Meta's Cool (Creepy?) Ideas

The most interesting technology that Meta is building right now isn’t available at Best Buy. [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey all, it’s Kurt Wagner in San Francisco. We’ll have to wait a while for the metaverse to get more exciting. But first… Today’s must-reads: • Intel is planning to cut [thousands of jobs](, at a particularly awkward time. • Amazon’s Prime Day sales so far are looking like a [normal day](. • Crypto startup funding is [plunging](. With Zuckerberg’s bare hands Mark Zuckerberg showed off Meta’s [newest virtual reality headset]( on Tuesday, a $1,500 device that includes face- and eye-tracking and full-color mixed reality which will let people project digital images onto the physical world around them. I demoed the device a few weeks back at Meta’s office in Redmond, Washington, and it’s pretty slick. The mixed reality makes the headset feel much less isolating, a benefit to folks like me who feel like escaping into a VR world can can cause a bit too much disconnection from reality. Plus, the new facial tracking tools capture eye movement and facial expressions, which does indeed make the avatars more realistic. But the headset is ultimately just a step or two better than the VR devices Meta already has, at least for the general consumer. The most interesting technology that Meta is building right now isn’t available at Best Buy. During my trip to Redmond, I saw four other features in the works meant to bring the metaverse into reality, all much further from reaching the general public, but also much more impressive: - 3D scanning: Imagine wanting to hang your kids’ artwork in your digital office. That’s not the kind of item you can simply “buy” from a virtual store. Meta is working on tech so you can take video of a physical object and upload a digital version of it into the metaverse — eventually within minutes. The demo we saw included a teddy bear intricate enough to see the texture of its fur. - Photorealistic avatars: It’s [hard to imagine]( doing business in Meta’s current virtual world, where avatars are legless cartoons. But the avatars Meta is building are much more advanced, and some even have legs! In one demo, it’s realistic enough to feel like you are talking to another person’s disembodied bust. (Creepy, but cool.) - Spatial audio: I assumed this feature was just “surround sound,” but it’s much better, and helps conversations in VR feel more normal based on how voices and sounds hit your ear. In a demo, Meta made it seem as though another person was whispering right over my shoulder, though there was nobody actually there. (Also creepy, also cool.) - Neural interfaces: The one time Zuckerberg appeared during my visit he was wearing a band that Meta built to detect electrical signals in his wrist. Depending on how he moved his hand — a pinch or a flick of his fingers, for example — it led to different outputs on a nearby digital monitor. Zuckerberg’s hand was essentially his remote control. Soon we saw other employees use the wristbands to play video games. All of these demos were more impressive than the headset Meta just launched, but it’s unclear whether users and investors are willing to wait for this tech to become anything more than a cool demonstration. Zuckerberg’s metaverse vision has been repeatedly mocked; the avatars look amateur and the concept of living in a virtual world feels borderline ridiculous. Meta investors are getting impatient, with shares down about 62% so far this year, as the company burns through cash investing in technology that few even understand. On Tuesday, Zuckerberg asked for patience. He told viewers that creating the future means building it “with your bare hands.” The technology he unveiled was for those “who’d rather be early than fashionably late.” By the end of the day, Meta stock was down almost 4%. —[Kurt Wagner](mailto:kwagner71@bloomberg.net) The big story As Elon Musk’s profile has grown, so have his associated scandals and broken promises. But nothing has brought him a [reality check]( like the Twitter deal has. What else you need to know Big online retailers thought Covid would boost online shopping forever. [They were wrong](. Google is beefing up its [cloud offering]( with AI tools. The Biden administration is rethinking [gig worker employment status](. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. 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