Meta Platforms (META) unveiled a new virtual reality headset and several artificial intelligence (A.I.) applications at its latest developer conference.
The technology company led by Mark Zuckerberg officially unveiled the Quest 3 virtual reality headset, which will be available to consumers on October 10 at a price of $499 U.S.
The company also unveiled several generative A.I. chatbots and announced a new version of its Ray-Ban mixed reality smart glasses that can capture photographs and videos with a voice command.
The new Quest 3 headset will support games from Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox video game unit, and target business users through a new platform called “Meta Quest for Business” that allows app and device management for corporate customers.
Meta’s new products, notably its headset, comes months ahead of the launch of Apple’s (AAPL) Vision Pro augmented reality headset that is scheduled to be released in early 2024.
The new products were introduced at “Meta Connect,” a two-day developer conference held at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Zuckerberg also made several announcements concerning A.I., positioning the company as a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) Bard chatbots.
The company is launching a text-to-image platform called “Emu” that will be integrated with Meta’s Messenger app. The company is also adding A.I. photo editing tools to Instagram.
And Meta announced “AI Studio,” a platform that enables developers to build A.I. chatbots.
The stock of Meta Platforms has risen 110% over the last 12 months to trade at $297.74 U.S. per share.
