Mark is our number one heaviest user," Alex Himel, the company's head of wearables, confirms. Zuckerberg is known for sending lengthy, multi-paragraph missives via text. But when he's typing on the glasses, Himel can tell because the mes …

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I regret to inform you Meta’s new smart glasses are the best I’ve ever tried

2025-09-18T18:30:39-04:00

You can’t see it, but I’m reading text messages in this photo. | Photo by Colt Bradley / The Verge

I want to preface this hands-on by saying that I've been a smart glasses skeptic for many years. In 2019, I even made a two-part mini documentary with a thesis that consumer smart glasses couldn't happen without massive societal and technological shifts. Well, color me pink and let me find a shoe to eat. After getting a demo of the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display, I'm convinced this is the closest we've ever gotten to what Google Glass promised over 10 years ago.

The glasses look just like a chunky pair of Ray-Bans. But put them on, pinch your middle finger twice, and a display will appear in front of your right eye, hovering in front of your vis …

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The new Oakley Meta glasses are what athletes actually want

2025-09-18T18:27:17-04:00

This was what I had been expecting from Oakley smart glasses. | Photo by Colt Bradley / The Verge

When the Oakley Meta HSTN arrived earlier this year, it wasn't what I thought Oakley-branded smart glasses would be. Sure, they had Oakley's famous PRIZM lenses, but where was the wraparound design? Where were the athlete-focused features like stronger water and sweat resistance? Confusingly, it felt like the HSTN glasses were just Ray-Ban Meta glasses by another name. But that's because Meta had the real athlete-focused glasses in its back pocket. Today, the company unveiled the new $499 Oakley Meta Vanguard - and it has everything outdoorsy athletes could want and then some.

"When we started building HSTN, it was an easier process of deve …

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Meta’s new Ray-Ban smart glasses have twice the battery life

2025-09-18T18:31:56-04:00

Meta has announced a new generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses, featuring significantly improved battery life and the ability to record 3K video, which brings them up to par with the Oakley HSTN smart glasses. The new glasses, technically called the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, are available to order today and start at $379.

Let's dig in on battery, which is better on a few fronts. You can use the new Ray-Bans for up to eight hours on a single charge, which is twice the four-hour battery life of the previous generation. The charging case can charge the glasses to 50 percent in 20 minutes - a slight improvement over the 22 minutes to 50 percent for …

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