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Over the last year, Meta has made its AI assistant so ubiquitous in its apps its almost hard to believe that Meta AI is only a year old. But, one year after its launch at the last Connect, the company is infusing Meta AI with a load of new features in the hopes that more people will find its assistant useful. One of the biggest changes is that users will be able to have voice chats with Meta AI. Up till now, the only way to speak with Meta AI was via the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. And like last years Meta AI launch, the company tapped a group of celebrities for the change. Meta AI will be able to take on the voices of Awkwafina, Dame Judi Dench, John Cena, Keegan Michael Key and Kristen Bell, in addition to a handful of more generic voices. While the company is hoping the celebrities will sell users on Meta AIs new abilities, its worth noting that the company quietly phased out its celebrity chatbot personas that launched at last years Connect. In addition to voice chat support, Meta AI is also getting new image capabilities. Meta AI will be able to respond to requests to change and edit photos from text chats within Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. The company says that users can ask the AI to add or remove objects or to change elements of an image, like swapping a background or clothing item. Meta is testing AI-generated content recommendations in the main feed of Facebook and Instagram.Meta The new abilities arrive alongside the companys latest Llama 3.2 model. The new iteration, which comes barely two months after the Llama 3.1 release, is the first to have vision capabilities and can bridge the gap between vision and language by extracting details from an image, understanding the scene, and then crafting a sentence or two that could be used as an image caption to help tell the story. Llama 3.2 is competitive on image recognition and a range of visual understanding tasks compared with similar offerings from ChatGPT and Claude, Meta says. The social network is testing other, potentially controversial, ways to bring AI into the core features of its main apps. The company will test AI-generated translation features for Reels with automatic dubbing and lip syncing. According to Meta, that will simulate the speakers voice in another language and sync their lips to match. It will arrive first to some creators videos in English and Spanish in the US and Latin America, though the company hasn't shared details on rollout timing. Meta also plans to experiment with AI-generated content directly in the main feeds on Facebook and Instagram. With the test, Meta AI will surface AI-generated images that are meant to be personalized to each users interests and past activity. For example, Meta AI could surface an image imagined for you that features your face.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-ai-can-now-talk-to-you-and-edit-your-photos-172853219.html?src=rss
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Meta has announced a new virtual reality headset, and it's called the Quest 3S. As rumored, this is a lower-cost variant of the Meta Quest 3, which we consider the best VR headset for most people, and the entry-level replacement for the popular but aging Quest 2. Meta is aiming it squarely at VR newbies, those upgrading from an older headset and anyone else who's been holding out for a more affordable option if you're thinking about taking the plunge, here's what to know before you pre-order. To make way for the new headset, Meta has discontinued the Quest 2 and more expensive Quest Pro. The company says both headsets will remain available either through the end of the year or until stock runs out. It plans to sell official accessories for the two "for a bit longer," however. The Quest 3, meanwhile, will now include 512GB of storage at its standard $500, giving it another advantage over its new sibling. Previously, the higher-capacity Quest 3 cost $650, while the base model came with 128GB of space. Meta will now sell that 128GB model for $430, but only while supplies last. If you order a 512GB Quest 3 by April 30, you can get the same Batman: Arkham Shadow bundle included with the Quest 3S. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/how-to-pre-order-the-meta-quest-3s-vr-headset-171958398.html?src=rss
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Meta has announced the budget-friendly Quest 3S VR headset at its annual Connect keynote. Rumors have been swirling for months that the company was working on a cheaper follow-up to the impressive Quest 3, and now its here and priced at $300. This is pretty dang close to the original Quest 3, which costs $500. The latest headset uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen2 processor and boasts 8GB of RAM, so it can easily handle Quest 3 exclusives like the forthcoming Batman: Arkham Shadow. It offers the same full-color passthrough for mixed reality apps and games and ships with the same controllers as last years model. The refresh rate also hovers between 90Hz and 120Hz. Meta The external sensors/cameras also seem nearly identical to the standard Quest 3. There are two RGB cameras to create the stereoscopic color passthrough and four VGA cameras for hand tracking and controller tracking. These also help determine user movements and position in 3D space. Finally, there are two flood LEDs for illumination. So whats the catch? Meta has to make up for that lost $200 somehow. First of all, there are no pancake lenses and theres no 4K content. These look to be the same Fresnel lenses as found with the Meta Quest 2, with a resolution of 1832 x 1920 per eye and 20 PPD (pixels per degree.) The field of view is also slightly reduced when compared to the regular Quest 3 headset. The storage gets a major hit. The base model comes with 128GB, though theres a 256GB model available for $400. Meta has lowered the price of the 512GB Quest 3 to $500, from $650, so the entry-level 3S features around a quarter of the storage. On the plus side, the battery life is actually a bit better with the Quest 3S when compared to the Quest 3. Meta says it should get around 2.5 hours of use per charge, compared to 2.2 hours with the Quest 3. Theres also a nice little bonus for the holiday season. Customers who orders any Quest 3 or 3S model will get a free digital copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow when its released this October. The company did the same thing with the criminally underrated Asgards Wrath 2 last year. The promotion goes until April. The Quest 3S works with most Quest 3 accessories, which is good news because it also ships with the standard, and totally uncomfortable, headstrap. That Elite Strap is a wise investment, especially the one with the battery. Preorders are open right now and theres a shipping date of October 15. With the pending release of the Quest 3S, Metas phasing out the Quest 2 and the Quest Pro. The Zuck gives and the Zuck takes. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-reveals-the-budget-friendly-quest-3s-vr-headset-171843107.html?src=rss
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