Meta is a Silicon Valley company known for making augmented reality products. Their products include the Meta 1 Developer Kit and the Meta 2 Development Kit. They combine real world technology with holographic images, and unlike the Oculus Rift, which is completely virtual, Meta is still transparent and the real world can still be seen.It was founded by Meron Gribetz. Gribetz thought of starting Meta while studying neuroscience and computer science at Columbia University under tutelage of Steven Feiner. 

Virtual reality has gone by many other names besides virtual environments. Other terms for virtual reality include cyberspace (a word invented by science fiction author William Gibson), artificial reality, augmented reality and telepresence.

With the Meta 2 Development Kit, you can grab, touch, and move digital objects – “holograms” – just like you do in the real world. 

It’s the most intuitive way to access digital content and fundamentally changes the way people collaborate, communicate, and engage with information and each other. Using natural hand motions means people don’t have to rely on clicks or buttons to manipulate holograms. They stay connected to the content, to each other, and the moment.

On May 17, 2013, Meta launched a crowdfunded Kick starter campaign which successfully resulted in 501 backers pledging $194,444 out of a $100,000 goal. The summer of 2013 provided Meta the honored acceptance to Y Combinatorics seed accelerator program. Around this time, Meta brought Steve Mann on as Chief Scientist providing the company with advice and guidance.

CNBC identifies its main competitors as Vuzix and Recon Instruments rather than Google Glass. Their initial demographic will be business use, such as product engineers and architects.

A few weeks ago, our CEO Meron Gribetz revealed his vision for the future of augmented reality on the TED stage. His talk, which highlighted the new Meta 2 Development Kit, mesmerized hundreds of thought leaders and media representatives from around the world. Meron Gribetz previewed the technology in a talk he gave at TED conference, laying out his vision for Meta’s neuroscience-based approach to computing. Meta is “creating an experience that merges the art of user interface design with the science of the brain, creating ‘natural machines’ that feel like extensions of ourselves rather than the other way around.”

Some of the key points made in the TED talk:

• In the next few years, humanity is going to go through a shift. We’re going to start putting an entire layer of digital information on the real world… [creating a] new reality in a way that extends the human experience instead of gamifying our reality or cluttering it with digital information.
• [Our tools] should extend our bodies. We should use “natural machines” that use the principles of neuroscience to extend our senses versus going against them.We use neuroscience to drive our design guidelines… and the principle we all revolve around is called The Neural Path of Least Resistance™. We’re trying to create a zero learning curve computer… a system that you’ve always known how to use.

Developers have discovered that users feel a stronger sense of telepresence when interaction is easy and interesting, even if the VE isn't photorealistic, whereas very realistic environments that lack opportunities for interaction cause users to lose interest relatively quickly.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF TED TALK- Here !

"Meta At TED 2016 - Meta Blog". Meta Blog. N.p., 2016. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.