Your Tech Story

augmented reality

Facebook to Soon Roll Out a New Voice Assistant for its AR/VR Products Lineup

Facebook, News, Tech News / By

First Siri and then Alexa, followed by a few other voice assistants, including Google Assistant, Cortana and Bixby, have made their own space among people. Now in the same course, Facebook is also about to launch its own AI-based digital voice assistant. The company, too, has confirmed the news that it will be soon introducing a new voice assistant for its AR and VR lineup.

facebook voice assistant
Image Sourec: washingtonpost.com

“We are working to develop voice and AI assistant technologies that may work across our family of AR/VR products including Portal, Oculus and future products.” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

According to a former Facebook employee, the company has been working on the voice assistant for its augmented reality and virtual reality division for a year now. The team of developers, for this new product, is led by Ira Snyder, director of AR/VR and Facebook Assistant, and the team is based out of Redmond, Washington.

It is expected that the voice assistant is especially being built for the AR, VR products including the Oculus headsets as well as the company’s Portal video chat device.

This is not the first time that the company is trying its hands in the field of voice assistant production. But, in 2015, Facebook had launched a voice assistant for its messenger named as ‘M’. The product could not sustain for long as despite offering the users smart suggestions, it required human help to run.

Even though the company has been working on its voice assistant for a year, it is still way behind the digital voice assistants by the other tech giants. But according to the company, its voice assistant will focus more on the products that can handle hands-free interactions. This way the genre of Facebook’s voice assistants may not be similar to Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.

Magic Leap Opens Up New Options for People to Buy its AR Headsets, Including From Selected AT&T Stores

News, Tech News / By

Many of you might have heard of augmented reality headset Magic Leap One that the company Magic Leap launched last year. The company has partnered with AT&T and has announced that the company is going to exclusively sell this mixed reality headset in some of the flagship AT&T stores in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago starting from April 1st.

magic leap
Image Sourec: magicleap.com

Though many early buyers have already got their hands on the Magic Leap One Creator Edition AR headset a few months ago, the company has opened up new options for its buyers to get access to the same in the coming month. In fact, the company has also teamed up with the HBO to deliver the Game of Thrones fans a next level experience with this AR headset, i.e., the company will demo the GOT White Walkers through the MAgic Leap One at the AT&T stores. As the GOT final season is also about to premiere in April, teaming up with HBO is a clever marketing move that the company has opted for.

The availability of the Magic One headset won’t be right away. It will be available at the Boston store on Boylston Street on April 1st, at the AT&T store of the Chicago location on Michigan Avenue from 3rd April and from the 5th April, the headset will be made available at the AT&T store of the San Francisco location at 1 Powell Street. People will also be able to buy the headset online from the AT&T website from the 5th of April.

The Magic Leap One is a $2,295 AR headset, which is on an expensive side. But if you are also interested in buying the same without paying such a big amount at once, the company is also offering people to buy the headset on affordable monthly instalments.

Though there are already many other VR headsets available in the market which are exceptionally great at user experience, including Oculus and Valve, Magic Leap is also trying to hit the market with a new experience. But still, it has not made much of the efforts as there is not many great gaming contents on Magic Leap. So there are lesser reasons people would invest such a huge amount on Magic Leap One except to explore the new technology.