California/Hyderabad: Meta held its annual Connect 2023 event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, unveiling a host of groundbreaking technologies. The two-day event, initially set to commence at 10:00 AM PT or 10:30 PM IST on Wednesday, experienced a half-hour delay.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage, revealing the much-anticipated Meta Quest 3 and its updated pricing. The Quest 3's price has been raised by $200, now starting at $500, with a massive 512GB variant available for $650.
Zuckerberg showcased various AI advancements, notably the Emu image generator, creating images in under 5 seconds and custom stickers for Meta Messenger. Another highlight was the introduction of Meta Al, a generative AI assistant based on the powerful Llama 2 language model. This AI marvel brings forth 28 chatbots with unique personalities and backstories, embodying figures like Charli D'Amelio, Snoop Dogg, Kendall Jenner, and Mr.Beast.
A final revelation was the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, a groundbreaking product featuring an on-board AI assistant, Meta Al. Users can now seamlessly integrate AI into their daily lives, utilizing the glasses for translations, object recognition, and more while on the move.
Mark Zuckerberg also shared all the updates of the event on his Instagram broadcast channel. One by one, he unveiled all the new tools and features.
Quest 3- The Meta CEO embarked the event with the highly anticipated Meta Quest 3, the first mainstream mixed reality headset. The company claims it to be their most powerful headset yet and it blends the physical and virtual worlds. The headset is 40% thinner and much more comfortable than other headsets, with 2x the graphics performance.
"Quest 3 maps the room you're in so you can play virtual games like building Legos on your table, and if you need to duck some incoming fire you can hide behind your physical couch", Zuckerberg informed on his broadcast channel.
Some of the awesome content coming to Quest, mentioned by Zuckerberg included Lego Bricktales, Stranger Things, Live sports on Xtadium, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Asgard's Wrath 2, and many more.
EMU(Expressive Media Universe)- The company announced new foundational model for image generation. About the AI-generated stickers, The Meta CEO said-, "Lots of new AI announcements and creative tools, starting with giving everyone an easy way to make AI-generated stickers to put in chats across Meta apps including WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and even Facebook stories."
Adding to the new updates list, Zuckerberg announced the launch of AI image editing and restyling on Instagram. "Launching AI image editing and restyling in Instagram in a month", he said.
Meta AI- In the list of announcements related to the Artificial Intelligence, Zuckerberg added the launch of much hoped-for tool, Meta AI. "We're launching Meta AI! It's a new assistant you can talk to in WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram Direct and soon Quest 3. It can answer lots of questions with real-time info, generate photorealistic images, and more", he asserted.
"Also introducing lots of fun AIs with expertise in cooking, fitness, travel, fashion, sports, writing, games, and more -- played by some awesome people", Zuckerberg added on his broadcast channel.
Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses- While concluding the first day of the mega event 'Connect 2023', Meta CEO made the last announcement for the day, making it one of the biggest launches by Meta. He launched the Ray Ban smart glasses with some innovative features. The smart glasses comes up with two round modules on the side of either eye including a 12-megapixel camera and an LED light that flips on to alert others when on record mode.
"Last big announcement -- the next generation of Ray Ban Meta smart glasses. Upgraded in every way -- better camera, better audio, lighter, more styles. Plus, they're the first glasses to ship with Meta AI!", he said.
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