LG Electronics and Meta have today announced a collaboration on extended reality (XR) devices, and it appears that LG's webOS will play a role in the partnership.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg signed the deal today in Seoul, South Korea, together with LG CEO William Cho and Park Hyoung-sei, president of the Home Entertainment Company, according to a press release.
LG stated that the new collaboration is part of its 2030 vision to transition from a conventional hardware manufacturer to a 'Smart Life Solution' company, with new revenue streams from services, ads, and more.
- "We see opportunities for next-gen personal devices in the XR business arena," said William Cho, LG Electronics CEO.
webOS apps in Meta Quest?
Today's press release did not provide details, but there was one intriguing hint:
- "LG envisions that by bringing together Meta’s platform with its own content/service capabilities from its TV business, a distinctive ecosystem can be forged in the XR domain, which is one of the company’s new business areas. Moreover, the fusion of Meta’s diverse core technological elements with LG’s cutting-edge product and quality capabilities promises significant synergies in next-gen XR device development," the press release said.
Last weekend, Korean newspaper Korea Economic Daily reported that one of the main topics of this week's meeting was to discuss how LG's webOS could be integrated as part of the Quest headsets.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with LG's William Cho, CEO, and Park Hyoung-sei, president of Home Entertainment, at the LG Twin Towers in Yeouido, Seoul. Photo: Companies
Quest's weak media support
While webOS is unlikely to replace Meta's Android fork as the operating system, it would make sense to somehow implement webOS apps. The Quest headsets have a fair selection of VR games but lack good streaming apps.
For example, the Netflix app is not actually developed by Netflix and is limited to 480p resolution.
To strengthen Quest as a video consumption device, Meta would also need to switch from LCD to OLED displays and adopt newer 3D 4K video codecs such as HV-HEVC Main10, which is currently exclusive to the Apple Vision Pro.
All this would require new hardware and the press release makes it clear that the collaboration concerns "next-gen" devices.
Meanwhile, LG expressed interest in "Meta’s large language models and its potential for on-device AI integration."
