Author | Tina, Nuka-Cola
Following last week's release of Llama 3, a powerful new open-source AI model, Meta, founded and led by Mark Zuckerberg, has now made another industry-shaking announcement: the Horizon operating system, which powers the Meta Quest family of headsets, including the latest Meta Quest 3, will be open to third-party vendors to build hardware on.
In today's blog post, the company said it is "opening up the operating systems that power our Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware manufacturers, hoping to give consumers more choice and a broader ecosystem for developers to build on." ”
What is the Meta Horizon operating system?
Today Meta announced that it will open up the Quest operating system "Horizon OS" to third-party headset manufacturers, built on Android but optimized for VR and mixed reality.
Meta says Horizon OS is the culmination of a decade of commitment to building the next generation of computing platforms. To pioneer a standalone headset, Meta has developed technologies such as inside-out tracking, and eyeball, face, hand and body tracking for more natural interaction systems and social presence. For mixed reality, Meta has built a complete technology stack that converges the digital and physical worlds, including high-resolution passthrough, scene understanding and spatial anchors.
As Meta puts it, it has evolved into "a complete mixed reality operating system".
Meta's Quest series has been one of the frontrunners in the field of virtual and mixed reality, with much of its success due to its well-designed and well-supported software. Once available to third parties, future headsets will be able to connect via the existing Meta Quest app on iOS and Android, but will be called Meta Horizon.
Meta also said it is working on a new spatial app framework that will make it easier for developers with mobile development experience to start making mixed reality apps for Horizon OS, and said it will begin to "remove the barriers between the Meta Horizon App Store and App Lab," which allows any developer who meets basic technical and content requirements to publish software on the platform.
Further details about these new projects are not yet clear, but what can be obtained at the moment is mostly vision and vision. Under the renderings published on the Meta website, it is also clearly marked "rendered effect, not the actual product".
2024 年 4 月 22 日,截取自 Meta Horizon OS 博文的画面。
Still, there's no stopping the excitement of tech, VR/XR designers, and influencers at the news:
Big news! Meta has just announced that it will open up its Meta Horizon OS, the operating system that powers Quest, allowing other vendors to design more headsets using its ecosystem. Lenovo, Microsoft and Asus become initial partners of Meta. This move may lead to more headsets focused on productivity, entertainment, gaming, exercise and other application scenarios.
And on Hacker News, developers are also very interested.
A netizen commented: "Whenever I hear the news of a new operating system, I always have anticipation in my heart because we urgently need to get rid of the existing operating system. ”
"It looks like a great move. Similar to the existing Android ecosystem, if this eventually standardizes on AR/VR, Meta will benefit from being the dominant player in the same way that Google is to Android. The biggest test will be how the existing partners (Asus, Lenovo, etc.) will sell. This will determine the future of this idea. ”
In addition, Apple has recently joined the fray with the launch of its Vision Pro headset. The Vision Pro isn't currently a direct competitor to Meta Quest devices because of the higher price tag and higher-end technology, but it could just be the beginning of a long-term rivalry between the two companies. Unlike Apple's closed approach, Meta has made Horizon OS a more open partner OEM platform. This compares to today's smartphone market, where Google's Android (on which Horizon OS is based) runs on a wide range of devices from a variety of companies, while Apple's iOS only runs on Apple's own iPhone.
"Open" or "open source"?
Earlier today, Zuckerberg himself posted the message on his Instagram page, likening it to the "PC era" of virtual devices, where consumers can install a variety of operating systems and programs just like they would on a PC, without resorting to a specific app store.
He also pointed out that Apple's tight control over its mobile software through iOS is in "closed mode" and made it clear that Apple's closed system is inferior to an open PC system.
Meta claims that its goal is to become the "Android of MR". This comparison has also given many people the illusion that "Horizon OS is an open-source operating system".
"Meta 刚刚宣布开源其混合现实操作系统 Meta Horizon OS...... 值得一提的是,Meta Horizon OS 在支持渐进式网络应用程序 (PWAs) 和 WebXR 方面已经领先于 Apple Vision Pro。 "
Erratata: This is based on Zuckerberg's video and posting in the media...... Previously, most media outlets used the title 'open source'...... Actually, it's not open source, at least not yet. ”
The "Android Open Source Project" is a true open source project that anyone can use for free (excluding some of Google's core services, such as the Play Store, of course). The irony behind this is that Meta Horizon OS itself is based on an open-source version of Android.
In contrast, Meta is positioning the move as "open" to the Meta Horizon operating system, and has carefully selected select hardware partners (i.e., ASUS, Lenovo and Microsoft) to design new virtual reality/mixed reality (VR/XR) hardware. The new hardware projects being promoted by these three major manufacturers include:
Asus
The company is said to be working on a new high-performance gaming headset that will take an innovative approach to an immersive gaming experience.
association
The company is reportedly using its previous experience manufacturing Oculus Rift S hardware, as well as its expertise in designing top-of-the-line devices such as the ThinkPad series, to develop mixed reality devices designed to enhance productivity, learning, and entertainment experiences.
Microsoft
Following last year's collaboration to integrate Xbox cloud gaming with Meta Quest, Meta and Microsoft's Xbox division are currently working together on a special edition Xbox-inspired Meta Quest headset. It's also part of an overall effort to try to merge the Xbox gaming experience with Meta's mixed reality platform.
This is clearly an interesting strategy orchestrated by Meta's side to reposition itself as an "open" camp. The result of the decision is not only reflected in its large AI model Llama 3, but also in the vigorous exploration of VR/XR and its "metaverse", and in the direct renaming of Facebook to Meta.
Google made a similar attempt a few years ago, designing Cardboard products for cheaper versions of VR headsets powered by mobile phones. But they don't really offer a complete and programmable operating system, so the product hasn't really caught on in other scenarios other than as a party toy.
Regardless, sales of VR/XR headsets have declined last year, and the pressure from products like Apple's Vision Pro is still mounting. According to other reports, as of now, Meta's Horizon Worlds virtual space creation platform is still largely "in name only", with users of various virtual spaces only a few dozen to hundreds, bringing a large number of virtual "ghost towns". Now that Meta is committed to driving its success and growing into a mainstream platform, expanding the number of devices that can deliver the software is a necessary prerequisite.
Following Llama 3, the "Android" operating system in the MR industry _Tina_InfoQ was released