Facebook-Owner Meta Tells Hardware Staffers To Prepare for Cutbacks (reuters.com) 11
Facebook-owner Meta Platforms is preparing cutbacks in its Reality Labs division, a unit at the center of the company's strategy to refocus on hardware products and the "metaverse," a spokesperson confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday. From a report: Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth told Reality Labs staffers during a weekly Q&A session on Tuesday to expect the changes to be announced within a week, according to a summary of his comments viewed by Reuters. The Meta spokesperson confirmed that Bosworth told staffers the division could not afford to do some projects anymore and would have to postpone others, without specifying which projects would be affected. She said Meta was not planning layoffs as part of the changes.
Oops (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Metastabook.
Quelle Suprise (Score:2, Insightful)
For the past 30 years everyone in computer business has been trying to move up the value chain to software and IP in general, and these geniuses figure out hardware without absolute lock in is a nightmare. Far better to get other people to work themselves to death making the hardware to sell to the customer.
Rebranding in progress. (Score:2)
Facebook -> Meta -> MyMetaSpace
Wasted money on the wrong thing (Score:1, Troll)
They should have spent money on only two things instead
1. How to make a VR display that has over 80 pixels per degree and no perceivable blank space between pixels.
2. How to implement foveated rendering so that GPU would have to do very little work.
Instead, they have a crappy display with an obvious screen door effect, they wonâ(TM)t get an 80 ppd display until at best 2030, if not later.
The full moon shown in actual size on the quest 2 can only be 8 pixels across. Now think of how much detail the moon
Re: (Score:2)
I hate Facebook as much as any warm-blooded mammal, but you don't really have much of an idea about what you're talking about. Not only are both of those items already implemented in other headsets, Facebook IS working on them and there's reliable information that those headsets will start coming out in September of this year, starting with the Cambria. If it's truly a step forward than it'll likely be on par with the current best headsets which already have no screendoor effect.
The Quest 2's display also i
Re: (Score:2)
Note, I am not saying developing the software BS side of the Quest 2 is useless (though quite frankly, it is). I am saying that all the software ecosystem would quickly come together once they have the hardware. You'd have people and startups designing all kinds of stuff for the headset. Meta can just buy those companies when they make something cool. You can't have a headset with a screen door effect and expect it to go mainstream for movies, virtual tourism, and VR-casting. Visual fidelity matters for tho
Re: (Score:2)
They should have spent money on only two things instead 1. How to make a VR display that has over 80 pixels per degree and no perceivable blank space between pixels. 2. How to implement foveated rendering so that GPU would have to do very little work.
Instead, they have a crappy display with an obvious screen door effect, they wonâ(TM)t get an 80 ppd display until at best 2030, if not later.
The full moon shown in actual size on the quest 2 can only be 8 pixels across. Now think of how much detail the moon has when you see it in the sky, now imagine trying to show that much detail with 8 pixels width. Try out the Varjo 3 and see how far behind Meta is.
Screen resolution? That's for companies like Samsung to work on. Rendering? That's for companies like NVIDIA to support. The job of an integrator like Meta is to build a complete system based on the available tech and to push the component manufacturers to build what they need for the products that they want to build.
No, Oculus/Facebook/Meta should have spent all of their effort towards making AR happen instead of wasting years focusing on a niche market like gaming. Because they didn't, Apple and Goog
perhaps make better hardware? (Score:2)
Wife bought the Oculus Quest 2 w/ the fancy cable. The cable doesn't really stay connected to the head set. In fact the connector on the cable came apart after less than a month (mind you, she's just sitting there, not really moving). She also had to return the headset for other problems. Once they got the old cable and headset, then they sent out the new headset and cable (vs. say, we'll send you the replacement and you send back the old one...)
It feels cheap to me. Meh. I don't see how they are making mon
Re: (Score:2)
I have six Quests (3 Quest 1's and 3 Quest 2's), and have not had this experience. It must be unusual, and your wife just got unlucky.
What really irritates me is how quickly Facebook obsoletes replacement controllers. The Quest 1 controllers aren't made anymore, while the Quest 1 is still perfectly good for playing most games. I prefer it to the Quest 2 because the Quest 2 head strap is terrible compared to the Quest 1, and aftermarket Quest 2 head straps also suck.