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Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Acquired LIVE event at the Chase Center in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. 

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Meta announced the Quest 3S, the latest virtual reality headset to come out of the company’s Reality Labs division and a cheaper offering than its predecessor.

The device will go on sale on Oct. 15 and will retail starting at $299, down from the $499 starting price for 2023’s Quest 3. The device can be used to watch movies, as well as run VR fitness apps and gaming, Meta said Wednesday at its Connect event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. The company positioned the headset as a multitasking computer, putting it in competition with Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro headset that launched in February.

Meta’s previous Quest devices are the bestselling VR headsets, with millions shipped thanks to heavy marketing and a lower price than many competitors, but those efforts have yet to spark a cultural phenomenon or a mainstream software ecosystem around VR. Including its acquisition of Oculus in 2014, Meta has poured more than $65 billion in expenses into its hardware efforts.

“I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended the company’s spending as a strategic initiative to prevent Apple from controlling future hardware platforms.

Although there was hope among VR developers that Apple’s entry into the market would spur a wave of new apps and users, Apple hasn’t revealed sales for its headset and reports say that sales have been in small volumes, under 1 million units, partially due to its high price.

What it does

A Meta representative said the “S” stands for “start” — as in getting started with VR.

Many of the new Meta features that the company discussed on Tuesday for its $299 Quest 3S have counterparts on Apple’s Vision Pro, including a mode that allows for the device to be used on an airplane and another that simulates a large movie theater inside the headset.

Meta highlighted improved “passthrough,” the term used to described when a VR headset uses cameras and sensors on the outside of the device to display live real-time video inside the headset. That function is intended to make users feel like they are looking through a display and allows them to interact with the real world while keeping the headset on. For the Quest 3S, Meta added a dedicated button to turn on passthrough.

The company has emphasized the ability of the Quest 3S to multitask and run apps, positioning it as a computing device, instead of a game console.

“All the things you can do with a general purpose computer, Quest is the full package,” Zuckerberg said.

In demos provided Tuesday, Meta showcased the device running as many as four apps at one time on floating screens inside the headset, including a YouTube video, a browser, Amazon Music and Meta’s app store. Meta says the headset can handle six windows. But the demo experience was not smooth. The Amazon Music app crashed, window controls would disappear and Meta’s controllers would fall asleep after a few minutes if the user wasn’t pressing buttons.

Besides the Quest 3S, Meta also announced a price cut for last’s year Quest 3, bringing the price of the 512GB version down from $650 to $500. The Quest 3 has more advanced lenses and a superior screen with a higher resolution than the Quest 3S.

Additionally, Meta said it will discontinue the Quest Pro, its $999 headset launched in 2022 that never gained much momentum.

Eventually, glasses

Meta Orion AR glasses prototype

Meta

Zuckerberg’s justification for spending so much on VR and augmented reality is his belief that the technology will eventually end up in lightweight, transparent glasses that overlay computer graphics and information onto the real world.

Investing in VR software and hardware are early steps toward those glasses, which could take as much as a decade to develop, Zuckerberg has previously said.

Zuckerberg showed off an early concept of what those glasses could look like on Wednesday. The thick, black-framed prototype, called Orion, won’t be sold to consumers, but Meta says they will be used internally as the company continues working toward the consumer glasses it hopes to one day sell.

“This is where we are going,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said they were Meta’s first “fully-functioning” prototype of the glasses, and would be physically tethered to a small “puck.” Zuckerberg also said that it would take advantage of a wrist-based interface, which came out of stems from the company’s 2019 acquisition of CTRL-Labs.

Meta’s Orion prototype comes a week after Snap announced its fifth-generation Spectacles AR glasses. Those thick-framed glasses will only be made available to developers, who must commit to paying $99 a month for one full year if they want to build AR apps for the device.

This isn’t the first time Meta publicly revealed a prototype of a future devices or research projects to signal to investors and employees where VR and AR technology is headed. The Orion glasses are an improvement on Project Nazare, prototype smart glasses that Zuckerberg announced in 2021, when the company changed its name from Facebook.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are powered by a Qualcomm chip. Qualcomm, Samsung and Google are working on smart glasses, according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Meta does sell a pair of glasses with a built-in camera in partnership with EssilorLuxottica called Ray-Ban Meta, which start at $299. While these glasses don’t have any displays, they do have tiny speakers that allow the device to play music or interact with Meta AI, the company’s voice assistant.

For example, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses can now detect when a user is looking at a sign in Spanish and, if asked, can translate in the user’s ear, a new improvement, Meta said. The camera can scan QR codes, and it can also extract information like book titles out of photos it takes. Plus, they’re stylish and look like a pair of typical sunglasses.

“One of the most important things about this is they’re just good-looking glasses,” Zuckerberg said. 

Another new capability for the glasses is the ability to remember facts like where the user parked. 

Li-Chen Miller, the vice president of product in charge of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, told CNBC that when she travels, she uses the glasses to take photos of her hotel room door, and later, she asks Meta AI to recall the number. 

Zuckerberg is excited about the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which have sold more than 730,000 units in their first three quarters, according to market researcher IDC. In July, he told investors that they were “a bigger hit sooner than expected.”

Last week, EssilorLuxottica and Meta announced that they had extended their partnership to develop more smart glasses.

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Cybersecurity firm Netskope files to go public on the Nasdaq

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Cybersecurity firm Netskope files to go public on the Nasdaq

Sanjay Beri, chief executive officer and founder of Netskope Inc., listens during a Bloomberg West television interview in San Francisco, California.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Cloud security platform Netskope will go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NTSK,” the company said in an initial public offering filing Friday.

The Santa Clara, California-based company said annual recurring revenue grew 33% to $707 million, while revenues jumped 31% to about $328 million in the first half of the year.

But Netskope isn’t profitable yet. The company recorded a $170 million net loss during the first half of the year. That narrowed from a $207 million loss a year ago.

Netskope joins an increasing number of technology companies adding momentum to the surge in IPO activity after high inflation and interest rates effectively killed the market.

So far this year, design software firm Figma more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut, while crypto firm Circle soared 168% in its first trading day. CoreWeave has also popped since its IPO, while trading app eToro surged 29% in its May debut.

Read more CNBC tech news

Netskope’s offering also coincides with a busy period for cybersecurity deals.

The year’s two biggest technology deals include Alphabet’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz and Palo Alto Networksambitious plan to buy Israeli identity security company CyberArk for $25 billion.

Founded in 2012, Netskope made a name for itself in its early years in the cloud access security broker space. The company lists Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Zscaler, Broadcom and Fortinet as its major competitors.

Netskope’s biggest backers include Accel, Lightspeed Ventures and Iconiq, which recently benefited from Figma’s stellar debut.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are leading the offering. Netskope listed 13 other Wall Street banks as underwriters.

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Meta set to unveil first consumer-ready smart glasses with a display, wristband next month

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Meta set to unveil first consumer-ready smart glasses with a display, wristband next month

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta is planning to use its annual Connect conference next month to announce a deeper push into smart glasses, including the launch of the company’s first consumer-ready glasses with a display, CNBC has learned.

That’s one of the two new devices Meta is planning to unveil at the event, according to people familiar with the matter. The company will also launch its first wristband that will allow users to control the glasses with hand gestures, the people said.

Connect is a two-day conference for developers focused on virtual reality, AR and the metaverse. It was originally called Oculus Connect and obtained its current moniker after Facebook changed its parent company name to Meta in 2021.

The glasses are internally codenamed Hypernova and will include a small digital display in the right lens of the device, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details are confidential.

The device is expected to cost about $800 and will be sold in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the people said. CNBC reported in October that Meta was working with Luxottica on consumer glasses with a display.

Meta declined to comment. Luxottica, which is based in France and Italy, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Meta began selling smart glasses with Luxottica in 2021 when the two companies released the first-generation Ray-Ban Stories, which allowed users to take photos or videos using simple voice commands. The partnership has since expanded, and last year included the addition of advanced AI features that made the second generation of the product an unexpected hit with early adopters. 

Luxottica owns a number of glasses brands, including Ray-Ban, and licenses many others like Prada. It’s unclear what brand Luxottica will use for the glasses with AR, but a Meta job listing posted this week said the company is looking for a technical program manager for its “Wearables organization,” which “is responsible for the Ray-Ban AR glasses and other wearable hardware.”

In June, CNBC reported that Meta and Luxottica plan to release Prada-branded smart glasses. Prada glasses are known for having thick frames and arms, which could make them a suitable option for the Hypernova device, one of the people said. 

Meta Connect 2024 kicks off

Last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg used Connect to showcase the company’s experimental Orion AR glasses.

The Orion features AR capabilities on both lenses, capable of blending 3D digital visuals into the physical world, but the device served only as a prototype to show the public what could be possible with AR glasses. Still, Orion built some positive momentum for Meta, which since late 2020 has endured nearly $70 billion in losses from its Reality Labs unit that’s in charge of building hardware devices.

With Hypernova, Meta will finally be offering glasses with a display to consumers, but the company is setting low expectations for sales, some of the sources said. That’s because the device requires more components than its voice-only predecessors, and will be slightly heavier and thicker, the people said.

Meta and Ray-Ban have sold 2 million pairs of their second-generation glasses since 2023, Luxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said in February. In July, Luxottica said that revenue from sales of the smart glasses had more than tripled year over year.

As part of an extension agreement between Meta and Luxottica announced in September, Meta obtained a stake of about 3% in the glasses company according to Bloomberg. Meta also gets exclusive rights to Luxottica’s brands for its smart glasses technology for a number of years, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC in June.

Although Hypernova will feature a display, those visual features are expected to be limited, people familiar with the matter said. They said the color display will offer about a 20 degree field of view — meaning it will appear in a small window in a fixed position — and will be used primarily to relay simple bits of information, such as incoming text messages. 

Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s technology chief, said earlier this month that there are advantages to having just one display rather than two, including a lower price.

“Monocular displays have a lot going for them,” Bosworth said in an Instagram video. “They’re affordable, they’re lighter, and you don’t have disparity correction, so they’re structurally quite a bit easier.”

‘Interact with an AI assistant’

Other details of Meta’s forthcoming glasses were disclosed in a July letter from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to a lawyer representing Meta. While the letter redacted the name of the company and the product, a person with knowledge of the matter confirmed that it was in reference to Meta’s Hypernova glasses.

“This model will enable the user to take and share photos and videos, make phone calls and video calls, send and receive messages, listen to audio playback and interact with an AI assistant in different forms and methods, including voice, display, and manual interactions,” according to the letter, dated July 23.

The letter from CBP was part of routine communication between companies and the U.S. government when determining the country of origin for a consumer product. It refers to the product as “New Smart Glasses,” and says the device will feature “a lens display function that allows the user to interface with visual content arising from the Smart Features, and components providing image data retrieval, processing, and rendering capabilities.”

CBP didn’t provide a comment for this story.

The Hypernova glasses will also come paired with a wristband that will use technology built by Meta’s CTRL Labs, said people familiar with the matter. CTRL Labs, which Meta acquired in 2019, specializes in building neural technology that could allow users to control computing devices using gestures in their arms. 

The wristband is expected to be a key input component for the company’s future release of full AR glasses, so getting data now with Hypernova could improve future versions of the wristband, the people said. Instead of using camera sensors to track body movements, as with Apple’s Vision Pro headset, Meta’s wristband uses so-called sEMG sensor technology, which reads and interprets the electrical signals from hand movements.

One of the challenges Meta has faced with the wristband involves how people choose to wear it, a person familiar with the product’s development said. If the device is too loose, it won’t be able to read the user’s electrical signals as intended, which could impact its performance, the person said. Also, the wristband has run into issues in testing related to which arm it’s worn on, how it works on men versus women and how it functions on people who wear long sleeves.

The CTRL Labs team published a paper in Nature in July about its wristband, and Meta wrote about it in a blog post. In the paper, the Meta team detailed its use of machine learning technology to make the wristband work with as many people as possible. The additional data collected by the upcoming device should improve those capabilities for future Meta smart glasses.

“We successfully prototyped an sEMG wristband with Orion, our first pair of true augmented reality (AR) glasses, but that was just the beginning,” Meta wrote in the post. “Our teams have developed advanced machine learning models that are able to transform neural signals controlling muscles at the wrist into commands that drive people’s interactions with the glasses, eliminating the need for traditional—and more cumbersome—forms of input.”

Bloomberg reported the wristband component in January.

Meta has recently started reaching out to developers to begin testing both Hypernova and the accompanying wristband, people familiar with the matter said. The company wants to court third-party developers, particularly those who specialize in generative AI, to build experimental apps that Meta can showcase to drum up excitement for the smart glasses, the people said.

In addition to Hypernova and the wristband, Meta will also announce a third-generation of its voice-only smart glasses with Luxottica at Connect, one person said.

That device was also referenced by CBP in its July letter, referring to it as “The Next Generation Smart Glasses.” The glasses will include “components that provide capacitive touch functionality, allowing users to interact with the Smart Glasses through touch gestures,” the letter said.

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Google shares rise on report of Apple using Gemini for Siri

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Google shares rise on report of Apple using Gemini for Siri

Google CEO Sundar Pichai gestures to the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.

Camille Cohen | Afp | Getty Images

Alphabet shares rose on a Friday report that Apple is in early discussions to use Google’s Gemini AI models for an updated version of the iPhone-maker’s Siri assistant.

The company’s shares rose more than 3% on the Bloomberg report, which said Apple recently inquired of Google about the potential for the search giant to build a custom AI model that would power a new Siri that could launch next year. Google’s flagship AI models Gemini have consistently been atop key benchmarks for artificial intelligence advancements while Apple has struggled to define its own AI strategy.

The reported talks come as Google faces potential risk to its lucrative search deals with Apple. This month, a U.S. judge is expected to rule on the penalties for Google’s alleged search monopoly, in which the Department of Justice recommending eliminating exclusionary agreements with third parties. For Google, that refers to its search position on Apple’s iPhone and Samsung devices — deals that cost the company billions of dollars a year in payouts.

The Android maker has said its Gemini models will become the default assistant on Android phones. Google this year has showed Gemini doing capabilities that go beyond Siri’s capabilities, such as summarizing videos. 

Craig Federighi, who oversees Apple’s operating systems, said at last year’s developer conference that the iPhone maker would like to add other AI models for specific purposes into its Apple Intelligence framework. Federighi specifically mentioned Google, whose Gemini can now hold conversations with users and handle input that comes from photos, videos, voice or text. Apple is also exploring partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI as it tried to renew its AI roadmap, according to a June Bloomberg report.

Documents revealed during Google’s remedy trial showed executives from Apple were involved in the negotiations over using Google’s Gemini for a potential search option.

Google declined to comment. 

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