In an interview with The informationFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continued to project his optimistic outlook on XR as the future of computing, saying the company is already working on Oculus Quest 3 and 4. He also talked about what he believes to be the key features and challenges for future Oculus headsets.
In a conversation published this week, The information reporters Alex Heath and Mathew Olson spoke with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg about the company’s ongoing XR efforts.
Zuckerberg said, as I said, that he believes Quest 2 will be a revolutionary product in the VR space.
“[…] Quest 2 is, I believe, the first popular virtual reality product. Already – just in the few months that came out – it surpassed the sale of the first version of Quest […]. “
He further confirmed that the company is already working on two subsequent versions of the headset.
“Because of the way the hardware is developed, you kind of need to know what your next three products will be like, all at the same time. It’s not like the software, which changes every week or every two weeks, ”said Zuckerberg. “So we have product teams together now working on the next generations of virtual reality and what Quest 3 and 4 will look like. And, of course, the fundamental technology that goes into this in terms of improving the optics and performance of it, and making make it smaller and lighter, and add as many features as you want. “
Zuckerberg said that many of the company’s resource priorities for future VR headsets are driven by a desire to offer “social presence” – the feeling of being physically close to someone, even from a distance.
“For example, one of the things I’m really excited about for future releases [of Quest] you’re getting eye and facial tracking, because if you’re really excited about the social presence, you want to make sure that the device has all the sensors to really animate realistic avatars so you can communicate well. “
While there is no way to say whether such features would be included in Quest 3, 4 or beyond, Zuckerberg also highlighted varifocal optics and high dynamic range (HDR) displays as the main challenges to be faced in future headphones.
“[…] you have different challenges in optics around VR than you have historically had with phones or computers. Because, of course, in VR the screen is not just in one place. You have objects on different planes. […] in modern VR, monitors basically project only things at a focal length, ”said Zuckerberg THE Training reporters. “So your eyes try to focus [when looking at close objects] and you can’t because they are just projecting a distance. This is something that needs to be resolved. The problem is basically called varifocal … [you need to make] some kind of liquid lenses, or mechanically moving lenses, that can project things at different distances. “
“Probably the most difficult challenge in terms of the screen and making it super alive is … it’s the HDR problem. TVs have gotten a little better in HDR recently, but the vibrancy – measured in nits [brightness], is the unit for that – the screens we have, compared to what your eyes see in the real world, are of an order of magnitude or more [insufficient]”Said Zuckerberg. “Which means that you probably won’t want to live in a passing VR world anytime soon, because you won’t want to give up the sharpness of what your eyes can really see in terms of contrast and color brilliance if it all gets a little longer opaque in VR. “
Zuckerberg said these are just a few of the “basic types of challenges” that the company hopes to resolve for “some of the next versions [of our VR headsets] and more or less in the next 10 years […]. “
So while Quest 3 and Quest 4 are already underway, it may be a while before we see more advanced features like varifocal or HDR. We expected that, in addition to being smaller and lighter, eye tracking and mouth tracking would be more likely to enter Quest headsets in the short term.
Zuckerberg also spoke more widely about the company’s XR initiatives, including the Facebook smartglasses that will be launched this year and the wrist wear information that the company has been examining. To see The information for the full conversation.