While acknowledging that 2022 was “harder than we expected” for its metaverse plans, Meta remains committed to the technology, Reality Labs CTO Andrew Bosworth wrote in a blog post. To that end, the company is planning to put 20 percent of its total spending toward Reality Labs in 2023, with half of that going directly toward augmented reality (AR) initiatives — around the same amount as last year.
Meta was criticized this year for putting billions toward metaverse projects and seeing a loss of $9.4 billion from Reality Labs through the first three-quarters of 2022. “Economic challenges across the world, combined with pressures on Meta’s core business, created a perfect storm of skepticism about the investments we’re making,” Bosworth acknowledged.
However, reversing course now could produce “disastrous consequences,” he added. Noting that daily active Facebook users (DAUs) were at an all-time high, the 20 percent investment in Reality Labs “makes sense for a company committed to staying at the leading edge” of AR tech.
While Reality Labs is losing money, the spending enabled Meta to develop “foundational pieces of technology” for the future, Bosworth said. Specifically, Meta shipped the Quest Pro headset with mixed reality and eye and face tracking that have been adopted by developers, creators and builders. “We’ll be living with the benefits of this work for decades to come.”
It looks like Meta and its investors will need to stay patient, though, as the company’s vision for immersive AR glasses is years off. “Our vision for true AR glasses will require years of progress making our devices slimmer, lighter, faster, and more powerful, all while consuming way less battery power and generating much less heat,” according to Bosworth.
In the shorter term, Reality Labs is working to improve its incredibly basic avatar system, with more news coming in 2023. It’s also planning to help Horizon Worlds “flourish,” will introduce a Meta Question Gaming Showcase in the spring and reveal the “successor to the Meta Quest 2” sometime next year.
Virtual reality pioneer John Carmack recently left Meta, while criticizing the company’s lack of efficiency. Bosworth also acknowledged the likely arrival of Apple’s AR headset and HTC’s Meta Quest rival likely coming in 2023 Given all that, Meta likely wanted to assure users and investors alike that the company is staying the course on AR, despite the challenges.
Dyson’s Zone is a headset-visor that processes the air you breathe and pumps it, well, into your face. Now we know the price ($949!) and launch date (March 2023), the company invited press to strap the baffling device on and test it a little more extensively.
In a dark blue with copper accents, it looks a little subtler than the press images. But it’s still going to turn heads. The Dyson Zone is not designed to protect against COVID-19 or other viruses, as it does not seal to your face. The air purifier filters have a dual-layer design with potassium-enriched carbon to capture acidic gasses. The company claims the filters will block 99 percent of particles, including those as small as 0.1 microns for “filtering city fumes and pollutants.” However, you can use inserts like an N95 mask attachment – also offered by Dyson.
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He asked users if he should step down, and they decisively voted yes.
Elon Musk put his own leadership of Twitter on the line at the weekend. “Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” he tweeted. The poll ended and 57.5 percent of users voted “Yes,” compared to 42.5 percent who voted no (with 17,502,391 votes) – a decisive 15-point margin. It remains to be seen if (and how, and when) Musk will abide by his poll, as he has yet to issue any comment about the results. Shortly after publishing the vote (and when it was already tilting toward Yes), he tweeted “as the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
The vote follows a flurry of activity on Twitter after it announced a sudden rule change prohibiting users from linking to competing platforms and banning several influential users soon after. A massive backlash ensued, prompting an apology from Musk, who also tweeted that “going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes.” Then, in yet another poll yesterday, @TwitterSafety asked users whether it should “have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms.”
And you can buy a pricey physical edition of the first six games.
Square Enix
If you were looking for a late (and spendy) Christmas gift for your favorite Engadget newsletter editor (hi, me), Square Enix has you covered. To celebrate the Pixel Remaster series’ arrival on Switch and PlayStation, the company is selling a limited-edition bundle of all six entries in the Pixel Remaster series – Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI – as well a vinyl soundtrack set, a 128-page art book and a set of pixel art figurines. A mere $260 to make my Christmas.
In time for holiday shopping, we’ve updated and expanded our guide to the best Switch games, covering all the major games that have wowed us since the console’s launch. Sure, there’s Zelda and Mario in here, but there’s also a bug knight, a witch with guns on her shoes and a skateboarding world to explore.
Select at least three photos or videos and the app will automatically combine them into a Reel.
Instagram
Instagram has been placing a bigger focus on Reels this year, and that extends to how users create their 2022 Recap – whether you want it to or not. Select at least three photos or videos and Instagram will automatically stitch these together into a Reel with narration templates from the likes of Bad Bunny, Priah Ferguson and DJ Khaled. Hopefully, those can be toggled off, too.
Reels have been a major focus for Meta over the past year. Across Instagram and Facebook, the company now says Reels are played over 140 billion times every day. Meta has been bolstering its answer to TikTok by making it easier to create Reels, launching an in-app Reels scheduler and ways to post to Reels from third-party apps.
Europe has hit Facebook owner Meta with a complaint that its Marketplace classified service is unfair to competitors. By tying its main social media site to Marketplace, it has a “substantial distribution advantage” over rivals, the EU Commission wrote in a press release.
“With its Facebook social network, Meta reaches globally billions of monthly users and millions of active advertisers,” EU Antitrust Commissioner said in a statement. “Our preliminary concern is that Meta ties its dominant social network, Facebook, to its online classified ad services called Facebook Marketplace. This means that users of Facebook automatically have access to Facebook Marketplace, whether they want it or not.” This all infringes on EU rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position. The EU has the power to impose a fine of up to 10 percent of Meta’s annual revenue and prohibit the behavior. Meta’s head of EMEA competition said the “claims made by the European Commission are without foundation.”
The Alert Slider and Hasselblad camera tuning are back.
OnePlus has revealed when it will formally show off its flagship products for 2023. The Cloud 11 event will take place in New Delhi, India, on February 7th. The company will showcase the OnePlus 11 5G, OnePlus Buds Pro 2 and more. Along with revealing the event date, OnePlus said it would bring a couple of fan-favorite features back for its next flagship smartphone. The OnePlus 11 will once again feature the company’s Alert Slider, which offers an easy way to shift between silent, vibrate and alert modes.
The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 6.4 earthquake shook parts of Northern California, jolting people awake, and thousands were without power afterward.
The British band paid tribute to “our beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced.”
Nearly 200 countries have agreed to protect 30 percent of Earth’s lands and oceans by 2030. The deal was reached early this morning at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal following two weeks of negotiations. The only holdouts to the deal were the US and the Vatican, though the Biden administration has a domestic plan to conserve 30 percent of US land and water by 2030.
With the agreement, each participating country agrees to hitting over 20 environmental targets by the end of the decade. A key condition is the so-called 30×30 plan to protect at least 30 percent of land, inland water and coastal areas by 2030. That forms the basis of an international agreement similar to the 2015 Paris climate accord.
Along with the protection of habitats, nations have pledged to reduce pesticide risks by 50 percent, reduce nutrient runoff from farms and the rate at which invasive species are introduced to ecosystems.
The Plenary: Adoption of Decisions has officially started! 🌿
Watch live in order to learn what is happening at #COP15 🌱
Nations now have eight years to stop the loss of biodiversity being driven by humans due rainforest destruction, species exploitation, pollution and more. Previous agreements, like the biodiversity targets set at Aichi, Japan in 2010, saw nations fail to achieve the goals set. This time, though, there’s a monitoring framework to keep track of progress.
In addition to protecting species, the draft COP15 agreement urges nations to recognize and respect “the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories.” However, Amnesty International wrote that the deal was a “missed opportunity to protect indigenous peoples’ rights,” as it didn’t explicitly recognize their lands and territories as a separate category of conserved area.
Another point of disagreement was between wealthy and poor countries over funds. Nations in South America and Africa that house the world’s largest rainforests wanted assurances from rich countries that they’ll receive money to battle poaching, illegal deforestation and other issues, according to The Washington Post.
At one point in negotiations, delegates from developing countries walked out of on talks over funding issues. The agreement must “align the resources and the ambitions,” said Columbia’s environmental minister Susana Muhamad. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s environment minister, Ève Bazaiba, added that “when it comes to fauna, we need to have the means to achieve this objective.”
The COP15 agreement follows a breakthrough deal at the COP27 climate conference, approving a climate damage fund for developing nations. How well the plan will be implemented remains to be seen, though. “While agreements are great, if we’re going to save life on Earth, now we have to roll up our sleeves and do it,” the Center for Biological Diversity’s Tanya Sanerib wrote. “The planet faces an extinction crisis like none ever before witnessed by humankind, with 28 percent of species across the global facing extinction.”
The Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee is expected to vote on whether to release years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
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