What you could know
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will meet with LG CEO Cho Joo-wan on Wednesday to plan an “AI-XR alliance,” in keeping with the Korea Financial Each day.
- Allegedly, LG will develop the {hardware} and lend its webOS TV interface to the Meta Quest Professional 2, due out in Q1 2025.
- Meta might convey its AI companies to LG home equipment and IT companies.
- A earlier rumor instructed the Quest Professional 2 would price $2,000.
On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta and LG will meet in South Korea to debate an “AI-XR alliance,” in keeping with trade sources. Among the many objects on the agenda, Meta will enlist LG’s assist in creating the Meta Quest Professional 2, its second try at a premium productiveness XR headset.
The Korea Financial Each day (through UploadVR) states that the “two corporations plan to launch the highest-performance XR headset that surpasses Apple’s ‘Imaginative and prescient Professional’ within the first quarter of subsequent yr,” as per Google Translate.
Whereas early 2025 seems like a quick turnaround on paper, we first heard of a Meta-LG Quest Professional 2 again in September 2023, with a goal $2,000 value level — $1,500 lower than the Imaginative and prescient Professional, however $1,000 greater than the Meta Quest Professional, which dropped $500 in value a number of months after launch resulting from poor gross sales.
Meta allegedly canceled a distinct Professional 2 prototype due out this yr, codenamed Funston, earlier than pivoting to this LG-made prototype.
This assembly will cement the plans put in place months in the past, whereas laying out learn how to hit that early 2025 launch date, “what companies to incorporate, and learn how to devise a gross sales technique,” in keeping with the KED.
Though LG will deal with the {hardware} and Meta the software program, the report claims that the Quest Professional 2 will change to a brand new working system primarily based on LG’s WebOS, paired with Meta’s personal on-device AI.
Meta will even convey its AI know-how to LG’s residence home equipment (like TVs), almost definitely as a digital assistant chatbot via distant controls. We assume that Meta’s “human-level AI” will want extra time earlier than it involves any business product.
Meta has the market cornered for gaming VR, however in the case of a productiveness XR headset, it has to compete with the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, the rumored Samsung XR headset, Sony’s XR headset, and even a Huawei XR headset. On this surroundings, it is smart for Meta to companion with a serious producer who has expertise on each the {hardware} and software program sides, the place Meta’s rivals have a bonus.
Its largest rival, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, has the advantage of the App Retailer, giving it entry to hundreds of apps whereas Meta struggled to get many productiveness apps to make XR-ready software program for the Quest Professional. It additionally has a fame as an ideal system for streaming content material in a digital theater, akin to Disney+.
Regardless that the Quest 3 has a surprisingly good assortment of media apps, they’re strictly VR apps that lack mixed-reality passthrough or any futuristic controls just like the Imaginative and prescient Professional provides. In concept, although, a partnership with LG might assist Meta make inroads with its common streaming app companions.
It is also the case that the Meta Quest UI is taken into account a weak level of its headsets. LG’s WebOS is not an particularly superior working system, however contemplating XR headsets usually use large, rectangular floating shows, we are able to actually see how a TV-based OS would translate properly to combined actuality.
Plus, LG’s expertise manufacturing shows will assist Meta shut the hole with the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, which provides a ridiculous 11.5 million pixels per eye for visible realism. A productiveness headset, which employees should theoretically put on all day, wants a transparent visible expertise to assist customers keep away from eye pressure and complications.
Will this be sufficient for Meta to justify charging individuals $2,000 (allegedly) for the Quest Professional 2? It will rely on the standard of the expertise and if Meta can poach sufficient of Apple’s spatial companions to convey their productiveness software program to different headsets. In that case, Meta might be the inexpensive different to the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
