Facebook parent Meta has opened its first physical store — in Burlingame, California — to showcase its hardware products like virtual and augmented reality goggles and glasses.
The store, which is open to the public as of Monday, is made for people who want to test out products like Ray-Ban Stories, Meta's AR glasses and sunglasses, along with the Portal video calling gadget and Oculus virtual reality headsets.
Shoppers still have to order the glasses from Ray-Ban but can buy the other products at the store.
"It's a very concrete step from moving away from social media and ads that mislead people and elections and spying and data and all those things to a very physical representation of clean, classy, well-designed, cool hardware that makes you go, ah," said Omar Akhtar, research director at Altimeter, a technology investment firm.
Akhtar said he "didn't believe in virtual reality" until he sat and tried on the Oculus headset for the first time — and believes this will be the same for others who are able to put on the goggles and try it out. Apple pioneered physical retail stores in Silicon Valley and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, is likely hoping it'll replicate at least some of that success.
"The truth of it is that physical things never went away and they're never going to go away," Akhtar said. "Everybody realizes that even if we are going to step into the virtual world, we're going to need to access it with hardware."
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More