Ugh, so here I am, trying to write this newsletter on a holiday—Labor Day, no less. Everyone’s out enjoying the day off, and here I am, tapping on my keyboard like some sort of workaholic. But hey, XR news doesn’t stop, right?
### Top News of the Week
First off, Meta is back at it with those funky Ray-Ban Meta glasses. They’ve added a bunch of new stuff like live translation in languages I barely passed in school. French and Italian are in there, but don’t ask me why—something about Essilor-Luxottica? Beats me. Anyway, now you can have AI help you out in Europe too. It’s kinda exciting, or maybe scary, depending on your view of robots taking over your chats.
And get this: you can now do Instagram calls through these glasses, which I guess is cool if you want to video chat straight out of a sci-fi movie. Plus, they’re launching in Mexico and the UAE. More places to look fancy while you talk to your shades.
### Other News Bits
Meta’s selling refurbished Quest 3S devices for a song. $270 is pretty cheap, but no Batman game included—gotta save those bucks somewhere, I guess. It’s a fair deal though.
BigScreen has delayed Beyond 2 shipments because they found out the PCBs were a hot mess. They could’ve just shipped them and dealt with annoyed customers later, but nope. They trashed about 5000 units to keep things top-notch. That’s some serious dedication from a startup that’s probably sweating in the wallet department right now.
On a side note, Italy has come up with a strategy for the metaverse. Now, as an Italian myself, I gotta say our document is… let’s call it curious. It’s like reading something written by an AI stuck in the ’90s. Apparently, Italy’s a leader in AR/VR—news to me, since I don’t see headset-wearing folks milling around. But hey, at least the government’s aware tech is a thing now.
### Random XR Stuff
Remember Sightful and their Spacetop laptop glasses? Well, now they’ve pivoted to a software idea called Spacetop for Windows. I guess they realized nobody wants to wear headsets all the time—go figure.
Varjo has a new version of their Teleport scanning thingy. They say it’s better now, with perks like free plans to tease you into spending more down the line.
Quest 3 has this cool new room meshing feature. I saw a video of it and was like, “Whoa, is this the future?”
Insta360’s new X5 camera came out. Fancy gadget with a reasonable price, if you’re into 360 video thingamajigs.
Oh, and PlayStation just started their “Big Games, Big Deals” thing. Maybe time to splurge a bit?
### Sorta Interesting News
Star Wars is bringing a new mixed-reality game. Sounds fun, but it probably won’t beat Vader Immortal. Also, Elder Scrolls IV got a makeover—folks are diving into it with VR mods and loving it.
### Wrapping Up
Okay, I might’ve rambled, but if you’re still here, congrats! You’re as tenacious as a workaholic on a holiday. Oh, and if you’re feeling generous, think about donating to the Red Cross for Ukraine. Here’s hoping this mess of words made for an entertaining break from your daily doom-scrolling. Cheers!
