Welcome to episode 71 of Lost in Immersion, your weekly 45-minute stream about innovation. As we are NAR veterans, we will discuss the latest news of the immersive industry. Welcome back Seb. You lost some air in the process. So please begin, Fabien, sorry, as usual. So today I want to talk about Pico. So there were a few rumors a couple of months ago that Pico was not in the best of health. But now in just a couple of weeks, there were two very interesting release from Pico. So of course, the most interesting one is the Pico 4 Ultra. So it's their new latest headset. So it's actually not really, I can play the video real quick here while I'm talking about it. Okay, so it's not a completely new headset. It's actually like the Pico 4, but upgraded quite a lot. And it's very interesting to see what they upgraded and how they present the headset to know where their target market is. So you see the presentation video is a lot of, like it ticks all the box of spatial computing. And so here you can see, you can record spatial videos while looking in path through. So similar to what you can do with the Apple Vision Pro. There was movies before, sorry, you have games. They showcase the chipset because it's, I think, the most improved area in the headset. So yeah, games and fitness, social, VR, games again. And in the end, if I can, the spatial computing somewhere here, in the end, yeah, here. Very, very short mention of spatial computing. Anyway, if we look at the technical specifics, so I won't spend too much time on it, but it's really fun to see that they looked at the benchmark, so the Quest 3, and they pushed a bit, they improved a bit on all of them, except the Snapdragon, which is the same chipset as the Quest 3. Otherwise, yeah, it's very, very similar to the Quest 3. So my guess is like probably the target market is really not a competitor to the Apple Vision Pro, looking at the specifications and the pricing, because it's priced at 600 USD. So, you know, really in the same range as the Quest 3. I think another hint is the other announcement that they made is this full body motion tracking sensors that they released roughly at the same time. So here we can see it's really targeting social, VR, gaming, fitness, all this kind of experience, which is more like a direct competition to what can be done with the Quest 3. So, yeah, Hugo, it's, I think, one of the good competitors to the Quest 3, depending on, you know, the content also that will be available. And yeah, we'll stop there, and we can start discussion about what you think, guys, of this new Pico 4 Ultra. Seb? Yeah, it seems great that they improved quite a bit on the quality of the camera that are in the front. We can't really see where they are positioned, if they are more centered in front of the eyes. I think it's still a bit low, but maybe a bit higher than the Quest 3. So we'll see if there are also some issue with reforming the picture together, like the Quest 3 at the beginning. Now it's really improved, but they did that mostly on the software part. And the other improvement is the amount of RAM, which seems to allow much more quality from what I've seen in the first feedback. So and also the motion tracker is a good thing that they, I don't know if they plan to package that as a whole, or if you need to buy them separately, and how, what will be the quality and the amount of requirement to calibrate the device. But if that's fluid for the user, then that could also allow to bring more different game to the party. In terms of pricing, they are pricing just it, just under the Quest 3, right, or about the same price, right? I don't know the price in Europe, but it's only planned to release in China right now. Yeah, it released yesterday, I think, in China. So yeah. About the calibration we see here, it seems like it's kind of an instant calibration done by looking down on the sensors. So this is what they explain in the product page. If that's the case, then it's great. Okay, Guillaume? Yeah, basically, as you mentioned, it's an upgraded version of the META Quest 3 on all levels. You mentioned the Snapdragon that is still the same, but they mentioned that because they created a back-of-the-head implementation, they can overclock the Snapdragon because the heat is not at the front, it's at the back now. So they can push it to its limits and provide more power as well. So I really checked the warping and all this distortion characteristic, and it seems to have better results as well at the Quest 3, despite all the upgrades that we've got since the launch of the headset. So they really worked on this, maybe by using more resolution and so on, and more computation power as well, as I mentioned. Maybe they can have a more powerful algorithm for correction, but it seems to be better than the Quest 3 as well. So for those who don't have the Quest 3 yet, I guess it's a great option on the market for them to have this. Maybe a more open platform as well, in comparison to the Horizon OS or our Horizon platform. The only bad point is the availability in your country. I know some persons that are taking orders in Canada and the US for them to get the headset. I don't know about Europe, but I guess you'll be the last, like every time with Pico. Sorry, I was muted. Another thing that is interesting is, if I remember correctly, there was some discussions between Tencent and MEDA about bringing the Quest 3 or similar headset into China. By then, being a competitor to Tencent, maybe it's the way that they are trying to be ahead of the competition. I don't know. It's just a speculation, but it's a good timing for that, maybe, for them, back to school and timing, I don't know. Okay. Do you have anything else to mention about new Pico? No, I'll try to get a demo in the upcoming weeks. As you mentioned, I got somebody that has hands of Pico because they are doing a collaboration with them, so I'll try to do a review of this. Great. Cool. Nice. Okay. Seb? Yes. Today, I wanted to talk about META Spark, that is META that has decided to stop META Spark, their platform to create augmented reality experience for Instagram, Facebook, which was first launched in 2017, and now they're closing it because what they are explaining is that they want to focus more on future needs that consumer and business could have. So it's a lot of disappointment for those that invested a lot in creating those kind of effects and were selling them as a product to their clients, but all of them will be shut down in January 2025, the 14th, all third-party augmented reality effects will be shut down. Only the ones created by META will remain. So I guess for the community that are doing a lot of augmented reality experiences with those platforms, that's a shock. Considering all the investment that they are doing in all areas, we could understand that they want to focus more on AI right now because it's moving forward much more faster, and I think they will use it in their new glasses that will be released. So I guess that makes sense for them to switch to that. Now having used the META Spark RStudio, I know that it may have been, well, there was a lot of crashes, bugs, and it was quite a nightmare to work with it. So maybe it became a big ball of mud and they were not able to make it or to rebuild it to make it sustainable for them. I don't know what was the investment on their side that required them to stop the investment on this part. What do you think, guys? Guillaume? Well, this is basically the same story every time. Big companies are investing or developing a development platform and then they can switch the button to off whenever they want without any regards for those who have invested, as you mentioned, or who is working with this. It really puts the question on should small studios invest time or money in this kind of platform or should they think something that would be more stable? We are seeing third parties like 8th Wall, for example. I guess as it is, their main activities, they won't be shutting this platform soon as for META or Amazon or whatever, as it is just a fraction or Microsoft. It's a critical example with the HoloLens, for example, that is about to close as well. All those companies where AR or VR or any immersive technology is just like a side job or a side activity, once they are trying to earn or to lose less money, they're just cutting it and whatever the chaos behind that. I really ask this answer and I've never been very fond of this platform because, as you mentioned as well, they are already quite closed and not so well implemented and usually you are using a side API or SDK on the side to get your results. Just another example to add to the pile and as it was not that great, it's not a great loss, I guess, for us. I think it's nice to compare this with Snapchat where indeed Snapchat, their main business is Snapchat. Snapchat was already way ahead of MetaSpark in terms of feature and quality of experience, both for the development studio and for the users. I guess it's good news for Snapchat. Maybe more brands will come to Snapchat if they want to do some AR effects on social. And maybe not so bad news for the developers because Snapchat Studio is a much more pleasant experience than Spark. But still, it's one of the standard, I would say, AR experience on social network. So, I guess, maybe it's another victim, as you said Seb, another victim of AI already. Maybe AI is not taking our jobs yet but it's taking out SDKs and priorities in the big tech companies. Yeah, definitely. And it's funny to see that Snap, you were mentioning Snap, their spectacles is supposed to be released on the 17th, I think, of September and then one week later it's Meta that released them. So, we'll see what they choose. Maybe Snap is keeping the augmented reality part for their glasses and not focusing on AI right now because I don't think they are. They did a couple of things on their platform to add AI but it's not at the point of competing with what Meta is releasing right now. So, maybe there is two strategies there that will be revealed on how those glasses will work and what they will be capable to do. We'll see. And that's it for me, Guillaume, if you want to speak to us. It will be a great transition because I would like to do maybe an overhaul about the strategy of Meta lately. So, they announced the Horizon OS but no more news till this time with great partnership but we haven't seen anything yet. So, it's kind of weird. It's been like six months now, barely. They announced that they will cancel the MetaQuest Pro 2. So, it's not in their project anymore. And the latest news from yesterday or the day before is that maybe their glasses won't be released in 2025 but in 2027 as they would like. They are targeting a 100 gram device. So, they really want to do those Ray-Ban glasses but with AR. So, I guess like everyone else, the technology is not there yet. So, they are probably postponing their release as well. So, what will they announce? What will they announce in a few weeks? We don't know. As usual, the global marketing strategy on communication is very weird with Meta. Yes, and yeah, it's really complicated. Maybe they will announce the Quest 3S instead as we talked about it just to switch the narrative and saying no, no, we are releasing something in 2025 but it's not the AR glasses. But yeah, I don't know if you're thinking the same but with the Apple Vision Pro, I really thought that we will have a new boost in AR and VR especially in 2025. We saw Samsung, Google, Microsoft and everyone was like building something to be released next year and maybe have another progression curve for the immersive world. And it seems like, I don't know if it's AI, once again. Or once again, they are just facing the technological issue of AR and maybe the not so great success of the Apple Vision Pro. Maybe they are just breaking a bit on this. But yeah, we have this hype curve and I'm feeling that it's going down as nobody is talking about immersive world anymore. A lot of journalists are just burying the Apple Vision Pro like always and saying it's a big fail but we already mentioned that it's not the case. So yeah, this is the first part I would like to talk about with you guys. So what do you think? Is Meta completely lost as always or what are they doing exactly? Fab? That's a very good question. Yeah, if indeed they are postponing, is it like two years I think? Yeah. That would be two years, the glasses. But they kind of like teased it a couple of months ago. So that's a bit weird. Maybe they hit a complete blocker on their, I don't know, production process or they realized that to be really effective, this type of device has to be really, really lightweight. I think it's, as you said, back to the same question is what makes someone, what would make someone wear a headset from morning to evening and it's not the Vision Pro, it's not the Quest 3. So is it, yeah, like a very, very lightweight pair of glasses that won't be, probably won't be super immersive, like I mean fully immersive but maybe like, yeah, AR glasses. That's the one million dollar question I think. But I'm also quite interested to see what Snapshot does with their spectacles on that same topic. If they manage to release something that is quite a leap forward, I would say, in terms of quality, that could be very nice to test to see what they can do with it, yeah. Sam? Yeah, one thing I missed, I didn't say, is that they would use the puck-like hardware architecture, meaning that you have your glasses and you have the CPU in your pocket, like the Magic Leap or Apple Vision Pro as well. So switching to this to gain the maximum weight on the glasses themselves. Yeah, up to you. And not Wi-Fi 7 or Bluetooth or not many, that's, yeah, that's a reason. It's just rumours. I mean, a couple of the time, yeah. We tend to be used to having earplugs in our ears, like Fabien right now. So yeah, but yeah, that's, yeah, I don't have a lot to add to to what you said, you already said everything, so we can maybe switch to the next topic again. Okay, the last one. So just let me share my stuff. Nope. So just a quick, and I guess fun topics. So some area that I was not aware of is that in the field of binoculars, there is a whole new world of augmented visualization, all started with the binocular made by Swarovski. And they had some feature that when you are pointing at the bird or mammals or anything, you can press a button and you can recognize what you are looking at. So this is a starting point of the whole movement there. And there is this Kickstarter project where they are going a bit further and they would like to add an AR layer up to this, meaning that whatever you are looking at, it can print information about the path, the mountains, the animals, on whatever you are looking at, and follow the view. Instead, compared to the Swarovski binocular or where it's more heads up display, here it's a full AR mode. So not something very, very complicated, just a monochrome add-on layer for you to have those information. You see whatever you are looking at, it can track it so that when you are giving the binocular to someone else, the augmentation stays where it is. So just to share that AR is not just for the Apple Vision Pro and all, there is some specific field where the application seems to make sense. Meaning, sorry, because as you are looking at here, they reach their goals and this project should be released because it's a Kickstarter one. We've all been there and done that, and until you get the product in your hands, nothing is sure about this. So what do you think about this refreshing application of AR? Let's start with you, Fabien. Indeed, it's a very nice idea, and I really like that feature that you mentioned, where if you see something, you can track it and the binocular remembers it, and when you give the binocular to someone else, it's still tracked. Because I think we all were there trying to find something during 10 minutes after someone said it's there. I have to say I'm a bit sceptic of the images and the videos that they show on the Kickstarter page are fake, probably. I'm a bit sceptic on how they will be able to reach the same level of tracking and the same level of quality, but I really like that idea. It's kind of a sci-fi army kind of binocular that you have. And like the Swarovski, in fact, it's connected to your cell phone where most of the CPU is done. I know that for the Swarovski one, it's linked to especially an application that is Merlin. I don't know if you know that, but it's a very, very powerful app where it recognizes all the birds that are around you based on the sound, and they have this visual recognition as well. So all the knowledge is from this database that is working very great. So it says it didn't implement anything more. So I guess it'd be the same here. But yeah, I'm very sceptic as well because there are not much, you know, cameras and so on. There are not much sensors to this binocular, so I don't know how they will improve all the tracking and so on. Yeah, even for the geolocation, it seems like it requires a GPS and a good one to get their position and be able to trace a path. And the battery as well, and all the phone factors. So yeah, we'll see the end result, but it's really interesting to see what AR can do in other fields. I saw the version at Mobile World Congress, the one you were mentioning that recognized birds already. And yeah, it was working great. They had a booth where they had a couple of pictures of birds quite far away and you had to target them and it was giving you directly the name of the species of the bird you are looking at. And the other point is the price, of course, because the Swarovski one is 3,500 and those ones would be less than a Southern. So we'll see. Okay, that's it for me. Do you have anything more to add? No? Okay. So that's it for this week. So we'll see you in two weeks and we'll try our best to do some shorts during that period of time. So thank you guys and see you for another episode of Lost in Immersion. Thank you.
