Apple announced its mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, on Monday during its WWDC developer conference. The $3,499 headset is its first major new product since the Apple Watch in 2014.
The Vision Pro will allow users to see apps in a new way, in the spaces around them. Users can use their eyes and hands to navigate through apps and search with their voices. The headset can be used to watch movies, including in 3-D, with spatial audio, view their own pictures or videos, and play video games. It can also be used for work with video conferencing apps, Microsoft Office tools or Adobe Lightroom.
It will be available starting at $3,499 beginning early next year.
Apple stock dropped about 1% after the company unveiled the headset, giving up gains from earlier in the day.
With a feature called EyeSight, the headset can become transparent or opaque to signal to people around the headset user if they’re immersed in an experience or available to interact. Spatial audio will make it feel like the user is totally immersed in the experience, including by sensing other items in the room.
The Vision Pro can also create a realistic-looking avatar of a user to use in the experience.
The headset is made to fit different face shapes and sizes with adjustable and interchangeable parts.
The company announced several partnerships for the Vision Pro on stage. Disney CEO Bob Iger appeared on stage to announce that Disney+ would be available on the Vision Pro from day one of its release. Unity stock spiked over 20% and trading was briefly halted after Apple announced a partnership with the game development platform.
Here are some images from Apple’s presentation that shows how it works:
This is how the headset looks when a user is available to interact with others in the room.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Apps appear in front of the user, who can look around and gesture to navigate.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Here’s what it looks like to view a panorama with the headset.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
This is what it would look like to play a video game on the device.
Apple Vision Pro display
Source: Apple
This is what it’s like to video conference with the headset.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
It can also be used to learn new things in 3-D.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Users can view different windows in front of them like they typically see on a computer screen.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Apple has worked on headset hardware and software since at least 2016 in a division called the Technology Development Group. Monday’s launch is the culmination of years of development — some in secret, and some as public-facing groundwork previously released for the iPhone, such as depth-sensing cameras and software.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken at length about the potential of augmented reality that overlays computer graphics onto the real world, saying that the tech could eventually be an everyday device for most people and that its impact could be similar to the invention of the internet.
Apple’s VR headset debut comes during a time when the broader virtual reality industry has struggled to meet high expectations for the technology. For now, it’s considered to be “mixed reality,” or virtual reality that can access the outside world through cameras mounted on the headset.
Monday’s launch also opens up a new era of open competition between Apple and Meta, which develops its own virtual reality headsets. Meta said last week that its latest headset model, Quest 3, would be released later this year.
Artificial intelligence startup Cursor on Thursday announced it has closed a $2.3 billion funding round at a $29.3 billion post-money valuation, nearly triple what it was worth as of its last raise in June.
Tune in at 4:30 p.m. ET as Cursor CEO Michael Truell joins “Closing Bell: Overtime” to discuss the funding round. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.
Cursor built a popular AI coding tool that helps software developers generate, edit and review code. Its parent company, Anysphere, is an applied research lab that was founded in 2022.
Cursor is one of just a handful of AI startups, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Safe Superintelligence and Thinking Machines, that are valued at over $10 billion.
Investors including Accel, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, Coatue, Nvidia and Google participated in its latest funding round, according to a blog post.
“This funding will allow us to invest deeply in our research and build Cursor’s next magical moments,” Cursor said.
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Since the tool first launched in 2023, Cursor said it has crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue and swelled to more than 300 employees.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the company his “favorite enterprise AI service” in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in October.
The company said its in-house models generate more code than “almost” any other large language models in the world.
The coding tool market has grown more crowded in recent months as it’s proved to be a lucrative AI use case. Cursor competes with companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Cognition, which acquired the AI coding startup Windsurf in July.
OpenAI approached Anysphere earlier this year about potentially purchasing Cursor, but the deal failed to gain traction, as CNBC previously reported. OpenAI was also briefly in talks to acquire Windsurf before ultimately introducing its own coding tool called Codex in May.
In September, Anthropic said its coding tool Claude Code has already generated more than $500 million in run-rate revenue for the company since its full launch in May. As of July, Windsurf was generating $82 million in annual recurring revenue, Cognition said in a blog post at the time.
“Internally, we often talk about how high the ceiling is for how great Cursor can become, and how much work still remains to get there,” Cursor said.
Verizon chairman Mark Bertolini said Thursday that the company’s new CEO, former PayPal boss Dan Schulman, is working to revive Verizon from its period of share losses under former CEO Hans Vestberg.
Bertolini, who is also the Oscar Health CEO and who was named Verizon chairman last month, told CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” that the company needs to “do something different” as it undergoes its leadership change.
“Verizon has gone from number one in market cap, bond ratings and market share to number three. And the network isn’t as differentiated as it used to be, in large part because everybody’s been spending money to put these 5G networks in place,” Bertolini said. “So losing 30% share over the last eight years is an issue, and we have to do something different.”
In October, the company announced Schulman would be replacing Vestberg, who had led the company since 2018. In a statement at the time, Schulman said Verizon was at a “critical juncture” and that he believed the company had a “clear opportunity to redefine our trajectory.”
Schulman previously led PayPal through significant revenue growth and has served on Verizon’s board of directors since 2018.
Vestberg is remaining on the the board of directors until the 2026 annual meeting and serving as a special advisor through Oct. 4, 2026.
Bertolini said Thursday that Schulman is evaluating underlying cost structures and other aspects of the company to ensure its success.
“We believe that once we have that plan in place, we’ll have a good story,” Bertolini said. “The Street reacted early on that there’s going to be a price war; I think it’s less about price war than the value of what we’re offering to people through the product.”
Bertolini added that Schulman will be revealing his plan for turning around the company “sooner rather than later.”
“The board needed to act, and we acted,” Bertolini said.
Elon Musk announced his new company xAI, which he says has the goal to understand the true nature of the universe.
Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk‘s artificial intelligence company xAI has raised $15 billion from investors, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.
The funding adds another $5 billion to the $10 billion round CNBC reported on in September that valued the startup at $200 billion. Sources told CNBC that a lot of the money will fund graphic processing units that underpin large language models.
Artificial intelligence startups have reached sky high valuations in recent months as they raise massive amounts of capital to power seemingly endless demand for foundational models.
Last last week, Tesla shareholders voted to approve Musk’s massive pay package worth nearly $1 trillion, and voted on a proposal for the company to invest in xAI.
Brandon Ehrhart, general counsel at Tesla, said there were more votes for than against, but noted the abstentions and said the company is considering next steps on the issue.
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