Bounds and links are a fundamental law in everything, as mother nature teaches us everyday. But most of the time in life and market fields we prefer dealing with competitors or, worse, we call them enemies. None of the above for Mark Zukerberg. We talk about an important collaboration between Disney and Epic Games and now there's another one behind the corner, or we have to say "on the horizon". In fact, Meta CEO recently announced that it will open up its Quest 3 OS to third-party companies, allowing other manufacturers to build their own mixed reality headsets based on its software. This is a move that will probably influence the virtual and augmented reality sector, also due to the fact that there are already important companies that have embraced Quest OS, specially renamed Meta Horizon OS.
The call for the other companies includes at the moment ASUS' Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, which is working on a new "performance gaming" headset, Xbox and Lenovo which is developing devices for "productivity, learning and entertainment". Zuckerberg revealed this operation in a short video, that you can watch in an interesting post by Arun Prasath S, an important entrepreneur. Meta also states that it is working on a limited edition Xbox-inspired Quest headset. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that Microsoft and Meta recently collaborated to bring Xbox cloud gaming to Quest. Meta is also calling on Google to bring the 2D Play Store to Meta Horizon OS and adds that it will make software developed through Quest App Lab available in the Horizon Store. Finally, Meta is developing a new framework to allow mobile developers to create mixed reality apps. This strategy should help bring more content into the Meta Horizon OS ecosystem which could become a sort of Android for mixed reality.
In the official communication Meta said:
"Meta Horizon OS is the result of a decade of work at Meta to build a next-generation computing platform. To pioneer standalone headsets, we developed technologies like inside-out-tracking and self-tracked controllers. To allow for more natural interaction systems and social presence, we pioneered hand, eye, face and body tracking. And for mixed reality, we built a full stack of technologies for blending the digital and physical worlds, including high-resolution Passthrough, Scene Understanding and Spatial Anchors. This long-term investment that began on the mobile-first foundations of the Android Open Source Project has produced a full mixed reality operating system used by millions of people.
Developers and creators can take advantage of all these technologies to create mixed reality experiences. And they can reach their audiences and grow their businesses through the content discovery and monetization platforms built into Meta Horizon OS, including the Meta Quest Store, which we’ll rename the Meta Horizon Store".
Someone said this is the "resurrection of metaverse", we prefer to say that collaborations always bring important revolution. Maybe this is the new path for the metaverse to become part of our everyday life.
SOURCE: Meta
READ ALSO ---> "Is Disney back in the metaverse?" by Ilaria Vanni
Ilaria Vanni is a TV journalist for italian broadcasting and coordinator of The Meta Economist portal. She has a philosphy degree and she's now studing the economic and technological issues connected to the new frontiers of the metaverse.
