Meta retreats from metaverse after virtual reality check

Imagine changing your popular brand to capitalize on an emerging tech trend that never emerged. Mark Zuckerberg did just that, and now Meta is backing away from the virtual reality business in which it invested billions. In 2025, Meta's Reality Labs division, responsible for the company's various VR projects, posted a $4.2 …

[Doctor Syntax]

"Instead, Meta is betting on AI as bulky headsets become things of the past."

So AI is the new VR. Or did I misread this?

[Charlie Clark]

I think you misread, though the sentence is ambiguous. A second comma after AI would help, but reordering would be better:

As bulky headsets become a thing of the past, Meta is betting on AI instead.

[EricM]

I think you misread the OP ...

[steelpillow]

I think I just misread what you misread...

[NapTime ForTruth]

We can misread it for you wholesale...

...which I suddenly realize is the basis for current AI.

[TimMaher]

Remember it for you wholesale.

So, Rikal is going into AI?

The icon is a Martian.

[vistisen]

Grok :make VR look unhappy and mistreated!

[cyberdemon]

Oh Dear. What A Shame.

Never mind..

Zuck killed VR with his own grubby hands when he bought Oculus, forced users to have a Fakbook account, shoved in a load of creepy slurp features that nobody wanted, and then strong-armed game devs into exclusivity deals with his stinking pile of shit of a platform.

He stands to lose an order of magnitude more money on Meta AI, and my only regret is the lack of a popcorn icon on El Reg

[FuzzyTheBear]

Re: Oh Dear. What A Shame.

Popcorn icon is a great suggestion. Hope ElReg folks take note of that one :)

[RedGreen925]

Re: Oh Dear. What A Shame.

"Popcorn icon is a great suggestion. Hope ElReg folks take note of that one"

Perhaps they use an AI programmed with Rust to make one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh Dear. What A Shame.

Most CEO’s would have been long ejected from a business for this sort of catastrophic strategy error. It’s literally what they get paid a fuck-ton of money for.

(Same as Musk/Tesla and Cybertruck, Tesla-Semi, Autopilot and taxi).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh Dear. What A Shame.

VR could have stood a chance of hitting off and making people happy if *any* company just released the damn headset as an open platform.

Headsets are just a little too involved for us nerds to make ourselves.

[Jason Hindle]

The difference being that, outside those who comment on El Reg columns, AI is spectacularly successful in terms of user numbers if not profitability (even if it is mostly just people animating photos into videos that are more than a bit Benny Hill).

[Anonymous Coward]

Realtime on-line Translation required ... Non-AI Version please !!!

'spectacularly successful'

Please translate this into small words that a 5 year old child would understand !!!

My reading of 'spectacularly successful' when parsed gives a NULL, based on my understanding of these words in the context of 'AI'.

Maybe 'Does not compute' would help you to understand my problem !!!

Thanks in advance.

:)

[Mike 125]

Re: Realtime on-line Translation required ... Non-AI Version please !!!

> Please translate this into small words that a 5 year old child would understand !!!

tik tok

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Realtime on-line Translation required ... Non-AI Version please !!!

We've aready hada few discussions within El Reg comments about 'success' in the IT world being a tricksy thing. i.e. Microslop adding coprolite ("Microslop Coprolite" really works as a descripptive phrase I think) to every part of W11 and tricking users into clikcing it does not really make for an active concenting user but it will almost certainly count as an active AI user in their numbers.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Realtime on-line Translation required ... Non-AI Version please !!!

'spectacularly successful'

For everyone out there using this AI stuff, you need to stop for a moment and ask yourselves a couple of questions:

1) What did we do before this came along ?

and

2) What has changed that requires us to *need* this AI ?

The answers are "you engaged your brain and started thinking" and "nothing" respectively.

So all you are actually doing is dumbing down your abilities and becoming reliant on AI LLM's , and what are you going to do when they start charging enough to pay for it (assuming it does not implode first)?

[Bebu sa Ware]

"more than a bit Benny Hill"

An upvote for times long past — Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Dave Allen etc etc.

Benny Hill nice work if you can get it.

[Ken Shabby]

Re: "more than a bit Benny Hill"

Bugger, I now have that Benny Hill music going on in my head, need another one of these to stop it

==================>

[Paul Crawford]

Re: "more than a bit Benny Hill"

Benny Hill was a towering intellectual and bastion of fair-play compared to most AI usage...

[The man with a spanner]

Re: "more than a bit Benny Hill"

I'm not sure I would put Dave Allen in the same category as the other two.

[ITMA]

Bollocks. Utter bollocks

"AI is spectacularly successful in terms of user numbers"

Only because it is being rammed down everyone's throat at every opportunity whether they want it or not.

[FIA]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

No, it's because people use it.

You or I may not, but 'asking ChatGPT' is for many people the new googling.

I asked one of my work colleagues the other day what their plans for a feature were, their response was 'I'll ask Claude'.

My cynicism wasn't helped though, as at the end of the day I was writing a ticket for a change to our CI/CD pipeline. As I know it'll just get chucked at AI I did that myself to check the description was verbose enough.

45 minutes later it's committing the changes to a branch as the ones it suggested were as good as they would've been if a dev had written them. In fact, in terms of documentation and structure probably much better than the slightly hacky job I would've done myself. Total cost according to Claude was about $0.45 plus an hour of my time. (I expect that same AI usage cost in a year or two to be magnitudes greater).

Mind you, I still don't get 'asking ChatGPT'... I'm a dev by trade, I can look at the output of Claude and see what it's doing; or if it recommends a library I can check that out. But if I ask ChatGPT a question I still have to check it's not just making stuff up. This still seems harder to me than just googling.

[ITMA]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

"No, it's because people use it.

You or I may not, but 'asking ChatGPT' is for many people the new googling."

I suspect they use it, as I've found with colleagues, beause it is there and being pushed to the front. People being people, will often use what tool it closest to hand - or perhaps more accurately (I fear) put closest to hand.

"But if I ask ChatGPT a question I still have to check it's not just making stuff up"

Sadly, I also suspect many don't do such checking - because using the likes and ChatGPT (or the alternatives) involves less effort.

[Rol]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

The chief of police for the West Midlands was forced to resign because his staff got their misleading intel using AI, in regard to a particularly troublesome football fixture, instead of the old school method of Googling it. A lesson to be learnt for us meat bags, but clearly an impossible task in asking AI to better itself.

[ITMA]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

CoPilot according to reports. Which definitely is being rammed into everything and shoved to the front.

[tiggity]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

I think there was a definite agenda to get rid of the police chief ("AI" screw up or not - it would have happened anyway)

Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have a reputation for a massive hooligan element - anyone who has a smattering of interest in international club football is aware of that.

Even cause issues problems in Israel

So banning was a reasonable decision by the police (quite a rarity for me to say something positive about UK policing policy!).

However a huge amount of UK politicians get funding from pro Israel groups & so a lot of pressure was exerted via financial backers to make an example of West Midlands police for making a sensible safety decision that reflected badly on Israelis (plus plenty of media pressure too).

Whether you are pro Israel or regard Israel as a genocidal terrorist state, if you are in the UK you should be very unhappy with huge political interference by a foreign state irrespective of it being a state you love / hate (lots of outcry over Russian interference, but media tumbleweed zone over Israeli interference)

[katrinab]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

Yes, banning the fans probably was the right decision, but fabricating evidence in support of the ban by using AI is absolutely not on, and he absolutely should be sacked and punished in other ways for doing that.

[Greybearded old scrote]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

I'm not kind enough to sack him. Demote him to constable and put him on the beat. "Pour encourager les autres."

Apparently the Home Secretary doesn't have the power to sack a chief c*ntstable, for quite sensible reasons. There must be somebody "watching the watchmen" though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

They certainly have more evidential ‘form’ than most of the nigh on 2.000+ people attested for holding signage about Palestine Action.

[el_oscuro]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

You can't "Google it" any more either. Because Google now provides a neat authoritative sounding AI answer just like Chatgpt. Instead you have to noai.duckduckgo it.

[werdsmith]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

It summarises the results with an AI answer at the top of the returned information, if you have that feature switched on. Then below the summary, all the usual search engine results appear, in an order decided by Google.

[K555]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

When Cloudflare went down, taking a great number of sites and services with it, the end user tickets we logged were all for ChatGPT being unavailable.

One office manager logged a tongue in cheek ticket saying "staff don't know how they'll survive".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

Enjoy your time off after AI makes you redundant. The people above you will always take the money.

[Greybearded old scrote]

Re: Bollocks. Utter bollocks

What money? Idiots are spending orders of magnitude more than they could ever make.

[FIA]

AI is spectacularly successful in terms of user numbers if not profitability

"Hey Alexa, tell me about the business model around smart assistants again and how that's going for you all..."

[werdsmith]

AI is spectacularly successful in terms of user numbers

This is true, but you can't say it on Register forums because people cry.

[DS999]

AI is the new VR which was the new 3D TV which was the new "insert overhyped and utterly failed tech that failed to live up to its wildly inflated growth projections".

[HXO]

Blockchain.

[DS999]

Ah yes I knew there was another hypecycle between VR and AI I'd missed. Thanks!

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Ref former failed tech,

Fuzzy Logic?

[Kurgan]

It is indeed. Time to rebrand Meta to something AI related.

So that after some years (hopefully not more than one) they will have to rebrand again once AI goes down the drain.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

It is indeed. Time to rebrand Meta to something AI related.

I suggest MayAI..

As in "may I have all your data? Well, I've already got it all anyway but it's good PR to ask.."

[LogicGate]

fAIcebook

[Doctor Syntax]

"Time to rebrand Meta to something AI related."

Bollocks. No, that's not a comment on your post. It's a proposed name that reflects AI's generative nature. Don't forget the other meaning of AI ultimately depends on bollocks as well.

[the Jim bloke]

Meat I..

although the errors and hallucinations that can result from that have been documented for millennia, it is only recently being depreciated as politically and economically inconvenient.

[Zakspade]

"So AI is the new VR. Or did I misread this?"

No. Just replacing one bubble with another...

[Sampler]

Does this mean the horizon stuff they push in front of the gui will take a back seat and let me use my quest 3 as I want to?

It's actually pretty good tech and great for the handful of niche's it does, for an hour or so (after that my eyes ache from focusing so close).

Fun toy, nothing more, special kind of idiot to have spent so much on something so obviously limited.

[Joe W]

.... second life....

I mean, some (many, I guess) are old enough to recall that thing (as well as the memorable interview with the flying dicks). Nothing has changed.

[cdegroot]

Re: .... second life....

Second life also showed that the human brain is more than happy to make up the missing bits when were staring at a 3d rendering on a flat screen and by the time Meta started burning cash, it was clear that people don't even want to wear polarizing glasses to increase 3D fidelity (see the massive continued success of 3D TV and Movie theaters, not)

I still want a VR headset, for games and flight sims it is rumoured to be fun. But that's a tiny marked, comparitatively.

[hedgie]

Re: .... second life....

It's also just the market for that VR stuff is going to be a small one to begin with. Whether it's miners for whatever "cryptocurrency" or "AI", getting one that can run VR comfortably means a small percentage of users, except perhaps the serious gamer market. On top of that, I don't know the percentage, but a fair number of people get motion sickness[1] symptoms from the headsets as well. If that percentage is non-trivial, it's going to shrink the market even more.

[1] I wouldn't even *touch* VR because I'm sensitive enough that even playing a game using 1st person perspective on a laptop makes me queasy.

[Richard 12]

Re: .... second life....

From the very beginning it was obvious that VR was for gaming.

Heck, even the examples in fiction are almost entirely games. The Star Trek Holodeck is used purely for recreation in all except maybe two episodes.

The Quest 3 is very, very good, and a huge amount of fun.

The trouble is:

A) It's impossible to advertise. It has to be experienced to find out whether you're in the majority who enjoy it or the minority who absolutely hate it.

Nobody is going to spend that kind of money if there's any chance they're in the latter group.

B) There aren't enough games because they're hard to develop and test. Many of them also need tethering to a big beast of a PC, because deploying to "native" is harder than it should be. So it's not really a games console, raising the cost further.

C) You need a pretty big room with a relatively high ceiling to play most of the games. Most people don't have a 2.4m cube they can dedicate to gaming.

D) You often end up having to stop because the batteries need charging, not because you wanted to.

E) The above combined means that game sessions are often a slog to start. You can't just hit a button, grab your controller of choice and play, you have to clear space, start your PC and Steam, put on and adjust the headset, verify the space is clear, launch Steam in VR, then finally launch the game.

[raindog]

Re: .... second life....

Every single one of your points is incorrect.

I’m going now to play Walkabout Mini Golf with my family on our Quest headsets for a couple hours in our average-sized living room.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: .... second life....

Downvoted for golf.

[skwdenyer]

Re: .... second life....

Always worth remembering the Star Trek Holodeck only worked because of some off-menu TARDIS capabilities that appeared to be used in no other context ever. If the crew’s “Holo Adventures” had been limited to the size of the ‘deck itself it would have made rather less compelling viewing…

[Richard 12]

Re: .... second life....

Not really. In canon it simulates larger spaces by projecting the background and moving the floor the players are standing on.

There are real-life VR rigs that do that same - very expensive of course, so effectively bespoke. Never tried one. Would like to, but I'm not spending that kind of money!

I don't think it's explicitly mentioned with regards to the holodeck, but as Star Trek has artificial gravity it can also apply arbitrary acceleration forces on the players, so presumably it can physically re-center everyone without them noticing.

So, single player would be trivial and work in any space big enough to wave your arms and legs without hitting anything.

Multiplayer holodeck is much harder, but presumably works as long as everyone is either sufficiently close to each other in-game, or is far enough apart that they can have their own slice of simulation.

There is at least one episode where they explicitly talk about the holodeck being physically too small for the number of people in it, so had to make sure they stayed together.

Where it got really silly was the myriad of ridiculous breakdowns, of course. But hey, it's a TV show.

[hedgie]

Re: .... second life....

The Enterprise is certainly large enough to have a say, warehouse-sized holodeck easily. It certainly could be possible to do all the things you're talking about without the users really noticing. Now, the DS9 holosuites and Voyager's holodeck would likely be much smaller (unless the station had one or two huge ones and several small ones) and you'd more likely to lose suspension of disbelief.

But yes, MST3K mantra time.

[werdsmith]

Re: .... second life....

I use Meta 3 for Flight Simulator. Being a now mostly grounded private pilot, the first time I used it my jaw dropped and it now provides my flying fix.

[WageSlave5678]

Re: .... second life....

( Whisper: Like the Metaverse - it's not real ... )

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: .... second life....

I can get seasick on a pedalo. VR I can only handle if what is being presented is from a static viewpoint.

Anything else and it's very unpleasant and vertigo inducing before making me feel ill.

I'd love to play something like Elite Dangerous or some WW2 flight sim in VR but my inner ear isn't up to it.

[Dan 55]

Re: .... second life....

Second life also showed that the human brain is more than happy to make up the missing bits when were staring at a 3d rendering on a flat screen

Remember when Elite was compared to Star Wars and Tomb Raider was compared to Indiana Jones...?

[Number 39]

Re: (see the massive continued success of 3D TV and Movie theaters, not)

I find 3D almost as uncomfortable as an LCD panel on the wrong resolution. (About 10 minutes for the panel. About 25 minutes for regular 3D, about 100 minutes for iMax.).

The only movies I have seen that I could say benefit from 3D are Avatar and Tron Ares.

The result is that I will only watch 3D movies in iMax, and only if it is something I really want to watch. I'll quite happily take a risk on a 2D movie, though. And if there is a choice between 3D and 2D, I'll choose 2D, but sadly there isn't where I live.

So I would guess 3D has cut down what I would watch in the cinema by about a third.

[Lusty]

Re: .... second life....

You thought second life was new?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_V-Chat

[Stuart Elliott]

Re: .... second life....

Worlds Chat would like a word... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds.com

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: .... second life....

I thought the account which tracked a flying dick was shut down?

[Mimsey Borogove]

Re: .... second life....

Second Life is still a thing - in fact, my church is there. It may even be growing in popularity, generalizing from an n of 1: our Bible study class, which had 3 members for several years, now has 7-10 people showing up reliably. Everyone is welcome to come back and play!

I've never spent a penny of real $money on it, although I've been there for something like 11 years. Maybe more.

[Ace2]

"It encapsulates a paucity of imagination and self-awareness that goes beyond the risible and the banal into the truly horrific."

Truly a pearl of wit that applies in so many situations.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"It encapsulates a paucity of imagination and self-awareness…"

FWIW. I would have inserted an extra "of" before "self·awareness" to ensure the paucity also clearly applied to the "self·awareness" or rather the implied lack of. ;)

[Art Slartibartfast]

In terms of immersion VR is fantastic. Managed to revive my HP Reverb G2 with Oasis drivers available on Steam after Windows 11 dropped support for VR. It maybe niche, but what a niche it is. Looking forward to a new VR development from Valve slated for "early 2026", the Steam Frame headset. Look Ma, no Meta!

[Steve K]

Oasis drivers

Oasis drivers - at least you aren't looking back in anger on VR then.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Well, nobody could have seen this coming. ^{_{(Apart from everybody.)}}

[Like a badger]

Credible sources (WSJ) report the total cost of the Metaverse fiasco at $77bn, and that's before the write offs attached to this latest announcement. That's a shitload of cash to burn and get nothing back. Luckily for Zuck, the impending AI implosion will make a $77bn screw up look like chicken feed in the history books.

Hey Zuck! Chuck me a billion, and I'll make some favourable-to-Meta posts on Linkedin. That'll be an ROI many orders of magnitude better than either the Metavese, or your next foolhardy endeavours in AI.

[Tron]

I'm shocked they didn't rename it VR AI.

Numpties around the world would have fought to throw money in the pit. Think of the data centres you would need for 3D VR AI rendering!

Perhaps an appeal to the orange one. Can Murica afford for China to win at VR AI and agentic VR? Think of the military consequences!

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: I'm shocked they didn't rename it VR AI.

True...

[captain veg]

Re: I'm shocked they didn't rename it VR AI.

You'll soon be swimming in the MetAIverse, I'm sure.

-A.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: I'm shocked they didn't rename it VR AI.

There's always "MagaVerse" to curry favour with Trump

[LogicGate]

Re: I'm shocked they didn't rename it VR AI.

Not enough hype.

Make it 3D Printed VR AI rendering of NFT TikTok memes using BlockChain.

[A. Coatsworth]

File this under

Schadenfreude, along with the notes on Trump Phone and the busted scooter company.

Reading these tales of stupidity and retribution soothes my sad, pathetic soul.

Keep up the good work, vultures!

[Peter425]

Perhaps usage was hampered by the awkward software?

I used the Meta VR software as part of job, and let me just say: wow, the Meta software was among the most awkward software. When I tried it, just to start the desktop software involved too many random bits of software you had to run, putting on the headset to click a button in VR and then taking it off to run something on the PC, and then putting the headset back on ...

[captain veg]

Re: Perhaps usage was hampered by the awkward software?

Nah. It's just a stupid idea.

-A.

[Grunchy]

I used the copilot!

I copied in some photos of a server room and a dual-acting fire suppression system and asked it to explain what it sees. I mean, this is the first, one-and-only time I’ve given it a whirl. It kinda got most of it right! The fire sprinklers, though, it said had a stamp “K=3.5” indicative of a K-factor of 3.5, which relates gpm flow rate to pressure head. I’m like… the model number clearly indicates a K-factor of 5.6. So I ask Microsoft, where do you see K=3.5? I don’t see it!

Followed by ebullient apologies and “you are so right,” and all this fake phoney baloney. It made up some other “fact” out of thin air too, I forget what. That’s 1 trial and 2 major mistakes ON THE FIRST TRY! Holy cow!

It’s like A.I. driving your car. The error rate is astounding! The misjudgments and misidentifications are absolutely incredible. Anybody who genuinely throws their hands up and gives in to this deeply flawed technology is either profoundly ignorant, or they have a genuine death-wish. Or both!

[captain veg]

Re: I used the copilot!

LLMs don't make up facts and are incapable of making mistakes. They simply predict a sequence of words that probab(ilistic)ly follow on from your prompt on the basis of what was seen in the training data. They have no understanding of your previous interactions, no matter how recent. Each conversation takes place against a tabula rasa context.

Ascribing actual intelligence to this is a category error.

-A.

[David Newall]

Re: I used the copilot!

And yet, chat gpt 5.2 had nothing to offer when i asked it where i should gyre.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: I used the copilot!

"Where I should gyre?" presumably in the wabe but only if you were a slithy tove^† and only if the day were brillig.

_{† I was thinking of Altman and the whole scabrous AI crew but clearly conflating this with slimey toad.}

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: I used the copilot!

As I see it the AI Snark is a Boojum.

[psychopomp]

Re: I used the copilot!

You may have been, but I don't think AI understands that the world has moved on, given that Harry Harrison appropriated the named Slithey Tove in... The Technicolor Time Machine..in 1968?

[drand]

Re: I used the copilot!

chatGPT prefers to mimble.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: I used the copilot!

Higher and higher, widening probably.

But then you get into all sorts of trouble with not being able to hear the falconer, and before you know it the blood-dimmed tide is loosed.

Again.

[munnoch]

"Oh no!!!"

Said absolutely no one...

[David 132]

Why did I read that in the voice of James May?

[amacater]

Maybe Meta is really a bowl of petunias ...

[Inventor of the Marmite Laser]

I had a try at a VR experience a couple of years back, with a trip to the War of the worlds immersive experience.

The thing was a number of set pieces in different rooms, each dramatising key points in the story. There was some fairly good live action scenarios, with special theatrical effects, alternating with VR headset pieces.

Memorably, a boat trip out into the Thames estuary was VR. One sat in a slightly wobbly wooden "boat" that rocked as the headset showed the trip out onto the water and a martian fighting machine striding in. The effect was completed by getting a light spray of water while wearing the headset. It was surprisingly effective. But only the one time round. It's not a thing one would be getting into every other day.

[seldom]

So if I wanted to play Duke Nukem in VR I would need a team of about 20 people to throw buckets of blood and entrails over me.

Sounds like it would only work in a Belgian University during "Baptême". Don't ask how I know this.

[frankyunderwood123]

An hour with Jeff will have you whimpering with fear my friend, gravity gloves or not.

VR has got a lot more advanced than the parlour tricks of which you speak.

However it remains a niche product and probably always will do.

[Richard 12]

They're upgrading

They're closing down shortly, and rebuilding with much newer technology.

I'm really looking forward to the updated production, there's a lot they can (afford to) do now that was impossible when it first opened back in 2019.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Zuck!

Sucks to be you bro.

[frankyunderwood123]

who would’ve thought?

That strapping a heavy souped up mobile phone to your face that can frequently induce nausea and headaches in many people isn’t a great seller?

That a device that requires a large empty enclosed space to be properly useable isn’t a great seller? surely all of us have large homes, right?

That poncing about in Zucks idea of a metaverse is not an appealing prospect?

never would’ve guessed.

[ecofeco]

Re: who would’ve thought?

WHOCOULDAKNOWED?!

[Dan 55]

We are ruled by billionaire techbro idiots

Bereft of any ideas of their own to improve humanity (if you can't think up of at least five in a minute then you're probably a sociopath just like they are but without the money), they just lift ideas from Sci Fi they read or watched as kids and throw GDP-sized amounts of money at it - Zuckerborg from Neal Stephenson and just the other day Musk from Star Trek. The only thing they add is the fascism.

[ecofeco]

Re: We are ruled by billionaire techbro idiots

Hence the old saying, "Tech douche bros gonna tech douche bro."

[xyz]

I have enough trouble in real reality

so I wasn't going to try a second copy.

As others have said VR AI was the way to go...or V-RAI (marketing catchy) which would be like an acid trip, what with the AI bit hallucinating all over the place.

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual reality usually is used by peoples without any reality ...

[cd]

Artificial Reality and Virtual Intelligence don't work any worse or better switched-up.

How about skipping any pretext of corporeal solidity, let's go with "Artificial Virtuality".

The quotes lend it a bit of Artifcial Veracity.

[ecofeco]

No joke, I think you've just created the next bubble hype.

Seriously not even joking.

[shodanbo]

Time for plan B

Its so sad they will have to fallback to all the metadata they collect on everyone to justify the name.

[verbaloversupply]

Why Education Left

There were thousands in education before and a push in a lot of places, lots seem to have stopped or paused buying. If you are not in education, you are not getting exposure, skills to use or on the radar of the workforce.

The new licence was imposed on existing devices not just new ones. Rollout was without warning (lots of NDAs) and was initially £169 a year additional cost for each device. Without buying, existing management software stopped working when Meta Quest 3 devices were reset, regardless of when purchased. It offered nothing of use.

They handed out one year free licence eventually but I suspect many just stopped. We moved from META to an alternative from PICO, we won’t be going back as risks are too high of repeating the cash grab.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Why Education Left

It sounds like an educational experience.

[Nematode]

At some point, the financial markets are going to realise they've been watching an Emperor with no clothes on. Sooner the better.

[Scene it all]

It makes you average

I heard a nice description of AI making your work average. So, if you were below average to start with, it is an improvement and you are impressed. Count most Managers in this group. But if you were ABOVE average, it drags you down as you spend more time finding the mistakes. Remember what George Carlin pointed out: you know how stupid the average person is? Well half the population is worse than that.

[ecofeco]

I miss the old days

I miss the old days when a BILLION dollar plus mistake put a company out business instead of just firing employees and raising prices. And then blaming inflation on wages.

[el_oscuro]

Here is a nice summary of the Metaverse from across the pond. I'm pretty sure the author also reads El-Reg.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-meta-horizon-worlds.html

[KimJongDeux]

Let's ignore tech titans tinkering with titles. Anything emitted from Zuckerberg's brain should always be called "Zuckerberg". Calling other product clusters "Musk", "Benioff", "Ellison" and "Altman" should ensure that we understand who alone benefits from our patience and data.

[LogicGate]

And the utterances of the orange one should not be named "thruths" but simply "Social media Posts".

His executive orders and, should it ever happen, bills should never be mentioned with names such as "big beautiful" or "liberation day", but simply as orders and bills.

His milittary actions and unilateral attacks should be named just that, no "operation gigantic awesomeness" or similar.

His department of defence should continue to be mentioned as such until the day comes that a vote for a name change passes, and the Gulf of Mexico should continue to be so.

I do not get it why the Press goes along with these naming schemes. Just call things by what they are, and show the world and the voters how naked the emperor actually is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Great VR

I love VR, but at the moment the headsets are just too heavy to wear comfortably for an extended period of time.

I was pleased to see Xynavo virtual display glasses (not VR) of less than 100 grams on Kickstarter. Something of this order is needed to make extended use possible.

I do fear that Meta will eventually abandon VR because the profitability isn't up to snuff and they need more cash to invest in A.I.

[Drat]

Rebranding

Instead of rebranding from "Facebook" to "Meta", they should have rebranded to "Faceplant".

Also, reminds me of the old saying "More money than sense".

[DrXym]

Really not surprising

The way to approach a "metaverse" is to give people something fun to do and come back, e.g. an MMO with quests and progression, places to explore, danger. Then let users go wild creating races, factions, clans, bases etc to organically grow out this place. They'll come back for the progression, to hang out, for the raids etc. Plenty of opportunity to monetise the experience without being too heavy handed. It should feel slightly chaotic and mad, but fun.

OR go the Meta route. Create a bunch of boring zones where there is NOTHING to do except play some lame and broken minigames. A metaverse so profoundly dull that all the avatars look like humans, and it was a big deal when they got legs. A metaverse where Zuckerberg envisioned people gathering in virtual conference rooms to look at presentations. God knows how many focus groups and committees Meta ran their vision through to get to where they got by dear god did it fail hard.

[Tubz]

Just sell it off to a company that is serious of VR and not adverts and privacy invasion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meta = something about nothing

Sounds about right.

Anyhoo I thought these Techbros were supposed to have god-like powers of business acumen?

Every person I ever met who knew about Meta thought it was a crap idea. I even got to experience as business led meta project.

I fedback that the experience was a generaly negative one. As usual I was told I was wrong and not to expect a gaming experice.

Apparently I wasn't wrong and people really don't want to experience a simulated 20min walk from virtual vendor hall to virtual conference room.

[Sherrie Ludwig]

I don't remember the exact quote but....

hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy "nasally fitted fire" is what AI seems to be.

[Anonymous Coward]

GPUs

What will they do with all the GPUs they had to use? I expect they're too old to be recycled into the AI bubble and probably no good for the cryptocurrency bubble.