Meta Unveils New Mixed Reality Headset in Push for Traction on Metaverse
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Meta Unveils New Mixed Reality Headset in Push for Traction on Metaverse

Facebook-parent also showcases AI assistants for social apps, new Ray-Ban smart glasses

By SALVADOR RODRIGUEZ
Thu, Sep 28, 2023 8:04amGrey Clock 3 min

Facebook parent Meta Platforms on Wednesday announced the release date of its coming Quest 3 mixed-reality headset and new Ray-Ban smart glasses along with a bevy of AI assistants for its social apps.

“The limits of your physical space are going to be able to expand,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said when announcing the new products. “You’re going to be able to be a part of much larger worlds.”

The company is hoping the devices will jump-start its push to bring users into the so-called metaverse, an effort on which it has spent billions of dollars and seen limited returns. Apple is set to release its Vision Pro headset in 2024, years after Zuckerberg renamed the company in an attempt to focus on what he’s said may be the next emerging computing platform.

The Quest 3 will place an emphasis on the ability for users to work or play in apps that overlay virtual objects within users’ physical spaces, Zuckerberg said. The headset will begin shipping to users on Oct. 10, with preorders for the $499 device starting on Wednesday. Zuckerberg said the device will place emphasis on the ability for users to work or play in apps that project virtual objects within users’ physical spaces.

Zuckerberg said the company designed the device to have the “world’s best immersive content library.” As part of the presentation, Zuckerberg showed a demonstration of a Lego game and announced that Meta has joined with Microsoft to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to the device in December. Additionally, Microsoft 365 will come to the Quest by the end of the year, Zuckerberg said.

The Quest 3 “is going to be the best value spatial computing headset on the market for a long time to come,” said Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, adding that the device features no wires or a battery pack, a shot at Apple’s Vision Pro device. That headset will cost $3,499.

Meta will also release the second generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses on Oct. 17 for $299. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that the devices would arrive as soon as this fall.

The second generation Ray-Ban smart glasses will allow users to livestream their perspective to their followers. The new smart glasses will include a 36-hour battery life and will be available in more Ray-Ban models than its predecessor.

The device will also come equipped with Meta AI, an artificial-intelligence assistant announced by Zuckerberg on Wednesday. Users will also be able to point at objects or landmarks they are looking at and ask Meta AI for information about it.

“Smart glasses are the ideal form factor to let an AI assistant see what you’re seeing and hear what you’re hearing,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta AI is built on the company’s Llama 2 large-language model and is a general purpose AI assistant that can answer user questions within Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Meta AI will be able to provide users with real-time information through a partnership with Microsoft Bing, Zuckerberg said.

Additionally, Meta announced that it will also release 28 AI chatbots that users will be able to interact with. Meta joined with a number of celebrities, including Tom Brady, Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg, whose faces provide facial expressions as users interact with the chatbots. The Journal had previously reported that Meta would release AI chatbots with personalities.

“This is our first effort at training a bunch of AIs that are a bit more fun,” Zuckerberg said, adding that they will have a number of limitations that will become apparent to users.

Zuckerberg said the AI chatbots will be released in a limited beta mode on Wednesday.

In addition to the chatbots, Zuckerberg announced EMU, an AI model capable of taking users’ text prompts and turning them into images within five seconds. EMU, which won’t be open sourced, will be integrated within Meta AI and will roll out to English-speaking users over the next month, starting on Wednesday. The image-generating model will allow users to create custom stickers they can send to friends, and it will also allow users to edit their images on Instagram next month, Zuckerberg said.

—Meghan Bobrowsky contributed to this article.



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Australia’s Top 10 Property Influencers of 2026

From auction floors to TikTok — the professionals who made property education a public good

By Kanebridge News Editorial
Fri, Aug 14, 2026 6 min

Australian property has always been a national obsession, but the way Australians learn about it has changed fundamentally. Where previous generations relied on a real estate agent’s advice and a bank manager’s approval, today’s buyers and investors are walking into the market with suburb-by-suburb data, auction strategy insights and valuation knowledge that would have required a professional consultation five years ago.

The ten creators on this list are the reason why. What distinguishes them from the broader landscape of property content is not their following size but the professional substance behind what they publish. Most have spent years doing the work, valuing, buying, negotiating, financing, before they ever picked up a camera. The audience can feel that difference, even when they cannot articulate it.

Today’s buyers are walking into the market with knowledge that would have required a professional consultation five years ago. These ten creators are the reason why.

1 –Tom Panos: Founder, Real Estate Gym

Photo: Tom Panos

Tom Panos is the highest-profile real estate trainer in Australia, which is a distinction earned over more than two decades of working directly with agents, auctioneers and principals across the country. The content he publishes, on auction strategy, market psychology, agent mindset and the mechanics of negotiation, is backed by a career that predates social media by years.

What makes his presence exceptional is that he speaks to both sides of the transaction simultaneously. Agents follow him for craft. Buyers and investors follow him for intelligence. It is a rare position, and it explains why his audience has grown consistently through every market condition since he began publishing.

2 – Belinda Botzolis: Certified Practising Valuer; Founder, “The Valuer”

Photo: Belinda Botzolis, Add Valuer

The gap that Belinda Botzolis identified and occupied is one that, in retrospect, seems obvious: professional property valuation, made accessible on social media. With seventeen years of practice as a Certified Practising Valuer, more than 15,000 individual property valuations completed, and over $12 billion in real estate assessed, she brought to social media something most content creators in this space cannot fake, a professional opinion.

The response has been significant. Over 20 million TikTok views for valuation content is not an accident. It reflects an audience that has long wanted access to qualified property analysis and found it, for the first time, without having to pay for a report.

3 – George Markoski: Founder, Positive Property

Photo: George Markoski, Positive Property

The credibility order matters in property investment content. George Markoski built a portfolio of more than 100 investment properties and retired at thirty-seven on passive income before he built a social media following. That sequencing, wealth first, content second, is the foundation of why his audience trusts him with decisions that carry six and seven-figure consequences.

His content covers RBA decisions, APRA changes and property cycles with the kind of strategic depth that comes from having navigated them personally. He is not forecasting the market from a position of theory. He is reporting from a position of ownership.

4 – Ravi Sharma: Founder, Search Property

Photo: Ravi Sharma, Finance with Ravi

Ravi Sharma‘s differentiator is structural: he runs an actual buyer’s agency. The suburb analyses, growth projections and investment frameworks he publishes on YouTube and social media are not constructed for content, they are the methodology his business uses to advise paying clients on real transactions. With more than 114,000 YouTube subscribers and a Bachelor of Business in Real Estate, his content sits at the intersection of professional advice and public education.

The result is content that reads like genuine analysis rather than commentary, because in most cases it is.

5 – Damien Cooley: Director, Cooley Auctions

Photo: Damian Cooley, Cooley Auctions

Damien Cooley has called more auctions on live television than almost anyone in the country, a five-time premiere auctioneer on The Block, and 2015 Auctioneer of the Year. As Director of Cooley Auctions, his authority comes from decades on the rostrum in front of real buyers and real stakes, not from a studio.

His social presence extends that same on-the-ground credibility online, breaking down auction strategy and market sentiment for an audience that wants to understand the mechanics of a sale, not just the result.

6 – Ella Cas: Buyer’s Agent

Photo: Ella Cas

As a buyer’s agent operating across Melbourne and its surrounding suburbs, Ella Cas brings professional transaction experience to a TikTok presence that covers market trends, price predictions and first home buyer strategy in the Victorian market. What distinguishes her content from general property commentary is its specificity: she is talking about markets she works in, for outcomes she is paid to deliver.

For Melbourne buyers navigating one of Australia’s most competitive property environments, that local professional knowledge, delivered in an accessible format, is exactly the kind of content that earns genuine audience loyalty.

7 – Gavin Rubinstein: Founder, The Rubinstein Group at Ray White TPG

Photo: Gavin Rubeinstein, The Rubeinstein Group

Gavin Rubinstein built The Rubinstein Group at Ray White TPG into one of Sydney’s highest-performing individual real estate practices, and his Instagram engagement outranks every major franchise account in the country. That distinction matters: he is not a media personality who sells property, he is a top-performing agent whose content reflects live transactions in one of Australia’s most competitive markets.

For buyers and sellers trying to understand how Sydney’s top end actually moves, his day-to-day content is closer to a transaction diary than a highlight reel.

8 – Robbo Roper: Mortgage expert & home buyer connector

Photo: Robbo Roper

Robbo Roper‘s content sits at the junction of property aspiration and mortgage reality, which is precisely where most first home buyers get stuck. As a mortgage expert and home buyer connector, he publishes short-form video that walks Australian buyers through the finance side of property ownership: what to expect from a broker, how to prepare for a loan application, what the common mistakes look like.

His placement in Favikon’s Top 20 Australian real estate influencers for 2025 reflects an audience that is not just watching but acting, the kind of content engagement that distinguishes an education account from an entertainment one.

9 – Michael Biviano: Property developer; business coach & real estate strategist

Photo: Michael Biviano, Bivcorp

Michael Biviano built his platform on the strategy side of the business, working as a speaker, business coach and property developer before turning that experience into content for agents and investors navigating the industry. His focus sits less on individual listings and more on the frameworks behind sustainable success in real estate.

That distinction, teaching the business of property rather than just showcasing it, is what places him among the professionals worth following rather than just watching.

10 – Consulting by PK: Investment property educator

The property content space has no shortage of people telling audiences what to buy. What is rarer, and more valuable, is someone teaching them how to decide. Consulting by PK builds investment theses from actual data: top 5 per cent growth property analysis, cashflow modelling, suburb research methodology, the frameworks behind the conclusions rather than just the conclusions themselves.

With more than 60,000 YouTube subscribers, the audience that follows this content is a specific and self-selecting one, investors who want to understand the process, not just receive the output. That is a harder audience to build and a more durable one.

What this list reflects, taken together, is a professionalisation of property content in Australia. The era of anonymous property spruikers making market predictions without credentials or accountability is being displaced, slowly, but measurably, by practitioners who are willing to put their professional reputation behind what they publish. That is good for the industry. It is better for the buyers.

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