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Meta Slows Hiring For Some Positions As Reality Labs Priorities Shift

From uploadvr

Meta is cutting back or postponing some projects in its Reality Labs division and halting hiring for some positions.

Reuters first reported earlier this week that Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth broke the news to Reality Labs staff in a weekly Q&A session, according to a summary of his comments viewed by Reuters, with more specific changes to be announced within the week. We independently reached out to Meta about the report, and a spokesperson reiterated to UploadVR they’re “evaluating key priorities,” not planning layoffs “at this time,” and “so far, Meta has hired more engineers in Q1 than all of 2021.”

While Meta’s Reality Labs revenue grew 35% year-on-year in Q2 2022 ($695 million, compared to $534 million Q1 2021), costs  grew 55% as well, up to $3.7 billion from $2.4 billion in Q1 2021. During a recent earnings call, CFO David Wehner said the growing costs were “driven by employee-related costs, R&D operating expenses and cost of goods sold.” While those numbers may appear big at first glance, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave warning ahead of time by signaling a $10 billion loss in overall 2021 profit related to the company’s VR/AR investment, while also warning he expects that investment to “grow further” for the next several years.

Despite the increase in costs, revenue from Quest 2 continues to grow and Meta plans to expand its consumer headset offerings building out from the standalone platform. A high-end consumer headset, codenamed Project Cambria, is slated for release later this year. Two new Quest headsets and a subsequent iteration of Cambria may be in the works for 2023 and 2024 as well, according to a recent report from The Information. The company also opened its first brick-and-mortar consumer store this week, selling Quest, Portal and Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses.

While Meta isn’t alone among platform-building tech companies that seem to be preparing to weather a “market downturn“, Zuckerberg’s investment in realizing VR and AR technology remains significant and we’ll be curious to see how the company focuses its efforts going forward. In June, for example, the poorly rated Venues app will disappear as events move inside Meta’s broader Horizon Worlds effort.

Zuckerberg Warns Shareholders: Metaverse Investments May Not Flourish Until 2030s

From roadtovr

Today during Meta’s Q1 2022 earnings call CEO Mark Zuckerberg told shareholders that they should buckle up for the long haul because the company’s steep investments in XR and metaverse technologies aren’t expected to flourish until the next decade.

Today Meta gave its shareholders a quarterly update, in which the company overviewed its latest earnings and expenses.

For Reality Labs, the company’s XR and metaverse division, revenue was up 30% year-over-year, from $534 million in Q1 2021 to $695 million in Q1 2022.

However, costs associated with running the Reality Labs division rose even more, up by 62% year-over-year, from $1.83 billion in Q1 2021 to $2.96 billion in Q2 2022.

This growth in costs wasn’t unexpected. Meta told investors last year they should expect the company’s XR investments in 2021 to total $10 billion… and to grow even more from there.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been asking for investor patience in his vision for XR and metaverse technologies for years. Back in 2017 he was already prepping investors for a long haul, saying that in order to reach mainstream tracition, XR would need a 10 year trajectory from the year the company acquired Oculus—a timeline that pushed out to 2024.

But in Zuckerberg’s eyes that timeline may have slipped considerably.

Today during Meta’s Q1 2022 earnings call, during a lengthy, unscripted response to a shareholder question, Zuckerberg said that he didn’t expect the company’s metaverse and XR investments to really flourish until the 2030s.

So we have multiple teams in parallel that we’ve sort of now spun up [to build XR and metaverse tech]. This goes for VR as well as augmented reality and the other work that we’re doing and is sort of driven by the success that we feel like we’re seeing in the markets and the technology is starting to be ready to really ramp up.

So those [operating losses for Reality Labs], we’re experiencing today. I mean, having those teams operating is something that you see weigh on the results and is one of the reasons why I think the growth rates and expenses have been so high, and I think we’ll continue investing more over some period. But at some point, we will have all those product teams fully staffed for a few versions into the future and then the growth rates there will come down.

But it’s not going to be until those products really hit the market and scale in a meaningful way and this market ends up being big that this will be a big revenue or profit contributor to the business. So that’s why I’ve given the color on past calls that I expect [substantial revenue from Reality Labs] to be later this decade, right?

Maybe primarily, this is laying the groundwork for what I expect to be a very exciting 2030s when this is like—when this is sort of more established as the primary computing platform at that point. I think that there will be results along the way for that, too. But I do think that this is going to be a longer cycle.

To be fair, the company’s initial ’10 year trajectory’ included only a vague idea of the metaverse—something that, despite still being somewhat nebulous—has come into clearer focus in the eight years since Meta acquired Oculus and set out to build ‘the next computing platform’.

Meta arguably didn’t take its first stab at trying to figure out what the metaverse might look like until 2016 when it began seriously experimenting with social VR in what would ultimately become Facebook Spaces, the company’s first social VR app which launched in 2017.

Even so, progress has been slow. Facebook Spaces was shut down in 2019, to be superseded by Horizon. But Horizon—which was first announced in 2019—didn’t launch until the far end 2021… and it’s still only available to a limited audience.

For shareholders seeing Meta spend $2–$3 billion on Reality Labs per quarter… it makes sense why the company is being regularly questioned about its steep spending. Zuckerberg’s suggestion that the investments won’t really flourish until the 2030s surely isn’t going to help matters.

To that end, Zuckerberg said during the earnings call that the company’s plan is to use revenue from its non-XR businesses (Facebook, Instagram, and the like) to fund its aggressive and forward-looking spending. For investors to stick around for the long haul, Zuckerberg is going to need to continue to emphatically sell his belief that XR is the next computing platform and explain why shareholders should stick around for the ride.

Is Mark Zuckerberg Teasing Physical Meta Stores To Demo Quest?

From uploadvr

Mark Zuckerberg shared an image that looks like it might be teasing physical Meta stores or retail displays for Quest demos.

The image was posted to his Facebook wall with the caption “Any guesses where this was taken? 👀“. It shows him wearing a Quest 2 in front of a video wall showing a mixed reality view of him playing Beat Saber. In the rear, shelves containing what looks like Quest 2, Quest 1, and Oculus Go, sit alongside what looks like the box for the Quest 2 Elite Strap and Anker’s charging station for Quest 2.

Back in November The New York Times reported Meta had been planning physical stores for more than a year. The purpose of the locations would be to introduce people to Meta’s hardware: headsets, glasses, and Portal video calling devices. The report didn’t mention whether products would actually be sold in-store, but it sounded like that wasn’t the focus of the plan. Discussions about physical stores reportedly “predated Facebook’s rebranding by many months”, with serious work on the initiative starting last year.

Facebook opened a few temporary pop-up stores for the budget Oculus Go headset at its launch in 2018 but has otherwise relied on partnerships with existing retailers. The original Oculus Rift headset had demo stations at Best Buy, and display cases for Quest can be found at a number of retailers.

Virtual, mixed, and augmented reality are technologies that need to be tried to be truly understood – and most people still haven’t. Factors like head shape, eyesight, and sensitivity to weight against sinuses can affect how comfortable a given person finds a head-mounted device. Headsets and glasses could be ideal for a physical retail strategy.

It’s also possible this is just a new area for employees within Meta’s HQ to relax and play Beat Saber while others watch. But then why is there a product box on the shelf? Let us know if you have any alternative theories in the comments below.

Meta: $1 Billion Spent In Quest Store, 8 Titles Surpass $20 Million In Revenue

From uploadvr

As part of its quarterly earnings call, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that users have spent more than $1 billion on Quest store content.

Zuckerberg announced the amount in connection with his prepared remarks, a transcript of which is available online. Here’s what Zuckerberg said specifically about Quest store content:

On the hardware front, we’re seeing real traction with Quest 2. People have spent more than $1B on Quest store content, helping virtual reality developers grow and sustain their business.

Meta’s Director of Content Ecosystem Chris Pruett shared further details on Twitter as well, noting that eight titles on the Quest store have made over $20 million in gross revenue (one of which we know to be Beat Saber), while 14 have made over $10 million and 17 over $5 million.

Additionally, over 120 titles have generated more than $1 million in revenue on the platform. Around a year ago in January 2021, that number was only 60 titles. In March 2020, it was only 20.

These new content statistics are just one facet of Meta’s quarterly earnings call announcements. For the first time ever, the company broke out its revenue from Reality Labs in this earnings call, revealing more specific revenue and spending numbers for the segment responsible for Meta’s VR/AR efforts.

Overall, Reality Labs revenue totaled almost $2.3 billion for Meta in 2021 and marked Reality Labs’ revenue roughly doubling year-on-year. This was bolstered by particularly strong revenue in Q4 2021, due to strong Quest 2 sales in the holiday season. You can read more here.

Stanford Now Offers A Class Held Entirely In Virtual Reality Using Quest 2

From uploadvr

A new course being offered by Stanford University garnered some attention in the last few weeks for being the institution’s first class taught and held entirely in VR using Meta Quest 2 headsets.

Taught by Professor Jeremy Bailenson, Communication 166 deals with the various angles of emerging VR technology and its use cases. Bailenson, who you discusses the course in the video above, is the author of the seminal VR text Experience on Demand, which also is one of the class’ assigned readings.

Here’s a course description:

Virtual Reality is becoming mainstream, with more than ten million systems being used in the United States alone. This class examines VR from the viewpoint of various disciplines, including popular culture, engineering, behavioral science, and communication. Each student will receive an Oculus Quest 2 headset, and the bulk of our learning will occur while immersed in VR.

According to the course structure, students will sometimes use lecture time to take part in VR experiences by themselves (such as watching a 360 degree video in VR) or as a group (such as attending a meditation session in Altspace as a group). Class discussions take place in VR too, using Engage.

According to this site, 263 students took the course in 2021 using their own VR headsets and spent a shared 200,000 minutes in VR for the course.

The course attracted some attention last week when it was mentioned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook profile, where he revealed that the students are all using Quest 2 headsets.

Stanford University has a strong history with VR, with the Stanford VR Experience tour playing a strong role in Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to purchase Oculus in 2014.

You can read more about Stanford’s Communication 166 class held entirely in virtual reality here.

Facebook Connect 2021 Schedule: Zuckerberg Keynote, Carmack Unscripted & More

From uploadvr

The full line-up and schedule for this year’s Facebook Connect is now available, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote speech and John Carmack’s unscripted talk.

This year, it looks like events and sessions will “unlock” across the Connect schedule– some sessions unlock at specific times, while others simply become available “after the keynote.”

The keynote speech itself unlocks at 10am Pacific on October 28, which will see Mark Zuckerberg and “other Facebook executives” deliver the annual keynote address and “share the vision for the metaverse — a place of new immersive experiences and the next evolution of social technology, built by people like you.” There’s also a Facebook event and Oculus Venues event for the keynote, both of which reveal the keynote title to be “Infinite Horizons” — a nod to the Horizon branding that’s now being used as the moniker for the different branches of Facebook’s social VR platform.

The next biggest event is Consulting CTO John Carmack’s notoriously-unscripted annual speech and Q&A session, which unlocks at 2pm Pacific on October 28, a few hours after the keynote. Last year, Carmack spoke for more than an hour, packing a huge swath of topics into a dense, unscripted talk about the keynote announcements and Facebook’s wider VR strategy.

Here’s a few, but not nearly all, of the other Connect events:

– Developer State of the Union with Chris Pruett, Tom Langan, Allison Lee, and Mari Kyle, available from 11:45pm Pacific, October 28.

– Best Practices and Tips for App Lab Success with Chris Lang, available after the keynote

– Introduction to Mixed Reality with Britta Hummel and more, available after the keynote

– Do You Really Know App Lab? Tales Of Success From Devs with Rita Turkowski, Daniel Sproll (Realities.io), Julien Pecenicic (Smash Drums), Tommy Maloteaux (Deisim), available after the keynote

– Building for the Future: Social and World AR Experiences with Matthew Roberts and more, available after the keynote

– Bringing Diversity To Your App with Daniel Kamerling, available after the keynote

– Build Mixed Reality Experiences with Wei Lyu and more, available after the keynote

– Building Diverse Communities in Horizon Worlds with Lisa Kotecki and more, available after the keynote

Facebook Connect begins on October 28 — you can view the full schedule of talks and register for the event here.

Facebook Reality Labs has Teased 3 Prototype VR Headsets

From vrfocus

Not to be outdone with all the other hardware announcements going on at the moment, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and incoming CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth have teased three separate virtual reality (VR) prototypes the company is currently developing.

Facebook - Zuckerberg Prototype 1

Bosworth – who is head of Facebook Reality Labs – started with quite a stylish looking standalone prototype (in comparison to the others) with a shiny, almost mirrored black front. In a tweet, he said: “Proud of the research Michael Abrash’s team is working on at FRL-R Redmond—excited to get an early look at some of the technologies that will underpin the metaverse (we work on several prototype headsets to prove out concepts, this is one of them. Kind of. It’s a long story.)”

He then followed that up with the headset seen below, what looks like a heavily modded Oculus Quest with a halo strap and a bunch of sensors underneath – could those be for facial tracking? No further details were provided at this stage, so you’ll just have to stare at the images and ponder what this new tech might do.

Over on Facebook, Zuckerberg posted the image seen above, revealing that this particular model has a retina display: “I spent the day with the Facebook Reality Labs research team in Redmond to demo our next-generation virtual reality, augmented reality and artifical intelligence tech. This one is an early retina resolution prototype. The future is going to be awesome.”

Facebook - Boz Prototype 2

While it’s no surprise that FRL has several VR prototypes being worked on the timing is quite funny. HTC Vive has its special reveal event today, although it looks like that bubble has already been burst. Lynx-R1 launched a successful Kickstarter that easily hit its goal and enterprise-focused Varjo has its own unveiling event coming up. All of this before Facebook Connect on 28th October.

In the past, these sorts of prototypes would’ve been showcased at the annual conference but maybe with everything going on Facebook wanted in on the buzz. Plus, if the company is happily sharing these hardware snippets now, what else does FRL have up its sleeve? An Oculus Quest Pro maybe? There are exactly two weeks to wait to find out. For continued updates, keep reading VRFocus.

Mark Zuckerberg Teases ‘Retina Resolution’ Prototype VR Headset From Facebook

From uploadvr

It seems like Facebook executives are teasing prototype VR headset designs today. The latest is from CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a “retina resolution” device.

Zuckerberg posted an image of himself trying the headset on his Facebook page with the message: “I spent the day with the Facebook Reality Labs research team in Redmond to demo our next-generation virtual reality, augmented reality and artifical [sic] intelligence tech. This one is an early retina resolution prototype. The future is going to be awesome.”

While the picture itself doesn’t reveal have any notable features, a retina resolution refers to the point at which a higher resolution would look no different to a person with 20/20 vision. In other words, Zuckerberg is suggesting that the display used in the headset presents a virtual world just as clearly as how we perceive the real world. Current consumer VR headsets are much more detailed than they were five years ago, but even those with the highest resolution displays distort your view to at least some degree.

The generally accepted threshold for retinal resolution is 60 pixels per degree. No consumer VR headset yet comes close to this. Finland-based Varjo’s multi-thousand-dollar business-focused headsets surpass it, but only in a small area in the center of your view.

This is the second prototype Facebook’s shown today. The first was from the current head of virtual reality, Andrew Bosworth, who tweeted an image of a super-slim VR headset that doesn’t look too different from recent leaks for the HTC Vive Flow. Varjo is also teasing a reveal next week. Are today’s Facebook teases a response to incoming competitors?

Facebook Announces XR Programs And Research Fund, $50 Million Investment

From uploadvr

Facebook announced a $50 million investment in a newly-established XR Programs and Research Fund with plans to support research and collaborative efforts aimed at ensuring VR and AR technologies are “developed responsibly.”

The blog post is authored by Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s VP of VR/AR and soon-to-be Facebook CTO, and Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs. The focus of the post is on building the metaverse — which Facebook describes as “a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you” — and how it can be done responsibly over the next 10-15 years.

Facebook aims to work with experts across industry, government and academia to think through the opportunities and problems that the concept presents.

“The metaverse isn’t a single product one company can build alone. Just like the internet, the metaverse exists whether Facebook is there or not. And it won’t be built overnight. Many of these products will only be fully realized in the next 10-15 years. While that’s frustrating for those of us eager to dive right in, it gives us time to ask the difficult questions about how they should be built,” the blog post reads. “Success depends on building robust interoperability across services, so different companies’ experiences can work together. We also need to involve the human rights and civil rights communities from the start to ensure these technologies are built in a way that’s inclusive and empowering.”

It’s a two-year, $50 million investment and there are already a few partners lined up. The Organization of American States will work on “job training and skills development for students, creators and small business owners.” Africa No Filter, Electric South and Imisi3D will “support creators who have been pushing the boundaries of digital storytelling using immersive technology” across Africa. In Europe, Women In Immersive Tech are “supporting women and underrepresented groups driving Europe’s virtual, augmented and mixed reality sectors.”

Facebook also says it is “facilitating independent external research” with academic institutions across the world, as part of the fund. This includes research into safety and ethics at universities in Seoul and Hong Kong, along with research into privacy and data use at institutions in Singapore and research into diversity in IT at Howard University in Washington D.C..

The last few months have seen an increase in Facebook’s use of the ‘metaverse’ term — back in July, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg even proclaimed that the company will be ‘a metaverse company’ in 5 years time. But while the term is being used more and more, it’s not exactly clear what Facebook’s metaverse will look like. The XR Programs and Research Fund doesn’t clarify too much in that regard, but it does give us some insight into how Facebook is bringing external influences into the fold. You can read more details over on the Facebook blog post and expect to hear more about Facebook’s metaverse plans at at Facebook Connect next month.