Facebook parent company Meta disbands the “XROS” team and no longer develops a unified customized operating system.
On February 26, it was reported that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has disbanded the team that developed the operating system for the company’s virtual reality and augmented reality devices , and has transferred some engineers to the augmented reality glasses project and the Oculus virtual reality device project .
It is reported that Meta’s team of about 300 people develop operating systems for virtual reality and augmented reality devices . It was previously reported that Meta had stopped projects to develop custom operating systems for virtual and augmented reality devices, but the company denied this at the time .
In January of this year, it was reported that Meta was cancelling the ongoing “XROS” project. But Gabriel Aul, vice president of Meta’s Reality Labs, said on Twitter that the company was “expanding the team, not shrinking it,” with a link to a page for Meta’s job postings. Gabriel Aul also said that Meta “is still developing a highly specialized operating system for our devices.”
Meta spokeswoman Sheeva Slovan said on Friday that Meta hopes to “accelerate development” by “embedding more operating system engineers directly into the augmented and virtual reality device teams.” excellent solution”. This shows that Meta’s current strategy is to prioritize each team individually customizing the operating system for the project in hand, rather than having one team develop a unified new software platform.
Some engineers on the XROS team have reportedly been transferred to teams working on augmented reality glasses or the Quest virtual reality headset. There are also engineers who have been transferred to develop other mixed reality technologies such as hand-eye tracking using computer vision technology. According to the report, it is unclear where each employee of the XROS team will ultimately go.
This team change is also due to the recent changes in Meta’s overall image. The company has changed its name to focus on the “metaverse” business and plans to develop a virtual world involving a plethora of virtual reality and augmented reality products. Meta also recently revamped its corporate culture, telling employees to “move fast together” and “focus on long-term impact.”
Currently, virtual reality devices like the Oculus Quest 2 use an Android-based operating system. It’s unclear exactly what the upcoming VR headset, Project Cambria, will look like, but given the tweaks the XROS team is working on, it seems unlikely that the new OS will be released alongside Meta’s next-generation VR headset.
“We’ve been optimizing our team structure to get great products to market quickly,” Slovan said. “By moving more OS engineers directly into AR and VR teams, we can speed up development for each Product line tuning solutions. As we said before, although we have several technical directions in the development of the operating system, we are still committed to developing highly specialized systems. We will continue to invest and optimize to Accelerate the pace of action to achieve the aggressive goals set.”
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