Meta’s Orion Holographic Avatars Coming to VR Soon

For years, the company has been dedicated to developing Codec Avatars. Does this commitment make it a pioneer in the field?

Meta Unveils Orion AR Glasses and Holographic Avatars

At the Meta Connect event, a significant unveiling took place: the introduction of the Orion augmented reality (AR) glasses. Priced at about $10,000 per unit, these prototypes won’t hit the market anytime soon.

Holographic Avatars: Ushering in a New Communication Era

In the meantime, Meta provided a sneak peek at its new holographic avatars, named Codec, which will enable users to interact with augmented reality holograms. This technology, in development for several years, was previously mentioned by Mark Zuckerberg during a podcast last year.

Codec Avatars: Closer Than Ever

According to Mark Rabkin, Meta’s Vice President in charge of Horizon OS and Quest, the Codec avatar technology might soon be integrated into the company’s VR headsets. He emphasized that creating these avatars has become simpler, evolving from advanced camera scans to phone scans.

Photorealistic Avatars: A Potential Future for VR Headsets

“For Codec avatars… it’s the same process. You gather an enormous amount of data. You collect data from very high-quality camera scans. You collect data from phone scans, as that’s how people will actually create, and you build a model until it improves.”

Rabkin anticipates that these avatars could eventually be used in virtual reality on the company’s headsets. Currently, the Quest 3 and 3S lack necessary sensors, like eye-tracking, for photorealistic avatars. Nevertheless, Rabkin believes this could change with the next generation of VR headsets.