It turns out “smart glasses” is out as a term. The term “AI glasses” is in. Kind of. Actually, it seems no one’s fully on the same page. Regardless of definitions, one thing is becoming clear: there’s a fundamental shift happening here.
https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/841536/smart-glasses-ai-glasses-xr-ar-headsets-terminology-wearables
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According to Bloomberg News, Meta is considering slashing its metaverse spending by as much as 30% in 2026 — although no plans are final yet — after meetings at Zuckerberg’s Hawaii compound laid out a slimmer future for its namesake ambitions. For three years, the company tried to brute-force another new reality into existence: new name, new stock ticker, new keynote vocabulary about “presence” and “embodied internet.”
https://qz.com/meta-metaverse-cuts-mark-zuckerberg-reality-labs
Meta’s impressive, photorealistic digital replicas of real places built using its “Hyperscape” capture tech, which uses the cameras on a Quest 3 or Quest 3S VR headset to scan a room, have so far been solitary spaces. But beginning this week, Meta is rolling out the ability to share links that will let other people visit Hyperscape rooms with you in a Quest 3 or 3S VR headset or via the Meta Horizon mobile app.
https://www.theverge.com/news/825705/meta-hyperscape-social-links-capture-scan-metaverse
The new headset is called the Steam Frame, and it’s trying to do several things at once. It’s a standalone VR headset with a smartphone-caliber Arm chip inside that lets you play flat-screen Windows games locally off the onboard storage or a microSD card. But the Frame’s arguably bigger trick is that it can stream games directly to the headset, bypassing your unreliable home Wi-Fi by using a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless dongle that plugs into your gaming PC. And its new controllers are packed with all the buttons and inputs you need for both flat-screen games and VR games.
https://www.theverge.com/games/816118/valve-steam-frame-vr-headset-streaming-arm-steamos-hands-on
After Meta shut Spark at the start of the year and Adobe retired Aero this week, it seemed there was a space for a simple no-code app for creating augmented reality (AR) experiences and effects. Right on cue, along comes Trace looking to fill the gap. Described by its developers as the “Canva of AR”, the iPad and iPhone app is intended to allow people to create high-fidelity location-based AR experiences without code and without needing specialist knowledge.
https://www.creativebloq.com/3d/vr-ar/a-new-canva-of-ar-aims-to-let-anyone-design-ar-experiences
Google Meet has a new AI-powered makeup filter that lets you apply lipstick without opening a real tube. Launched on Oct. 13, the tool is an expansion of the video call platform's "Touch Up" feature added in 2023. Google Meet's new feature allows users to add basic makeup filters that mimic foundation, blush, lipstick, mascara, and eyeshadow.
https://mashable.com/article/google-meet-ai-makeup-tool
If mixed reality and virtual reality are still a big thing, you wouldn’t know it based on Meta’s Connect conference last week. There were no big Quest announcements (outside of maybe Hyperscape), no new Quest headset, and it felt like the only time Meta (traditionally the loudest and proudest purveyor of XR out there) really tackled XR and VR was through a surprise, and slightly out of place, fireside chat with… Avatar director, James Cameron.
https://gizmodo.com/vr-headsets-are-better-than-ever-and-no-one-seems-to-care-2000663098