As I write these lines, I see them projected on a giant screen that floats in front of me. I have two other windows displayed, one with notes and one with email. The three form a kind of large digital wall at full resolution that only I can see and that, due to its dimensions, it would be impossible to configure in the office or at home. Beyond these screens, what I have in my field of vision is the everyday: I see my desk and the windows and offices of the newsroom; also the curious glances of the companions. I’m wearing the Meta Quest Pro and they don’t go unnoticed. I write from the metaverse and, against all odds, it turns out to be comfortable.
Ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced his commitment to the metaverse, it was clear to the industry that the way into this new world would be mixed reality, mixing the real environment with 3D digital models. For two reasons. First of all, because it is more intuitive: contact with reality is not lost, which will help especially the generations that have not been educated on video games. And, secondly, because it is easier to incorporate digital brushstrokes into our environment than to develop an entire 100% virtual world that is attractive.
The great impediments for this idea to succeed are the price and the paraphernalia that it implies. Mixed reality is a more sophisticated version of the holograms of Star Wars, so to speak, only you need special glasses to see those digital elements. The Quest Pro are the first to introduce mixed reality in a solvent way. It is true that they are no longer like a helmet, but rather look like some kind of designer ski goggles. But we have not yet reached the point where they are glasses like those for seeing, although that is Zuckerberg’s goal.
The Quest Pro went on sale for 1,800 euros. Although they have recently dropped to 1,200, their price automatically excludes them from the general public. It has been a conscious decision: as Mark Rabkin, vice president of Reality Labs, the Meta company that manufactured the glasses, explained in a meeting with journalists in which EL PAÍS participated, the company believes that it can begin to evangelize about the benefits of the metaverse showing its benefits to the professional layers. The previous model, the Quest 2, is sold at 450 euros and will coexist with the advanced version.
After several weeks of testing, the conclusion is that we are facing something different and with a lot of potential. You can place before you on the table a digital map of a city that looks like a hyper-realistic model and enlarge or reduce it so that Big Ben is like a bottle or like a cupboard. You can manipulate and alter a design in 3D, whether it’s a house plan or a product sketch, and if you have a partner also equipped with the Quest Pro, they see it too and can interact with the model. You can have a virtual meeting with someone whose avatar appears next to you. You can play video games in which gigantic monsters break into your house.
This technology has a long way to go for creative professions and in the entertainment industry. For someone who uses the computer to write and consult the Internet, it is not so enriching. Beyond the comfort of having giant screens and that, by pressing a button, you can stop seeing your real environment (the newsroom in my case) to move to a cabin in the woods, an idyllic landscape with waterfalls or a space station . Suddenly, the bustle turns into calm. People continue to pass around you, but they disappear from your sight, although the jokes intensify.
A more manageable device
Virtual reality has been with us for decades. The virtual reality headsets with which it all began have been replaced by glasses, or visors, which are still large, but increasingly manageable. The jump from the Meta Quest 2 to the Meta Quest Pro is obvious: the latter are much smaller and more comfortable. The heavy front block of the lenses has been reduced considerably, adopting the size and appearance of a kind of ski goggles. The battery of the glasses has been placed on the back of the visor, compensating for the weight and ensuring that when turning the head it does not appear that we are wearing an astronaut helmet, as happens with other visors. The autonomy is between two and three hours.
Technically, aside from size, the Quest Pro is much better than the Quest 2 and better than any other scope on the market right now. Resolution is four times sharper and more colorful than the Quest 2. The feeling of dizziness when removing your glasses disappears, thanks in part to a technology that slightly blurs the image quality that does not stay strictly in the focal point so as not to stun to user.
There is still a long way to go to miniaturize these devices; in fact, many analysts say that until it is possible to develop glasses similar to those used by myopic people, the metaverse will not fully take off. “For virtual reality to reach its proper potential, we need to get to the point where the 200 million people who each year buy computers for work can do at least part of their tasks even better in the metaverse,” Zuckerberg said last year. .
The Quest Pro is a computer in itself. They have their own CPU and are operated with two controls, a kind of joystick that also works as a laser pointer. The glasses can be connected via Bluetooth to a keyboard and mouse to work. Also to a computer yes, the software used goes beyond the Office package or programs that run online.
In the privacy section, the glasses incorporate new sensors, such as eye and facial recognition, which allow us to know where we are looking, how we react and transfer facial gestures to avatars. A very sensitive information that will have to be kept safe.
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