FacebookOn Thursday, it announced the change of its name to Meta.

This name change was revealed at the Facebook Connect conference in augmented and virtual realities.

Facebook will launch July 11. announced the formation of a team that would work on the metaverse, a classic sci-fi term Facebook has adopted to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world. A couple of months later, Facebook announced it would make Andrew Boz Bosworth, currently head for Facebook’s hardware, the new CEO. role of chief technology officer in 2022 It also contains a third-quarter earnings resultsThe company made Monday the announcement that Facebook Reality Labs (its hardware division) would be merged into its reporting segment. This will take effect in the fourth quarter.

Zuckerberg stated that while we may be seen today as a social media company but our DNA is a company that creates technology to connect people. The metaverse, Zuckerberg added, “is the next frontier, just like social networking when we started,” 

The company has increased its hardware efforts over the years. It launched a new line of Portal video-calling devices and Ray-Ban Stories glasses. Oculus also released various Oculus virtual-reality headset versions. According to the company, augmented reality and virtual reality will play a major role in its future strategy.

Facebook stated this week that the company would invest approximately $10 billion in the coming year to develop the technologies necessary for the creation of the metaverse.

On Thursday, Zuckerberg also demonstrated the company’s vision for the metaverse.

This demo showed a Pixar-like animated demonstration of the software that the company plans to develop one day. Users were shown interacting with space in cartoon-like avatars of their own or as fantastical characters such as robots. 

While Zuckerberg stated that much of the work is far away, he said it is being done. Zuckerberg predicts that elements of the metaverse will be mainstream within five to ten years. Zuckerberg said that the company plans to invest “many billions of dollars over years” before the metaverse can reach scale.

Zuckerberg declared that “we believe meta verse will be a successor to the mobile Internet.”

Project Cambria, a virtual reality headset from the company was also revealed by Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg announced that Project Cambria will be the first high-end device available in the “higher price range” and will launch next year.

This rebranding comes as the company dealt with an avalanche of news stories over the past month. Frances Haugen is a whistleblower and former employee who released hundreds of company documents to media outlets, legislators, regulators.

The reportsFacebook clearly acknowledges the dangers of its services and apps, yet doesn’t address the problems or is unable to fix them. Over the next few weeks, more documents will be posted daily.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vigorously denied Monday’s criticisms of news articles based on Frances Haugen, a whistleblower who obtained troves of documents within the company.