Zuckerberg's Innovation Dilemma

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As its new company name would imply, Meta’s making a big deal about the metaverse. The company formerly known as Facebook just announced a new VR headset, the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro. It’s an expensive hunk of face hardware meant to entice users into the metaverse—an ambitious virtual realm that Mark Zuckerberg so desperately wants to make A Thing. But the supposed VR revolution still feels like it’s a long way off.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED editor at large Steven Levy joins the show to talk about Meta’s latest VR ambitions and whether Zuckerberg’s metaverse gamble will pay off.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about the Meta Quest Pro. Follow Steven Levy’s Plaintext newsletter.

Recommendations

Steven recommends the play Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard on Broadway. Lauren recommends Tap to Pay on the New York subway system and just having tap top pay everywhere, really.

Steven Levy can be found on Twitter @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Stephen Levy. Hi, Lauren. What are you doing here, hosting the gadget lab? I'm in here because you're in New York and I'm in New York. Yeah, I guess I'm more in your space this week. Well, I came here to see you and the rest of the wired folks, obviously. I mean... So what do you think of our pad here at World Trade Center? It's a very fancy building. It's very hard to get into, which we'll talk about
0:21.6	later. Well, they were suspicious of you, I could, sure. Yes, I was very suspect, and I had a
0:26.0	hard time getting into the building this morning. But we're in a very nice podcast studio, so I
0:29.4	appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, this is a state of the art here. Stephen, do you think that we could
0:33.2	just be doing this in the Metaverse? Who's Metaverse? I think that's something we should probably talk about.
0:39.5	Let's get to it.
0:46.8	Hi, everyone.
0:47.7	Welcome to Gadget Lab.
0:48.7	I'm Lauren Good.
0:49.6	I'm a senior writer at Wired, and this week, the Gadget Lab is coming to you from New York.
0:54.7	My usual co-host, Mike Kalori, is not with us this week. He is trapped in a photo studio in Los Angeles,
1:00.8	getting some fun stuff ready for Wired that you're going to see later this year. But I am here
1:05.5	with the Wired Editor at Large and Friend of the Pod, Stephen Levy. Hey, Stephen. Hi, Lauren. It's always wonderful to do
1:12.4	the gadget lab. It's really great to have you. And Mike better stop taking time off, or I shouldn't
1:16.3	say time off, but time away from the pod because eventually I'm just going to replace him.
1:19.9	But I guess we need to talk about meta again. It seems like we talk about meta so much on this
1:26.4	podcast. But this week,
1:28.2	the company formerly known as Facebook held its annual Connect conference, which is supposed to
1:34.1	get app makers and meta enthusiasts and just the general public up to speed on what the company
1:40.0	has been building. Mark Zuckerberg used the keynote address to talk all about his vision for
1:45.5	the Metaverse, the supposed next level of internet-connected experiences. It's interesting because
1:51.1	Zuckerberg has really been front and center talking about all of this, and reportedly some of
	...

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