The social media behemoth Meta announced on April 15 that it is expanding its corporate-level Quest services into the education space.
According to Statista, the company’s Quest virtual reality (VR) headsets are now “by far the most popular extended reality (XR) headsets on the market.” By the end of 2024, the industry is predicted to have more than 34 million installed units.
If that forecast comes to pass, the virtual reality industry would have grown at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 27.3% since 2020, when Statista estimates that there were 14.2 million installed VR users worldwide.
Meta has introduced a plethora of services and solutions targeted at the enterprise metaverse industry to hold onto its leading position. The turn demonstrated a move away from customized user experiences like games and one-of-a-kind immersive settings.
Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, says in a blog post, “Later this year Meta will be launching a new product offering for Quest devices dedicated to education.”
He added, “It will allow teachers, trainers and administrators to access a range of education-specific apps and features and make it possible for them to manage multiple Quest devices at once, without the need for each device in a classroom or training environment to be updated and prepared individually.”
The new product will be unveiled “in the coming months,” with a complete launch scheduled for the end of 2024. It will be accessible in the Quest for Business market, which encompasses the majority of European, Australian, Canadian, Japanese, New Zealand, and American regions, according to the blog post.
Meta provided numerous instances of educational institutions that are already using Quest headsets: the University of Glasgow’s life sciences course, which immerses students in the human body; New Mexico State’s criminal justice course, which puts users in a virtual crime scene; and Stanford University’s business class, which helps students prepare for interviews.
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