(Headline USA) Apple appears poised to unveil a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world.
Apple is expected to unveil a pair of goggles — perhaps called “Reality Pro,” according to media leaks — at Apple’s annual developers conference in Cupertino, California, on Monday.
Apple’s goggles are expected to be sleekly designed and capable of toggling between totally virtual or augmented options, a blend sometimes known as “mixed reality.”
That flexibility also is sometimes called external reality, or XR for shorthand.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been describing these alternate three-dimensional realities as the metaverse.
Apple executives seem likely to avoid referring to the metaverse, given the skepticism that has quickly developed around that term, when they discuss the potential of the company’s new headset.
In recent years, Apple CEO Tim Cook has periodically touted augmented reality as technology’s next quantum leap, while not setting a specific timeline for when it will gain mass appeal.
“If you look back in a point in time, you know, zoom out to the future and look back, you’ll wonder how you led your life without augmented reality,” Cook, who is 62, said last September while speaking to an audience of students in Italy. “Just like today you wonder how did people like me grow up without the internet. You know, so I think it could be that profound. And it’s not going to be profound overnight.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
