Meta’s new augmented and virtual reality viewer, called Meta Quest 3, allows you to see through the box containing lenses and hardware with extreme clarity, and above all in colour, compared to previous models.
This new “passthrough” technology has excited users to the point of pushing them to leave the house with the headset on their heads. Something that would have been impossible in the past: the old Meta Quest 2 headset, in fact, offers the user a stream of black and white, low quality images of their surroundings.
Some users, therefore, carried out daily activities wearing the Meta viewer, thus adding virtual elements – such as a tablet on which to watch YouTube videos – to the surrounding reality.
This is the purpose of devices that offer augmented reality: to create an immersive and interactive experience by overlaying digital elements on reality. Headsets like the Meta Quest 3, or like the Apple Vision Pro, will become more and more widespread in the future.
In addition to amazement, the idea of men and women walking down the street with a headset also raises concerns about privacy, as these devices are capable of recording what comes into their view (as demonstrated by the videos on this page). Furthermore, those who are filmed often do not realize it. It has been pointed out, for example, that the Meta Quest 3’s indicator light indicating a recording in progress is not as obvious as one might expect.
by Pier Luigi Pisa