Zuck's AI, AVP & Visor - MetaVisions #15

Hi all, hope you’re all well! As you may have noticed, MetaVisions got a new look! I swapped over the hosting platform and revamped the website, hopefully you all agree that it is much better! This week I wanted to cover three pieces of announcements that were made.

Zuck doubles down on AI investment

Meta’s founder and CEO, announced that by the end of 2024, the company will be adding 350K H100 Nvidia GPUs. Currently on Ebay, a single H100 card will cost around 40K Dollars, which means that we can expect the total investment on this to be over an insane 9B Dollars! (Read Here)

To be honest, this is not a surprise for me. I have written about Meta’s plans for AI, it seems that they really do want to bring together XR (or Spatial Computing) and AI, the Meta Rayban glasses are a prime example of this. There are other projects in the pipeline as well, such as a project code-named ‘No Language Left Behind’, which is a system that translates all written languages. Additionally, the company is also working on a Universal Speech Translator that would provide speech-to-speech translation for all languages. This reminds me of Marvel movies, if you didn’t know, all characters wear a simultaneous multi-universal language translator, which is why everyone can understand and communicate with each other!

Apple Vision Pro stock goes poof

Apple’s take on Spatial Computing has gone into pre-order for US clients, it is reported that in the opening weekend, 180K headsets were ordered, with all units being sold out for the time being! (Read Here) There will be more opportunities to purchase when the device goes into GA on the 2nd of February, with demo areas being set-up in Apple stores, customers can pre-book a 20 minute session to try out the device.

Facetime and Spatial Videos!

Apple released a 10-minute video that highlight some key user experiences with the Vision Pro headset. Two of them caught my attention the most. Facetime is part of many people’s daily lives, as an easy way to connect with their friends and family through video calls, this is not different in the AVP. You can still see the same camera feed that you see on your other ‘traditional’ Apple devices. However, there is a new feature called ‘Persona’ which is a virtual construction of yourself, this will allow those in the other side of the call to see your virtual twin that mimics your facial expressions whilst you speak.

Ever since they were announced, I have been quite curious about the Spatial Videos experience, from what I understood, it will be a hybrid between 2D and 3D videos, where you can see more depth in objects and people. Currently, those videos can be shot by the iPhone 15 Pro and the Apple Vision Pro. Excited to learn more about it, but I have to admit it does give out a Black Mirror vibe. The season 1 episode ‘The entirety of You’, is a world where we have managed to record and stream our memories in a lively way.

Visor becomes incredibly accessible (read here)

For those that are not aware, Immersed is a start-up that has entered the pre-order stage for their take on Spatial Computing, the Visor headset. Promising an incredible 4K display, that rivals the Apple Vision Pro (actually more pixels than AVP!), weighting at under 200 grams, with an excellent pass through. I would say that the biggest differentiation of the Visor compared to the AVP, is that it is focused on productivity and enterprise use cases.

The headset was previously priced at $949.99, however we know that for innovative technology it is hard to break into the mainstream market whilst having a large financial barrier to entry. Which is why Immersed is rolling out its “Visor Plus” membership. Visor Plus is a membership bundle for new Visor customers that lowers the upfront hardware price from $949.99 down to $399.99 ($100 less than Quest 3) and includes added benefits to enhance the user’s experience for the life of their membership.

Honestly, it is incredible that for $399.99, you can get a product that should rival the AVP in many aspects. It will be great to get hands on comparisons of both products once they do ship out. Bravo to the Immersed/Visor team on taking XR to new affordability levels!

Thats all for today folks, See you next week.
Davi, MetaVisions.