All Mode
Meta may have only recently released two advanced VR headsets, Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3, but it’s hardly resting on those laurels. Instead, Meta forges ahead with something it has termed, at least for the time being, “Mirror Lake.”
Magic Mirror
The looming challenge from Apple Vision Pro has undoubtedly spurred on Meta to push comparable technology to the forefront of its development agenda. Reverse passthrough is one major feature currently known to be part of Mirror Lake. Allowing a video rendering of a user’s eyes to appear on the external front panel of a headset, reverse passthrough supports the importance of eyes in human communication. The result of effective reverse passthrough would likely be less confusion and disruption when communicating in person with someone wearing a headset.
A user’s eyes are visible to the outside world in this official render of Meta’s Mirror Lake. [Image: Meta]
“Instead of sending light through a lens, we send it through a holograph of a lens. And holographs are basically recordings of what happens when light hits something. So just like a holograph is much flatter than the thing itself, holographic optics are much flatter than the lenses that they model, but they affect incoming light in pretty much the same way. So, it’s a pretty neat hack.” – Mark Zuckerberg, 2022
The Holocake 2 research prototype features the same lens design concept as Mirror Lake. [Image: Meta]
Turing Tested Tech
Sneak peek images of in-development devices often come from third-party leaks. Mirror Lake is already proving a little different in that regard, with Senior Meta staff showing off a 3D render of the device during a recent talk. ‘How to Pass the Visual Turing Test in AR/VR’ was presented by Meta Reality Labs Senior Director of Display Systems Research, Douglas Lanman to Wyant College of Optical Sciences and featured the render in a brief video clip. Although a far cry from a finished product demo, the Mirror Lake render looked impressively lifelike.
Active prototype devices, like this one demonstrating reserve passthrough, are never as slim and sexy as Meta’s render of Mirror Lake. [Image: Meta]
Although many of these technologies are not entirely new revelations from Meta, having been part of various prototype devices, Mirror Lake is said to be aiming for a more practical application. As such, the design of a physical device needs plenty of time and attention. Just how long before Mirror Lake will eventuate and land on user’s heads remains to be seen but it could easily be a few years yet.
Very cool!
I can’t wait to see if this comes to fruition.