Everything announced at Meta Connect 2024
Meta's big event, called Meta Connect, took place on Wednesday and with it came lots of news.
While it might not draw the same excitement as an Apple Event, it certainly wasn't without headlines and developments. Chief among them: the Meta Quest 3S and the Orion glasses.
Mashable covered all the big news in detail. Here's everything that was announced as well as links to further coverage and more in-depth analysis.
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Meet the Meta Quest 3S
Meta announced its new headset that promised good performance at a reduced price. The Quest 3S starts at $299.99, which is hundreds of bucks cheaper than Meta's other headsets. You should be still be able to do all the main attractions of an AR-headset, however, like play games and watch movies.
The Meta Quest 3S is available to preorder now.
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Meta's AI gets the celeb treatment
Didn't you always want an AI assistant with a celebrity voice? Well, even if you didn't, it's here. Meta AI will now be able to answer questions out loud in the voice of a number of famous folks like John Cena, Awkwafina, Dame Judi Dench, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kristen Bell.
Mashable's Christianna Silva has all the details.
Meta's Ray-Ban glasses get AI updates
Meta announced a number of improvements to their Ray-Ban glasses. The glasses already featured cameras for taking photos and videos, as well as the capability to listen to audio. But now the AI features should be able to help with things like remembering where you parked your car, record or send messages, and translate speech in real-time.
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The Orion glasses are here (kind of)
Meta debuted its AR Orion glasses that look like, well, glasses, instead of a whole headset. They overlay AR features on the real world, things like messages or games. Zuckerberg showed the glasses off but they aren't going to be released to the public just yet. The Meta chief said the company was still working on the glasses as well as finding ways to improve the look and drive down the cost.
Mashable's Chance Townsend has all the details.
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Goodbye to the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro
With the announcement of the new Meta Quest 3S headset, the company also reportedly shelved its older models for good. As Mashable's Alex Perry noted, that could be because the Quest 3S appears to be, on paper, a better product at a far lower price.
An updated Llama
Meta announced Llama 3.2, its latest in AI models. One major update is improved understanding of images. Meta noted, for instance, that a user could ask about their businesses sales and Llama 3.2 would able to answer the question by reading a graph of the data.
Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).
