Three big winners from the Meta Horizon OS announement

Executive summary

Welcome to your weekly briefing on the metaverse and spatial computing. Here are your snippets to sound smarter in meetings this week:

• Headline: Who are the three big winners of the Meta Horizon OS announcement? (the three are detailed below).

• Conversation-starter: AWE announced its AWE XR Hall of Fame.

• Stat of the week: 76.7% of materials of the VIVE XR Elite headsets can be recycled and reused, according to HTC.

• Other stories: BFI London Film Festival opened submissions for LFF Expanded, XR Creator Con is happening in late June in Berlin, and Spatial Computing Europe launched a competition (more stories below).

Analysis

Who are the two big winners of the Meta Horizon OS announcement?

• In case you missed it, Meta announced that its OS will be available for OEMS to use, such as ASUS and Lenovo. Think of it positioning itself as the Android of XR, soon before Google I/O.

• Big winner #1: Qualcomm. The OS requires headset manufacturers to use the chipset as it closely intertwines with Meta’s stack. Yet in my view, I suspect it will limit its impact. Think about how other chip manufacturers cannot use the OS, such as Intel. Previous OS systems work well because they can work with all sorts of manufacturers, not just one. Imagine if Microsoft in its early days opted to work only with Intel; it surely would not have grown as quickly or effectively. Still, Qualcomm is a big winner here in the short-term.

• Big winner #2: Indie developers. Finally, the App Lab will have a more prominent place in the Horizon Store, having more visibility in front of consumers. We should see more breakout hits in 2024.

• Big winner #3: Meta. The company wants to be the OS layer above hardware in XR, similar to Google with phones and Microsoft with PCs. That has ripe potential for profit and growth. Google may have a similar announcement soon, which may mean Meta will compete with Google in the years to come. But for now, Meta has the front foot forward.

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Other notable stories

Got any stories? Let me know at tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com.

• AWE announced its AWE XR Hall of Fame.

• BFI London Film Festival opened submissions for LFF Expanded.

• The Economist Metaverse Summit in London has been cancelled.

  • I asked the team why, and received no response as of yet.

• Festival de Cannes announced eight projects as a part of the Immersive Competition.

• HTC shared its sustainability initiative across product design, logistics, and material recycling. Some results:

  • Plastic free product packaging with 100% recyclable materials.

  • 76.7% of materials of the VIVE XR Elite headsets can be recycled and reused.

• Linden Lab announced its intention to sell payments platform Tilia to Thunes.

• Monovant and NTZNS announced three virtual wristband watches for Zepeto.

• Old Dominion University, HaptX, and Georgia Tech won a grant award for a project focusing on VR for the vision-impaired.

• Spatial Computing Europe launched a competition.

• Trace, a platform that builds location-based AR spaces and run by ex-Magic Leap members, launched from stealth.

• XR Creator Con is happening in late June in Berlin.

Got a news story? Contact me with the details here.

Note: The Immersive Wire is run by Tom Ffiske, who also works within Accenture’s metaverse group. The contents of the newsletter should not be regarded as Accenture’s views.