Meta Connect 2024 is a developer-focused event featuring a keynote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who showed off new hardware and software to support Meta's two big ambitions: AI and the Metaverse. This included everything from new Quest headsets, updates to Meta's Llama AI model, and even a prototype for a new full line of AR glasses.
Meta Connect 2024 went live at 10am PST. You can stream it on the Meta Connect site, the Meta Developer Facebook page, or, for a fully immersive experience, stream it in Horizon Worlds from a Meta Quest headset.
We’ve rounded up all of the announcements and reveals from Meta Connect 2024 below, and will continue to update as more reactions and analysis come in during and after the event.
Image credit: Meta
In a surprise announcement, Zuckerberg dramatically unveiled Orion, which Meta says will eventually be its “first consumer-grade full holographic AR glasses,” though they won't be strapped to consumers' faces anytime soon. Zuckerberg touted Orion's lightweight nature, hand- and eye-tracking compatibility, and most ambitious neural interface, as well as the impressive list of high-profile early testers (including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang). Orion Glasses were presented as the future of Meta's AR efforts. We're continuing to cover the final big announcements from Meta Connect here.
TechCrunch logo, Meta 👀 Image credit: Meta
Image credit: Meta
Meta's announcement of the Quest 3S was indicated by several leaks ahead of the event and confirmed at Connect 2024. The Meta Quest 3S will be offered as a cheaper alternative to the Quest 3, starting at $299 for the 128GB version and $399 for the 256GB version. The fully wireless headset will be compatible with the existing library of Quest apps and games, but Meta was particularly keen on its mixed reality capabilities. The Quest 3S announcement drops the price of the Quest 3 from $649 to $499. Get your early impressions of the new Quest 3S here before it ships on October 15th.
Quest 2 and Quest Pro have been discontinued
“With the launch of Quest 3S, we are officially discontinuing sales of Quest 2 and Pro. We will continue to sell the remaining headsets until the end of the year or until stock runs out, whichever comes first,” Meta told TechCrunch about the discontinuation of the two headsets following the announcement of the Quest 3S.
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Meta AI is finding its voice. Users can ask questions or voice chat with Meta AI through Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram and receive simulated voice responses. The digital voice assistant will have multiple voice options to choose from, including celebrity AI voices such as Judi Dench, John Cena, Awkwafina, Kristen Bell and Keegan-Michael Key.
The announcement came a day after OpenAI announced the rollout of its long-awaited Advanced Voice Mode feature, which comes with a new look and five new voices. Speaking of voice announcements, Zuckerberg boasted that Meta AI now has 500 million users.
Image credit: Meta
Meta's multilingual Llama model family has reached version 3.2, which means that several Llama models are now multimodal: Llama 3.2 11B and 90B can interpret charts and graphs, caption images, and pinpoint objects in images, given a simple description.
Llama 3.2 11B and 90B might look at a map of a park and tell you how long a particular trail is or when the terrain is steepest, and if there's a graph showing a company's revenue over the course of a year, the model can quickly identify its best-performing months.
Notably, Llama 3.2 11B and 90B are inaccessible in Europe due to restrictions imposed by EU law, and as a result some Meta AI features available elsewhere, such as image analysis, are disabled for European users.
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Ray-Ban's Meta smart glasses are getting an upgrade as the company continues to make the case that smart glasses will be the next big consumer device. At the forefront of the selling point is the addition of real-time AI video processing, which will allow you to ask your Ray-Ban Meta glasses what they see in front of them.
The sunglasses will also feature smartphone-like reminders, live language translation between English and French, Italian and Spanish, and full integration with music streaming apps such as Amazon Music, Audible and iHeart Radio.
Image credit: Meta
In features familiar to anyone familiar with OpenAI, Google and Apple's applications of image-based search, Meta showed off the AI's ability to respond to image-based prompts and edit photos provided to it based on user feedback, as well as share them to Instagram Stories.
More AI coming to your Facebook feed
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If you use Facebook, you've probably seen a lot of AI lately, whether consciously or unconsciously. A new industry is emerging that uses AI to generate engagement fodder. Earlier this month, it rolled back the labels that indicated whether content was edited using Meta's tools. And now Facebook is actually marketing AI-generated content to users that it thinks they'll want to share and engage with.
Creators test translated and dubbed content
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Going a step further from translating subtitles, Meta has announced a test where it will use its AI translation tool to take creators' content, create translated voice-overs, and sync the creators' lip movements accordingly. So far, the experiment has been limited to videos from creators made in the U.S. and Latin America, with English and Spanish translations.
Batman, Wardle and other games announced
A ton of new experiences were announced for the Quest ecosystem at Meta Connect 2024, starting with Batman: Arkham Shadow, which launches on October 22 and will be bundled with new Quest 3 and 3S purchases until April next year. Familiar concept games like Alien Rogue Incursion and a remake of the zombie game Arizona Sunshine were also announced for Quest, along with the amazing Wordle. The VR version of the daily puzzle will be free to play, even without a New York Times subscription.