Why Mark Zuckerberg Is Fixated On Creating AR's 'iPhone Moment' (fastcompany.com) 55
Citing an article from The Verge's Alex Heath, Fast Company breaks down "Meta's plan to shape the metaverse by building its own wildly ambitious augmented-reality hardware." From the report: eath's article, "Mark Zuckerberg's Augmented Reality," covers two codenamed products. "Project Nazere" is a high-end pair of AR glasses that don't require a smartphone, with the first version shipping in 2024, followed by upgraded ones in 2026 and 2028. Also due in 2024 is "Hypernova," a more economy-minded take on AR eyewear that does piggyback on a smartphone's connectivity and computing muscle. The piece is full of technical details, such as Nazere's use of custom waveguides and microLED projectors to fuse your view of the real with a digital overlay. Both Nazere and Hypernova will supposedly work with a wrist device that uses differential electromyography to detect electric neurons, allowing for input that feels akin to mind control.
But along with all the specifics in Heath's story, what's also striking is its discussion of how these planned products roll up into Meta's highest-level goals. They are, of course, an extension of Mark Zuckerberg's hopes, dreams, and aspirations: "If the AR glasses and the other futuristic hardware Meta is building eventually catch on, they could cast the company, and by extension Zuckerberg, in a new light. 'Zuck's ego is intertwined with [the glasses],' a former employee who worked on the project tells me. 'He wants it to be an iPhone moment.'"
Everybody's entitled to their own definition of an "iPhone moment." Presumably, it involves a product of truly epoch-shifting impact -- not necessarily the first in its field but an unprecedented blockbuster that defines the category by bringing it to the masses. Something like, well, you know, the iPhone. For a tech CEO such as Zuckerberg, creating an iPhone moment isn't just about selling something enormously successful; it also provides full control over an ecosystem. That lets a company chart its own destiny in a way it can never do if it's building on someone else's platform. Zuckerberg has long been bugged by the fact that Facebook/Meta's products have historically sat atop environments operated by other companies, such as Apple and Google. I know this because he told me so himself...
But along with all the specifics in Heath's story, what's also striking is its discussion of how these planned products roll up into Meta's highest-level goals. They are, of course, an extension of Mark Zuckerberg's hopes, dreams, and aspirations: "If the AR glasses and the other futuristic hardware Meta is building eventually catch on, they could cast the company, and by extension Zuckerberg, in a new light. 'Zuck's ego is intertwined with [the glasses],' a former employee who worked on the project tells me. 'He wants it to be an iPhone moment.'"
Everybody's entitled to their own definition of an "iPhone moment." Presumably, it involves a product of truly epoch-shifting impact -- not necessarily the first in its field but an unprecedented blockbuster that defines the category by bringing it to the masses. Something like, well, you know, the iPhone. For a tech CEO such as Zuckerberg, creating an iPhone moment isn't just about selling something enormously successful; it also provides full control over an ecosystem. That lets a company chart its own destiny in a way it can never do if it's building on someone else's platform. Zuckerberg has long been bugged by the fact that Facebook/Meta's products have historically sat atop environments operated by other companies, such as Apple and Google. I know this because he told me so himself...
It's because his only product is Facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
So he's desperately trying to come up with a new product, but unlike Google that went big with Android and made something useful he seems to be looking for quick 'n easy scams like "metaverse" and being a digital landlord.
Re:It's because his only product is Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
and anti-trust regulators are paying attention to him at the moment, so he can't just buy up his competitors like he used to. Plus some of those competitors are in China, and they won't let him buy them.
So he's desperately trying to come up with a new product, but unlike Google that went big with Android and made something useful he seems to be looking for quick 'n easy scams like "metaverse" and being a digital landlord.
yeah i dont quiet get why anyone would pay him to be their digital landlord in some ar/vr hellscap^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h "metaverse". why wouldn't they just run their own server and use the domain name system thats already in place why make give facebook more power.
Mental Illness (Score:2, Informative)
That's the goal anyway.
Re: It's because his only product is Facebook (Score:2)
The one thing Facebook might be in a unique position to supply is lots of users/eyeballs to populate whatever virtual world you might create.
Whether a Facebook-provided population is something anybody (besides advertisers) actually wants is open to debate.
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based on my experience the only active users of facebook are old tech illiterates everyone else just has an account to talk to their grandmother as they have given up teaching her to use better services. these are not the people that are going to be first adopters of a VR/AR platform
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>The one thing Facebook might be in a unique position to supply is lots of users/eyeballs to populate whatever virtual world you might create.
Not if it requires the purchase of hundreds of dollars worth of new hardware, that isn't really useful outside of the 'metaverse'. Facebook got so big because it was free to the consumer and offered a built-in network of connections with friends and family and little monetary cost (minutes to create an account and now grandma can see your kids pictures).
Hard to ima
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Its wild to me that absolutely nothing of this Metaverse idea is new or untried.
We already had a big rollout of the concept, Second Life, and heres the thing;- Second Life sucked hard. The constant attempt at making it into a place to do business work type things made it a distinctly un-fun place to go when not at work. Oh whee I can spend ten thousand dollars to by virtual land. Bah, I can go out country here and spend a little over that and grab a couple acres in the Outback and have a place I can actuall
Re:It's because his only product is Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a concept people should know, called "existential despair". It's when you lose the thing that you base your identity on. When an athlete has to give up competition, he may experience existential despair. When that happens you have to reinvent yourself.
Mark Zuckerberg used to be a wunderkind. He was the youngest ever self-made billionaire at 23. There's a lot that went into that. He was smart, ruthless, a little amoral, fell in with the right venture capitalists, and he made a lot of good (for him) decisions. And he was lucky.
Now he's pushing 40. He's the 15th richest man in the world, with no real prospects of climbing the list. Facebook is not a growth company, it's a mature company. This would be a great time to reinvent himself as a philanthropist or mentor figure, but the temptation is always to try to repeat yourself, to hang onto that thing that defined you.
Now *Musk* managed it, but note: he effectively changed careers. People forget he made his first 100 million with PayPal, and used that to purchase a stake in Tesla. Zuckerberg is trying to recreate his success with Facebook, *with Facebook*. It's not beating a dead horse, it's beating a horse that's already running as fast as it's ever going to run. He's trying to play it safe, and win big at the same time.
Re: It's because his only product is Facebook (Score:2)
It would be nice if Zuckerberg would take all that money and do something really beneficial to humanity with it. Musk is often of questionable sanity, but both Tesla and SpaceX could provide significant benefit to humanity in the long run. Facebook... Well let's just say my account got locked something like a decade ago and my apathy about changing that has had no noticeable negative impact on my life.
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Players? Growth? You might be seeing them. But having no interest in any kind of "metaverse" or VR, they are completely invisible to me. And my level of interest in these ideas is never going to change. Ever. And I'm not alone.
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Booohooo, he is only the 15th most rich person in the world.
What a loser.
Existential despair indeed.
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He probably read Rainbow's End when he was 22 and the idea has been simmering away in there forever.
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but unlike Google that went big with Android and made something useful
Google bought Android. I'd have thought you knew that.
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It worked, though. Suddenly everyone stopped talking about Facebook privacy, and now they're talking about Meta nonsense.
He just bought that (Score:3)
Musk did the same thing. Gates did too. Billionaires can and will use a portion of their billions to make us like them, and unless you're on guard (or jaded as fuck) they'll succeed.
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I don't think Zuck is trying to make anyone like him. I mean, if he is, he's failing miserably. He's easily in the top 10 most unlikable people, right up there with Martin Shkreli.
He's got a face even Gandhi would have wanted to punch.
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and anti-trust regulators are paying attention to him at the moment, so he can't just buy up his competitors like he used to. Plus some of those competitors are in China, and they won't let him buy them.
So he's desperately trying to come up with a new product, but unlike Google that went big with Android and made something useful he seems to be looking for quick 'n easy scams like "metaverse" and being a digital landlord.
I don't think it's nearly as nefarious as you make it sound. Nothing lasts forever, and hinging the existence of a massive company to the popularity of a single website is madness. Facebook has a massive workforce of really smart people, trying to build secondary revenue streams is just common sense.
Remember, Google didn't just do Android, they also tried Maps, Gmail, Google Docs, Cloud, Chrome, self-driving cars, not to mention they acquired YouTube, acquired Android, acquired DeepMinds, etc, etc (I'm sure
Best use of AR is already here (Score:3)
The fact that you can point your phone camera at a sign or text in one language and the phone will translate for you is in my opinion the single best pratical (nongaming) use for AR today and in the forseeable future, I think the hardware has a long, long time to go before it can make a really effective headpiece that delivers the level of experience to make AR anything close to the smartphone epoch.
Plus some people are just not going to want to wear glasses, even if its integrated seamlessly.
Re:Best use of AR is already here (Score:4, Interesting)
As an non-mechanical engineer, I've even used it to identify random mechanical components. I had no idea what terms/words to search for, but by simply taking a photo, Google Lens identified various fluid valves, manifolds, etc.
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Thats true, at least foe me it does read text and will look up barcodes and model numbers which is cool. Are you saying though it could identify them based on image recognition alone? I will admit that is a really slick actually useful feature if thats the case.
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You are correct - who want's to be a Glasshole v2.1.x? What's the upside for me? A burger menu of choice projected on my eyeballs? A real estate 'property' without basis in reality, that can be manipulated by some central owner (Zuck)?
This whole "metaverse" idea, and people buying a "house next to Snoop Dogg's property 'metaverse property'", with real money, in a database is at the very least least gullible if not insane. It reeks of a long con if not a hardcore scam. The perceived value vs real value
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You are correct - who want's to be a Glasshole v2.1.x? What's the upside for me?
If you're considered a glasshole maybe move somewhere where you aren't surrounded by arseholes who label people for the technology they use. If you ever used the term Glasshole yourself then you are actually a judge mental arsehole yourself and should really work on that.
That Ephemeral Moment (Score:2)
Billionaires are special people.
Not that it is likely on the order of tomorrow's news reporting that "Ukraine is fucking up Russia, again," but; there is a high correlation between 'Billionaire' and a fairly regular need for ego stroking. Possibly, there's a dash of sociopathic flair to the personality, sure, but they are still fragile and in need of, nearly constant, reassurance.
To be fair, Jobs had a great curtain call, and the would be suitors to the throne are looking for theirs.
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You'll have all the freedom you ever wanted in the metaverse, replacing every freedom you had in the real world.
Maybe, but you know they are going to charge you for everything.
Re: zip (Score:3)
⦠and advertise the f*ck out of you. Talk about a captive audience, with video screens literally stuck to your eyeballs.
Zuck You! (Score:2)
Strap a screen on their heads (Score:3)
dead concepts (Score:2, Interesting)
Metaverses kind of peaked at the late 2000's to mid 2010's, AR kind of went stillborn when people noticed they could do basically the same without looking like glassholes, ... what a decade ago?
Why is one trick pony trying to revive these things and acting like its his gift to the world, we already did MMO's and Second Life and my 10ish year old, 45$ at the time, ZTE phone could already translate on the fly though its camera (and some other neat tricks). How does he expect an iPhone moment when he is showin
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That is kind of the point iPhones weren't the first smart devices, people tried and failed before but apple made them popular. If the metaverse works (which I don't think it will work, also I hope it won't) then it will be an iPhone moment.
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Metaverses kind of peaked at the late 2000's to mid 2010's
You're conflating second life with VR and the Metaverse. Don't do that, they are three completely distinct things.
AR kind of went stillborn when people noticed they could do basically the same without looking like glassholes, ... what a decade ago?
AR is alive and well with many industrial applications and continued investment by Apple Google Facebook and Microsoft. The fact you call people glassholes simply for owning a piece of tech makes you the judge mental arsehole not them. Consider working on yourself.
Bottom line, you seem to have no idea what you're talking about, or what the industry is working on.
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AR kind of went stillborn
And as if Slashdot itself seems to be against on you this point, the newest story right now is that Amazon is hiring a lot of AR developers.
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I thought Zuckerberg was (Score:2)
I seriously thought that, at his core, Zuckerberg understood himself. He capitalized on people's emotions and tribalism to sell advertisements. Good, bad, in between, it didn't matter as long as it sold ads. That's how he made his money. That's what he does. That's why his companies exist. Don
Re:I thought Zuckerberg was (Score:4, Funny)
"Microsoft has built a superb OS"
Have they announced a release date yet?
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It's all timing (Score:2)
Steve's Method (Score:2)
I happen to know the method Steve followed precisely to formulate the iPhone. Many industry people do and there's no shame that he did so. It wasn't even Apple's idea, technically.
Not mentioning specifics because Zuck is far worse than Steve even on one of his scream-at-an-intern days, but suffice it to say that he's missing a hugely important component. That's good for society.
So, no, Facebook and Facebook Teen is all they can count on. Steam should take the gaming VR space in late 2023 but this Shanghai
Stopy trying to make fetch happen, Mark. (Score:2)
It's all about the Zuck (Score:2)
Egomaniac is not satisfied with inventing and heading up the largest social media platform on the planet; instead wants to have complete control and ownership over a new virtual platform where he gets to do whatever he wants and take all of the glory for the purpose of essentially feeding his own sense of grandeur. This sounds like a good idea, where can I sign away my soul?
AR is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
AR is never going to work. I paid $5k to get rid of glasses. There was a literal lineup out the door of people doing the same.
I am not going to pay anything to wear glasses around again. I am not wearing contact lenses.
This will work when we can interface neuralink style; maybe; but AR is dead on the vine. VR works because you're not in the same place anymore when you're using it, so you don't care what you look like or what you're wearing - you're literally not there anymore. Ironically, VR is one of the r
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Well, as long as he invests a lot of money into it, it may help Facebook going bankrupt so... Keep throwing money at it, Zuck!
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AR is never going to work. I paid $5k to get rid of glasses. There was a literal lineup out the door of people doing the same.
So you're in support of AR then? By your own admission you paid money to not have to deal with a device (like glasses) to improve your sight. I'm sure you'll happily also pay money to not have to hold you tablet up while you're working.
I don't understand how you think not wanting to live with a medical defect has anything to do with adoption of a technology which can in many circumstances make life easier.
AR is a solution looking for a problem. It just isn't there.
Consider getting your $5k refunded if you can't see the problem.
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AR is the killer app for robotics . and by the way glasses are cool.
Won't work (Score:2)
Iphones are 'useful', Zuck's 'Second Life' isn't.
Obligatory (Score:2)
Every time someone talks about reinventing reality as an AR device, you may want to read the Vision Machine [multiversitycomics.com] comic.
(You still can find some downloadable .cbr copies out there, it was Creative-Commons-NC-licensed - though the author has removed the original link since; or just go and buy a digital copy from the author, it's worth it).
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Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge.
How long will it take... (Score:1)
...until the augmented-reality gets completely overrun by ads. I imagine Zuckerberg doesn't want it to happen too soon but play the long game. Perhaps something like this:
1. Just like some crucial information is only available on Facebook, some information is made available only through the AR metaverse. Such as menus in some restaurants for example.
2. Some nice and useful features such as being able to decorate your environment with custom virtual art. You can exchange your big screen TV for an even bigger
Absolutely Not (Score:2)
It won't matter how "cool" or "immersive" Meta's next venture will be. There's one sticking point that will making everyone avoid it: Everything it sees/hears will be sucked into the Meta cloud and used to sell things to you.
Imagine a device that gathers detailed 3D data about your house, location, items within it, the photos of people in the frames, the brands, ages, conditions, frequencies of use, friends & family who visit and try it, etc etc. Camera/Microphone and object/person recognition com
Missing one obvious thing? (Score:2)
I honestly don't know why people don't point this out, but all this seems to be built on the assumptions people had about processing power from the 90s and Moore's Law.
We have hit some very hard limits in terms of performance per watt. You aren't putting much computing power in a pair of glasses, there's no place for the batteries. Ah, move the computing to the cloud, the network will save us. Slight problem there.
Reality doesn't lag. Well, when it does, we adapt for it. Until we don't. Hey, how bout a VR b