IT’S THE UNBOXING VIDEO THAT’S GOING VIRAL. The Meta Quest Pro 3, Meta’s next mixed reality headset, has been leaked again. A video released by user @ZGFTECH to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, shows a pair of hands removing the black and white headset and controllers out of a cardboard box and wriggling them about. The headgear and controllers look to be smaller than in prior generations.
The gadget resembles the advertising materials provided by Meta in June, just before Apple sucked up all the air in the virtual room with its long-awaited Vision Pro mixed-reality headset.
Meta’s metaverse machinations have fallen short of the company’s ambitions of creating a fully realized virtual environment, owing to the fact that no one spends much time in there. However, this has not discouraged the corporation from pursuing its VR ambition. In a year and a half, the corporation invested $21 billion in its Reality Labs subsidiary, so expectations for the Quest 3 must be high. The Quest 3 will start at $500, which is over double the price of the Meta Quest 2, but a far way from the eye-watering $3,500 price tag of the Apple Vision Pro.
The Meta Connect developer event takes place on September 27 and 28, and given how polished the Quest 3 appears in this leaked video, there’s a good chance the company will give us more details about the headset and announce a firm release date during the event’s keynote address.
Here’s some more gadget-related news.
Apple Gets Right About Repair
Apple wants you to know that it has changed—that it now values repairability. Apple voiced support for California State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman’s right-to-repair measure, which is presently being debated in the state senate, in a letter to the senator.
Apple’s reversal comes after years of lobbying and fighting legislative efforts to protect people’s rights to fix their own gadgets. The announcement is so significant in the area of repairability that the right to repair advocacy organization iFixit compared it to the fall of the Berlin Wall. (In a semi-related note, Apple may soon have to pay out settlement funds after being accused of throttling slower iPhones.)
Apple has historically been extremely protective of its goods, but it has recently given up some ground. Apple launched its own self-repair service in 2021, but the program had some teething troubles because the repair kits were pricey and cumbersome. In its letter to State Senator Eggman, Apple did specify several conditions for its support, including not allowing third-party repair services to disable device security measures and requiring that such repair businesses declare when they do not utilize genuine Apple parts.
Sony Couch Portal
Sony announced a new portable PlayStation product this week. It’s called the PlayStation Portal and it has some … quirks.
When you first see the device, you might assume, “That just looks like a PlayStation controller with a phone stuck in the middle.” But that’s because it’s essentially a PlayStation controller with a phone in the middle—albeit a phone that can’t make calls or access the internet. No, the Portal can only stream games from your current PlayStation system. Unlike other portable devices in the PlayStation lineup, such as the PSP and PS Vita, the Portal will require a continual Wi-Fi connection to a console. It won’t even be able to stream games through PlayStation’s Plus cloud streaming service; you must have the game installed on your own machine for it to work.
The controls include adaptive triggers, vibration, and extra-sensitive touchpads, just like the PS5’s DualSense controller. It will cost $199, which is less than half the cost of something like a Steam Deck. That’s still a lot more expensive than simply streaming games to your phone or laptop, as PlayStation’s remote function has allowed you to do for years.
Cops in Schools
When a student is in difficulty at school, the behavioral issue or argument is generally resolved by a school authority such as a teacher, counselor, or principal. However, in Illinois, a state legislation known as SB 100 has given school authorities the authority to resort to a much more serious type of discipline: involving the cops. Some otherwise minor playground squabbles have been escalated to police enforcement since 2015. When cops are summoned, they can ticket and discipline kids for offenses committed on school premises, such as fighting, truancy, or even vaping. As you might expect, putting children to a system of penalties and punishment designed for adults can have catastrophic consequences.
Specifications
- Resolution (per-eye): 2064 x 2208
- Display Type: LCD
- Refresh Rate: 120Hz
- Lens type: Pancake
- Processor: Snapdragon XR2 Gen2
- RAM: 12GB
- Battery Life: 2–3 hours
- Field of View: 97° horizontal, 93° vertical
- IPD Adjust: hardware-based. Eye relief is also supported
- Audio: integrated
- Weight: 509g
- Storage: 128GB or 512GB
- Connectivity: USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
- Tracking: inside-out
- Depth sensor: available
- Mixed Reality: full-RGB cameras for color passthrough
Quest 3 leaked early again #metaquest #Quest3 pic.twitter.com/KfjXx5Qxi7
— VR Panda. Alex From CHN (@ZGFTECH) August 23, 2023
