The development of Meta’s new premium viewer is proceeding, with several use cases already contemplated and the first technical details: the Menlo Park company, however, also has various difficulties, with reduced information collaborations and legal problems in Africa.
Listen to this article
While struggling with rather serious legal problems in Africa, and with the need to review its editorial collaborations with major news outlets, Meta, once known as Facebook Inc, did not fail to devote its attention to the development of the Metaverse, in relation to which the Menlo Park giant has provided several details, albeit in the context of a downsizing of its Reality Labs division.
Recently, Daniel Motaung, a former employee of Sama, the main subcontractor for the moderation of Facebook content in Africa, sued both the social network and Sama, for exploitation, anti-union practices and “trafficking in human beings for work” : in essence, Sama allegedly recruited people with deceptive job positions (call center operators) and then prevented them from “sharing the nature of the work and their experiences in Sama with third parties”. All without those who are assigned to the moderation of the contents on the social network receiving adequate mental support.
Meta’s reply, which arrived shortly, was substantiated by the lapidary observation that “Motaung was not an employee of his”. That in question, however, is only one of the problems that Meta ran into. According to Reuters, Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer, explained to them in the weekly Q&A meeting with employees of the Reality Labs division (smart glasses, Portal products, Oculus headsets, virtual, mixed and augmented reality), explained to them that some projects will be suspended, and only some of them will be carried out, because the company does not have the resources to spend on all the initiatives. This decision, which would agree with what Zuckerberg himself declared at the end of April, when in a video call on profits with investors he promised to slow down the pace of some long-term investments, including those in artificial intelligence and in Reality Labs, will not include – as part of the changes – a layoff program.
Indeed, in this regard, plans will not change to make the premium viewer known as Project Cambria debut by the end of the year. In this regard, Zuckerberg has indeed underlined the progress in the development of the same, sharing on his Facebook profile a video in which he wears this viewer, masked, while using the demo of the experience The World Beyond (also coming for Quest 2), realized through the Presence Platform which should help developers to realize mixed reality experiences.
In the video, in particular, it was possible to see Meta’s CEO interacting with a digital ball for fun, creating a landscape with ease by drawing on colors, pinning messaging applications for work, materializing in the presence of a coach, perhaps present elsewhere. , to train. According to what emerged, compared to Quest 2, which uses passthrough cameras that shoot in black and white, those of Cambria would be prepared for high resolution and color, for a more immersive experience: according to TechCrunch, a sensor should not be missing. depth, with the aim of “helping the headset to more accurately position digital content in the user’s physical space”.
Finally, according to The Information, again to reduce costs, Meta would be reconsidering the information investment program that, since 2019, has been paying some publishers (e.g. Wall Street Journal and Washington Post) to publish the news on the platform, given that it would be the company’s intention to renew only some information partnerships (but renegotiate the agreements), to focus on newsletters and (short) videos made by individual authors.