Meta Connect 2024 live updates: News on the Meta Quest 3S, Orion AR headset and Meta AI features for Ray-Ban glasses
Get ready for an AI, AR and VR party and more about Meta's Orion headset.
It's been a year since Meta launched the Quest 3, its first major attempt at integrating mixed reality into a consumer-focused VR headset. At Meta Connect 2024 today, we're expecting the company to further expand out its headset family with a cheaper Quest 3S (likely replacing the Quest 2). And judging from the slew of rumors this year — and a bit of a tease from Mark Zuckerberg himself — Meta will likely show off its Orion AR glasses. And don't forget about Meta AI, which was first announced last Connect. We also expect to hear more news about AI features in the Ray-Ban smart glasses, as well as throughout the company's apps.
Join us as we cover the Meta Connect 2024 keynote live!
91 Updates
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Meta will use AI to create lip-synced translations of creators' Reels
Live AI translation demo.
Meta just announced an intriguing tool that uses AI to automatically dub Reels into other languages, complete with lip-sync. This feature was revealed at the annual Meta Connect livestream event and was introduced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg showed this off during the keynote, and everything seemed to work flawlessly. The technology not only translates the content, according to Meta, but will also "simulate the speaker's voice in another language and sync their lips to match."
Read the full story: Meta will use AI to create lip-synced translations of creators' Reels
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Meta will stop selling the Quest 2 and Quest Pro by the end of the year
A man using a headset.
Meta just revealed the budget-friendly Quest 3S VR headset at its annual Connect keynote event, but it also made a sad announcement about some of its previous headsets. The company will stop selling both the Quest 2 and the Quest Pro by the end of the year.
"With Quest 3S on the shelf, we're officially winding down sales of Quest 2 and Pro. We'll be selling our remaining headsets through the end of the year or until they're gone, whichever comes first," the company said.
Read the full story: Meta will stop selling the Quest 2 and Quest Pro by the end of the year
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Meta reveals its Orion AR smart glasses
Meta Orion smart glasses
Alongside the Quest 3S and AI updates, we got a glimpse of Meta's future at Meta Connect. After teasing the device several times in recent months, Meta finally gave the world a proper look at its "full holographic" augmented reality glasses, aka Orion. The company is packing a lot of tech into those chunky frames, which aren't coming to market just yet.
Meta first revealed five years ago that it was developing holographic smart glasses, but the company has actually been working on the project for a decade. It claims that these are "the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made" and result from "breakthrough inventions in virtually every field of modern computing." For one thing, they use itty bitty projectors to display holograms onto the glasses.
Read the full story: Meta reveals its Orion AR smart glasses
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Meta's Ray-Ban branded smart glasses are getting AI-powered reminders and translation features
Meta's Ray-Ban branded smart glasses are getting Ai upgrades.
Meta's AI assistant has always been the most intriguing feature of its second-generation Ray-Ban smart glasses. While the generative AI assistant had fairly limited capabilities when the glasses launched last fall, the addition of real-time information and multimodal capabilities offered a range of new possibilities for the accessory.
Now, Meta is significantly upgrading the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses' AI powers. The company showed off a number of new abilities for the year-old frames onstage at its Connect event, including reminders and live translations.
Read the full story: Meta's Ray-Ban branded smart glasses are getting AI-powered reminders and translation features
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Meta AI can now talk to you and edit your photos
meta AI will be able to edit your photos.
Over the last year, Meta has made its AI assistant so ubiquitous in its apps it's almost hard to believe that Meta AI is only a year old. But, one year after its launch at the last Connect, the company is infusing Meta AI with a load of new features in the hopes that more people will find its assistant useful.
One of the biggest changes is that users will be able to have voice chats with Meta AI. Up till now, the only way to speak with Meta AI was via the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. And like last year's Meta AI launch, the company tapped a group of celebrities for the change.
Read the full story: Meta AI can now talk to you and edit your photos
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Film director Matthew Vaughn live at the Meta Connect event.
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Zuckerberg has left the stage, and we're watching a video to close us out. I have to say, I appreciate a quick keynote.
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And we're out. Thanks for joining us folks!
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As expected, Zuckerberg says Orion isn't quite ready to be a consumer device yet. He says they need to make it more affordable, along with other improvements. Notably, he hasn't said a word about battery life, which will be important. Those waveguide displays are not kind to battery life. Instead, it will be available as a developer kit to some partners,
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This is a cool demo, but this thing looks like it's years away from being ready for consumers. It's going to be used as an internal dev kit, as well as handful of external partners. I'd wager these units easily cost close to $10,000.
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Meta holographic glasses prototype.
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"With Orion, we're getting closer to achieving the dream of Reality Labs," Zuckerberg says
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Apparently Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was an early tester of Orion, he has a big cameo in Meta's video of people trying them out.
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Meta's Orion prototype can be controled by wrist based neural interface, by hand movements and by eye tracking.
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In addition to hand and eye-tracking, these glasses have a neural interface — another technology that Meta has been experimenting with for a long time. A wrist-based controller will allow you to interact with the UI
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Meta reveals the budget-friendly Quest 3S VR headset
A lady using a VR headset.
Meta has announced the budget-friendly Quest 3S VR headset at its annual Connect keynote. Rumors have been swirling for months that the company was working on a cheaper follow-up to the impressive Quest 3, and now it's here and priced at $300.
Read the full story: Meta reveals the budget-friendly Quest 3S VR headset
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Meta has been working on this a long time and it seems they've already come up with some cool uses cases, like letting you video chat with holograms of your friends.
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Orion uses tiny projectors to shoot holograms onto the glasses. Fascinating.
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It's hard to tell based on what's on the screen but the field of view looks similar to Snap's AR Spectacles (obviously, I won't be able to confirm until I get a full demo) which is to say: this likely won't be fully immersive AR.
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I wonder what Apple thinks about all of this. Orion looks like the end goal for the Vision Pro.
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Meta' first functioning prototype of holographic glasses.
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Zuckerberg is holding the company's "Orion" prototype. They look thick but not nearly as bulky as Snap's new AR Spectacles that I saw last week.
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Orion is real, and they look like super chonky hipster frames.
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And now the moment we've been waiting for, it looks like we're about to get a demo of the long-rumored AR glasses.
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Here we go, one more thing...
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Meta is releasing a special limited edition of its Ray-Ban glasses with transparent frames. The crowd seems very excited for these. Zuckerberg said when they launched, they wanted to make the tech look more subtle but now people have more of an appreciation for it.
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Ray-Ban Meta sunglasses will get transition lenses.
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Another cool update: The full range of EssilorLuxottica transition lenses will work with Ray-BV
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This is cool. Meta is partnering with "be My Eyes" an app that helps people who are blind and low vision
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Zuckerberg is now demoing real-time audio translations with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (with the help of an MMA star, of course). This is very cool. The glasses could already translate bits of text but the ability to translate audio in real-time is much more powerful. These glasses were already a great travel accessory but I think they just got even better on that fr
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Conversation lag with these real time translations tools will always be awkward, but still, cool demo
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Meta partnering with be my eyes.
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Live translation is coming to your Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses.
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Another big update: Meta AI will be able to use video to power multimodal queries, This means it can respond dynamically as you move around rather than just staring at something static
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Some new AI updates are coming to the glasses, including the ability to speak to Meta Ai more naturally. You can ask follow-ups without saying "hey Meta" every time and don't always have to say "look and tell me." Meta Ai will also be able to "look" at something and send you a reminder. It will also be able to scan QR codes and text phone numbers you see.
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You soon won't have to say "Hey, Meta" for every command.
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Very surprised Meta AI couldn't control other apps like Spotify before. I'm sure those voice commands will be useful.
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Meta AI Ray-Ban sunglasses.
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Interesting that Zuckerberg refers to Meta's smart glasses an "AI device." I think that's very telling about how Meta thinks of this product even if most people aren't primarily using the AI features.
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Zuckerberg just announced Llama 3.2, which he said will be available everywhere except the EU. He added, somewhat sarcastically, that he's "eternally optimistic" Meta will be able to sort out its differences with EU regulators.
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Meta Llama multimodals.
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On one hand, the tech behind automatic AI dubbing and lip syncing is very cool. On the other, I'm SO tired of social media videos entirely voiced by AI.
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We're now getting a look at how Meta will use AI to automatically dub creators' videos on Reels and match their their words with automated lip syncing so it looks like they are speaking the translated language. We saw a demo with English and Spanish and Zuckerberg says they are planning more languages soon.
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Meta AI translation.
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Live demo of creator AI.
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Meta actually introduced these custom creator AIs earlier this year. The idea is that you can outsource responding to your followers to AI. But now instead of chatbots, creators can create a photorealistic AI version of themself that can actually talk so it looks like you're actually video chatting with them. This is pretty wild.
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Don Allen Stevenson III is one of the first creators to make a text-based AI. His AI has been answering a lot of frequently asked questions from folks.
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It seems like a bit of a risk considering the celebrity-branded chatbots that debuted last year were quietly phased out earlier this year after a less than stellar response from users.
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Mark Zuckerberg live demoing the new AI voice feature.
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"Thanks Awkwafina," is something we'll all be saying soon.
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Looks like the leak was true: John Cena, Judi Dench, Kristen Bell are among the celebrity voice options.
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You can have voice conversations with Meta AI, rolling out today.
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Zuckerberg says Meta AI is "on track" to be the most-used AI assistant later this year, though it's unclear how he determined that stat. WhatsApp is currently the most popular platform for Meta AI, according to reports.
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Meta AI
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Almost at 500 million monthly active Meta AI users, Zuckerberg says.
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Zuckerberg shouted out Green Day just now. They just played a show in San Francisco and Zuckerberg posted a photo from backstage with their lead singer so yes, he is a fan.
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We're taking a look at a few games, including a new Batman VR title and Triangle Strategy from Square Enix. It's so wild to see 3D sprites in VR.
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Horizon Hyperscape in the Metaverse
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He's also showing off the ability to record 3D spaces with your phone, and then visit them on Quest 3 and Quest 3S. It's part of a new app called Hyperscape.
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Zuckerberg is showing off new Horizon Worlds feature, including co-watching on YouTube. He says they are improving their avatars, which got a giggle from the crowd, because we all remember Zuck's embarrassing low-res avatar from awhile back.
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New portals coming
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We're taking a closer look at Horizon Worlds. You'll be able to jump through portals to different spaces. The avatars also look far better than before.
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"Quest is going to be a natural extension of your PC."
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He's showing off Windows 11 Remote Desktop integration that looks A LOT like the Mac integration for Vision Pro. This could be really useful if the lenses look sharp enough.
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He's showing off built-in Xbox cloud gaming, something that launched earlier this year. It also has Dolby Atmos support for 3D positional audio. Instagram and Facebook apps have also been reworked for mixed reality.
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I got some time with Quest 3S yesterday and I have to say, it doesn't feel like a budget device at all. I have a Quest 2 at home and it's a huge upgrade from that headset. It seems like a no-brainer if you're looking to upgrade
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The live mixed reality view looks a lot like the Quest 3 experience. Note that the passthrough camera didn't look nearly as good in person as it does when streamed over video.
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Meta Quest 3 and 3S.
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Now we're getting a demo of Quest 3S pass through. Getting real Splinter Cell vibes from this thing.
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It has most of the features of the Quest 3, but swapped out pancake lenses for Fresnel. Expect slightly worse optics.
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Meta Quest 3S
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Mark Zuckerberg announcing Meta Quest 3S.
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Zuckerberg wastes no time and immediately reveals the Quest 3S, Meta's new affordable VR headset that starts at $299
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Meta Connect event has officially started.
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And Zuckerberg is on the stage. He seems to be wearing one of his custom oversized designer tees, in keeping with his recent glow-up .
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Meta Quest 3S is official, $300.
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Sure, it's funny this thing is 15 minutes late! But this is the danger of a live event, something I don't think we'll ever see from Apple again.
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The countdown timer onstage has started up again so we may be starting in just about a minute (I hope).
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There's no traffic in the metaverse :)
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The keynote is definitely running behind schedule. Someone next to me joked that Zuckerberg was stuck in traffic and, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if someone was delayed this morning. Traffic was particularly brutal today.
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Perhaps the metaverse was with us all along.
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We're wondering if Meta was just spooked by Google's Pixel Buds Pro 2 review embargo, which just lifted. Cheeky timing, Google!
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Walking in this morning, I've already seen *a lot* of people wearing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, it's a good reminder that the glasses, which debuted at Connect last year, have been something of a surprise hit for Meta. The company hasn't released sales figures but Zuckerberg said earlier this year that demand was stronger than they anticipated. I expect we'll get some updates on them today
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Slowly being lulled to sleep by the livestream music...
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And... we're a minute late. Come on Meta!
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Here's a look at the stage.
And here's a look at the stage setup this year. Mark Zuckerberg will enter in just under 10 minutes to kick things off. How many times do we think he'll say "AI" today?
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I have arrived at the keynote! A bit of a change from last year because we are inside Meta's offices where a stage has been set up. I'm grateful because last year we were in direct sunlight during the keynote and it was ... very warm!
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Meta AI sticker
Here's a note from Karissa, who's on a shuttle bus to the main event now: "In case there was any doubt about the theme of today, there are Meta AI stickers on the windows of the shuttle busses with prompts for questions you can ask the gen AI assistant."
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Looks like the leaks are ramping up ahead of the keynote. Reuters is reporting that Meta AI will soon have celebrity voices, including Judi Dench, John Cena and Kristen Bell. This was rumored over the summer, so it's not exactly surprising. Still, it'll be interesting to see if celebrity voices can actually encourage people to use Meta AI. I've mostly ignored it everywhere it's popped up.
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A view from Menlo Park
Meta Connect 2024
While Meta Connect is mostly a virtual event, there will be a stage with actual humans in Menlo Park. Karissa came across this sign on her way to the live keynote, advertising something called CO NNE CT. Seems like Meta is trying a bit too hard to make stylish signage.
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Good morning!
Hello folks, we're gearing up for the start of the Meta Connect 2024 keynote. I'll be handling liveblog commentary from afar, and Engadget's Karissa Bell is on the ground for hands-on coverage and interviews. Be sure to check out our Meta Connect preview for details on what we expect to see from the keynote.
You can follow the livestream of the keynote on Meta's developer site. And, of course, you can check things out in VR via the Meta Horizon app. The company describes it as "a virtual experience inspired by our Menlo Park campus." You'll be able to meet other attendees, watch with friends and "unlock exclusive rewards." I'm guessing that could just be virtual clothes for your Meta avatars, but we'll see!