Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth took to instagram to answer the question we’ve all been wondering in why they are shutting down Echo VR in august. He even addresses what former Oculus CTO John Carmack would do in this situation.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth reflects on John Carmack leaving, Meta Quest Pro feedback, headset weight, infinite display in more in his latest Q&A session.

Apple CEO Tim cook gave us a possible little baby tease for apples rumored VR headset. In an interview with china daily. The reporter asked what are the key factors for AR products and headsets to succeed in the consumer market and tim responded saying the critical thing to any technology including ar is putting humanity at the center of it and thats what we focus on every day. Timmy cook went on to later say We’re still in the early innings of how this tech will evolve and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities we see in this space. Stay tuned and you’ll see what we have to offer. TIM! What does this mean!?! Are we ever going to put that apple watch wrist band headstrap around our skulss and see inside the macintosh meteverse!? Please mac daddy tim please… put that m2 all over my face.

You probably saw it but zuck and the reality labs team over at meta showed off some of their prototypes and the challenges they are trying to overcome in creating the perfect VR headset of the future.

The prototypes featured had some loveable names like the butterscotch headset that focused on increasing resolution, starburst man they love candy over at meta, which was built to research how to bring higher dynamic range to VR, and the gem of the interview slash showcase holocake 2 which naturally uses holography to bring all of their research together in a small form factor that according to mark can play any pcvr title but that catch you ask? it needs a fancy pants laser to run which isn’t exactly cheap or readily available. But hey meta is putting their billions to building VR of the future and I guess we can’t be mad about that.

Reality Labs Chief scientist Michael Abrash finished the showcase by sharing what a complete next gen display system could look like in a concept design entitled Mirror Lake. Which sounds like a show from the mid 2000’s on abc family. Previously on Mirror lake….This unbuilt high concept design combines advanced eye tracking, varifocal technology, and holographic lenses to make every piece of the headset thin and flat and plans to have prescription correction built in so there will be no glasses in the metaverse people. Its just not what mark wants.

Speaking of the metaverse and what mark wants some tech giants are coming together to hold a metaverse standards forum next month. As stated on the forums website, The Forum will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of standards, while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines. Just a few of the high profile members include adobe, qualcomm, sony, nvidia, meta and of course ikea. So you can get frustrated building a SÖDERHAMN sectional in your virtual living room.

The Forum will not create standards itself but will coordinate requirements and resources to foster the creation and evolution of standards within standards organizations working in relevant domains. So here’s to you tech giants lets make the metaverse a magical place where our data isn’t sold to everyone who wants to make me buy solar panels… Am I the only one getting those ads everywhere?

The quest summer sale went live this week with up to 40% off for some titles and some very good deals on bundles. Make sure to check it out if you are watching this video now because it ends this weekend. Now’s the time to finally buy the resident evil 4 remake because baby you can save $4 on it. Seriously though it rarely goes on sale and 4 dollars is 4 dollars but it doesn’t matter because its good.

This week Vive went corpo with its business version of the lightweight vive flow. In this new incarnation the flow gets an optional $59 remote that acts as a virtual laser pointer. Wonder if it can distract a cat inside vrchat… anyways if your business needs a tethered vr media viewer you can grab a biz flow for $500. 

Switching over to some AR news Ukranian president Volodymiyr Zelensky recorded an official presidential address that you can watch in 3D on your desk.  The address was recorded by volumetric video capture company evercoast in kyiv to help grow communication between ukraine and the tech community to help it rebuild their digital infrastructure. At the end of it evercoast then donated its equipment to the ukrainian government. If you want to see Zelensky’s address in your room you can use this QR code here to watch.

And finally your metaverse wallet is here. Zuckerberg posted on his facebook page wow thats meta, oh gah I’m collapsing in on myself. The Zuck bucks introduced meta pay which will be replacing facebook pay and it will let you securely manage your identity, what you own and how you pay in the metaverse. With it in the future you’ll be able to buy digital clothing, art, videos music, virtual events and more. Mark later states that Ideally, you should be able to sign into any metaverse experience and everything you've bought should be right there. There's a long way to get there, but this kind of interoperability will deliver much better experiences for people and larger opportunities for creators. My question is what if I want a meta purse or satchel, or clutch? I guess I can buy those later in the meta mall…

Well that’s it, come back next friday for another VR round up and if you don’t well I’ll just become a nullbody then. Bye!