On May 9 local time, meta store, the world's first flagship store of meta universe hardware, which was widely expected, finally opened for business! Meta (formerly known as Facebook) located the address of its first store directly below its office building - not the headquarters of Menlo Park, but the new office building of its virtual / augmented reality team meta reality labs in Burlingame: Image source: spectrum | silicon star man Silicon star people came to the door of meta store early in the morning. There is still time before 11 a.m. opening time, but the line at the door has lined up at the corner: Image source: spectrum | silicon star man The team moved slowly, so the silicon star people walked around first. It has to be said that the office location of meta reality labs is really strong: the surrounding scenery is very beautiful. You can look around the whole San Francisco Bay Area in less than a minute from the building: Image source: spectrum | silicon star man Although the mask orders in most parts of the United States have been de facto lifted, the requirements of meta store for store employees are still very high. During the silicon star people waiting in line, shop assistants (blue T-shirts on the left of the figure below) often come to ask each customer whether they have an appointment, whether they need bottled water, etc., and wear masks all the way. Image source: spectrum | silicon star man What's funny is that when everyone was waiting in line, the friend in little blue man's clothes walked up and down the crowded aisle, and sometimes went to the Reuters reporter next to him to "grab the camera" and turned a blind eye to the surrounding police and meta security An uncle in front of me shouted to the little blue man: Hey mark, is that you? Zuckerberg, is that you Image source: spectrum | silicon star man In fact, the silicon star man met him when he was looking for a parking space. At first, I thought he was a meta employee because he asked me if I had an appointment and "respectfully" led the silicon star man to the door of the store. At that time, I wondered if the company was blind It is worth mentioning that this guy does speak a bit like Zuckerberg. Later, the silicon star man talked to the security guard and confirmed that he was not a meta employee! The security guard said he should be a demonstrator. He often wandered under the meta office building at lunchtime since last week. The bravery of the little blue man drew applause from the crowd, including me. He compared the "Vulcan raise his hand" (from Star Trek) and shouted, "I hope you have a good time in the meta store! I'm sure you can't have a good time in the meta universe!" Image source: spectrum | silicon star man In the laughter of interacting with the little blue man, the silicon star man finally came to the front of the line. A clerk told Sixing people that due to the requirements of the company's epidemic prevention policy, there can only be 20 people in the store with an area of less than 150 square meters at the same time. When entering the store, the first thing you see is the two core products of the current meta Hardware Department: VR head display Quest 2 and video phone device portal Image source: spectrum | silicon star man Meta universe head display Quest 2 As an important layout for the company to enter the retail field of metauniverse, the offline stores of meta store must put the head of metauniverse in the most important position. Quest 2 is the flagship hardware product launched by meta for consumers, with a price of up to $299! The price includes standard headband, two matching handles and two AA batteries. Image source: spectrum | silicon star man Source: meta Meta store also provides a live demonstration experience in the store. Customers can wear Quest 2 and experience various well-known VR games and applications including beat saber, fishing, supernatural, etc. on a huge open field. Unfortunately, this demo needs to make an appointment to register. When the silicon star people register, they have been scheduled for the next day... So they can only watch others play. Image source: spectrum | silicon star man However, it doesn't matter: Juny, a reporter of silicon star people, recently bought a Quest 2 head display and started to evaluate horizon world, a full set of experience products of meta universe. According to her evaluation report, although the game playing method of horizon world is too single and the social experience is a little "awkward", as the first consumer grade meta universe product on the market, its experience is still very novel and impressive. In addition to the Quest 2 ontology, the meta store also displayed peripheral products developed by itself and third-party partners, such as advanced headband, Logitech headset, and charging / display base launched by Anker: Image source: spectrum | silicon star man Meta Portal According to the staff of meta store, since the outbreak in 2020, the company has distributed portal devices to almost all qualified employees, making it more convenient for them to stay at home / work remotely. With the gradual normalization of home office, more and more people use portal, and the product sales have increased steadily. Today, portal has developed into a family of four different products: The standard version of portal10 "and the built-in battery can hold the portal go used while walking in the house (below) Image source: spectrum | silicon star man There is also a 14 inch portal plus: Image source: spectrum | silicon star man And portal TV that can be plugged into any TV HDMI interface to turn the TV into an intelligent communication terminal: Image source: spectrum | silicon star man This time, the first offline store opened grandly, and portal naturally became one of the core products displayed. At the store site, as long as the other party has suitable apps such as Facebook messenger and WhatsApp, customers can start directly and make video calls to their families with the portals device in the store. In order to celebrate the opening of the physical store, the official also launched the portal promotion plan: from May 8 to 21, the price of two portal devices purchased online or in the physical store can be directly reduced by $100. One more thing: smart glasses! The smart glasses stories jointly developed by meta and ray ban, together with the head display and portal, constitute the "troika" of the meta store. Image source: spectrum | silicon star man The concept of smart glasses is not new. Previously, Google glass and snapchat spectra were similar products that attracted much attention. For meta and ray ban, the design concept of stories does not emphasize on the cool label of smart glasses, but makes it more low-key and grounded, and helps users more easily capture and share the beautiful details of life. There is a small button on the right leg of the glasses. You can directly start shooting the video with one click. Press it for a long time (about half a second) to take photos. Image source: spectrum | silicon star man It is worth mentioning that I found that ray ban stories is different from other brands of smart glasses we have seen before. There are two cameras. Silicon Star asked clerk whether these two cameras have any exclusive functions, and answer was No. However, the clerk said that when shooting / photographing, the glasses will "fuse" the materials of the two lenses in order to make the final picture closer to the binocular vision of the human eye. To be honest, I don't feel the difference between the picture and the ordinary monocular camera... But anyway, the dual camera still has some advantages in the technical prospect. For example, there may be supporting applications in the future, which can read detailed and accurate depth information from the dual camera picture, making more functions possible. (at least today, stories dual photography doesn't have such a function.) Image source: spectrum | silicon star man In terms of style, stories also adopts three classic styles of ray ban: wayfarer, meteor and round. In terms of lenses and coatings, ray ban officially provides a version of sunglasses ($299) and a version of color changing lenses ($379). In addition, the clerk also told me that professional optometry institutions in the United States, including Kaiser Permanente, have also supported stories glasses. Consumers can rest assured that they will not damage the frame. Photo source: Lei Peng Image source: spectrum | silicon star man Unfortunately, this glasses is the only one of the three major products promoted by meta this time, which is not sold through meta's own channels. If you want to buy stories, you need to buy them on leipeng's official website (however, meta also provides small cards printed with QR code in the store, and customers can scan the code to jump to the purchase page of leipeng's official website.) Since Facebook was renamed meta last year, the company has undoubtedly "all in" metauniverse. According to meta, the concept of "digital life" may no longer exist in the future - because at that time, a large part of people's daily life will take place in the virtual space of the so-called meta universe, and the boundary between digital life and real life will become more and more blurred. Under such a premise, meta actually opened an offline and physical store, which is really a little surprising. One of the most obvious reasons for opening a store is to get user feedback. For meta reality labs, which works just above the store, this physical store provides a closer channel for the team to get user feedback. They only need to go downstairs and stay in the store for a while, so they can directly observe how users use quest and metauniverse products, and have any opinions and suggestions on these products and technologies. Of course, for meta, the ultimate purpose of offline this time is to help them further design retail strategies suitable for the future meta universe era. Martin Gilliard, the head of meta store, said that the significance of the store is not to sell the concept of meta universe, but to provide people with a channel to contact the meta universe and improve their understanding of it. "In the meta store, we hope consumers can pick up the products and feel them for themselves." Gilliard said, "only when people experience technology first-hand can they have a deeper understanding of it. I hope today's customers will tell their relatives and friends when they go back that our store is cool and worth taking time to visit - that means we're doing the right thing." (Xinhua News Agency)