News from Financial Union (Shanghai, edited by A Le)Facebook announced on Thursday thatWill change the company name to "Meta".

The name change, announced at the "Facebook Connect 2021" augmented and virtual reality event, reflects the social media company's ambitions for the "Metaverse." Facebook has adopted this classic sci-fi term to describe its vision of working and playing in virtual worlds.

"Today, we're usually known as a social media company, but in our DNA, we're a company that builds technology to connect people," Zuckerberg said in the video. The meta-universe is the next frontier, just like we built social networks."

The company also changed its ticker symbol from "FB" to "MVRS" effective Dec. 1, according to the announcement.

In July, Facebook announced the formation of a team dedicated to the development of the metasverse. Two months later, the company said it would promote Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, currently head of the company's hardware division, to cTO in 2022. In its third-quarter earnings release on Monday, the company announced the spin-off of Facebook Reality Labs into a separate unit, starting in the fourth quarter.

Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in his letter on Thursday,"We hope that in the next decade, a billion people will have access to the metasomes, becoming a digital industry for hundreds of billions of dollars and providing jobs for millions of creators and developers."

(Photo source: screenshot of live broadcast)

Over the past few years, Facebook has ramped up its hardware efforts with its Portal line of video calling devices, Ray-Ban Stories glasses, and various versions of the Oculus virtual reality headset. The company says augmented and virtual reality will be a key part of its strategy for the next few years, spending about $10 billion over the next year to develop the technology needed to build the metasverse.

Mr. Zuckerberg on Thursday also provided an animated demonstration of the company's metasomes ambitions.In the animation, users can interact with each other in the metasemes as avatars of their own making.

(Photo source: screenshot of live broadcast)

Much of this is still far off, Mr. Zuckerberg said, but the company is already working on it. He predicted thatThe meta-universe could become mainstream in the next five to 10 years."We believe that metacarspace will inherit the mobile Internet."

The company also announced a new virtual reality headset called Project Cambria. Mr. Zuckerberg said the device would be a high-end, more expensive product and would be released next year.

Facebook also announced that its first fully AR enabled smart glasses will be codenamed Project Nasaray. The company did not say when the glasses would be released. "We still have a way to go with Nasaray, but we're making good progress," Zuckerberg said.

(Facebook Hour photo: Tradingview)

Facebook shares rose intraday Thursday, up 3.39% at $323.33.