Items tagged with Oculus
Since the start of COVID-19, people have been looking to get “out of the house” without actually going outside. As we enter the holiday season, VR can be an opportune way to do just that with minimal setup, depending on what you buy. The Oculus Quest 2 is Facebook’s standalone VR headset, and for under $400, you can get into the Quest 2 with the latest update that brings native 90Hz display support, a new fitness tracker, and more. When the Quest 2 first launched, the first significant thing promised was third-party apps getting 90Hz display support in the future. This promise was crucial to the experience of the Quest 2, as higher refresh rates make VR more palatable. With...
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In August, Facebook decided to start merging Oculus and Facebook accounts for their Oculus VR brand. Until January 1st, 2023, existing users will not need to link their accounts, but any new Oculus hardware will require a Facebook account. With the link, Facebook gets to see things such as your VR apps, friends list, and other information. If you decide that Facebook is no good and want to delete your account, you will also lose your Oculus profile, which includes all purchased games. When Facebook announced the move to merge Facebook and Oculus accounts, users found it a bit off-putting and reminisced of Google's push for its own Google+ back in the day. Just a few months later, after some people...
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In what could be a dealbreaker for some VR gamers that own Oculus devices, Facebook announced today that beginning in October, it will remove provisions that allow users to have separate Oculus and Facebook accounts. Instead, first-time Oculus device users will be required to login with a Facebook account. Facebook acquired Oculus back in 2014, and has slowly been making moves over the years to align its VR business with its mainline social networking platform. However, it's likely that people that want absolutely nothing to do with Facebook or its tendency to get its feelers into every aspect of our online life will be happy about this change. If you're already an existing Oculus hardware user...
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For anyone who is new to the world of virtual reality, the Oculus Quest starting at $399 is a sensible foray into VR. It's not crazy expensive, and it offers a wireless experience with decent all around performance. In addition, users can hook it up to a PC if they want to, and play games designed for the Rift. It's a pretty enticing headset, in other words, but what will the next version bring? Improvements all around, apparently. Before we get to that, here's a rundown of the Quest's pertinent specifications... Optics: OLED Resolution: 1440x1600 per eye Refresh Rate: 72Hz Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 RAM: 4GB Storage: 64GB or 128GB Tracking: Inside-out, six degrees of freedom (6DoF) Audio:...
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John Carmack is a legend in the gaming world best know by gamers for his work at id Software. Carmack left id to pursue a position with Oculus and work on the Oculus Rift VR headset. Carmack has announced via Facebook that starting this week he is moving into a "consulting CTO" position with Oculus. He says that he will still "have a voice in the development work" but notes that the endeavor will consume "a modest slice of my time." As for what Carmack plans to do with the remainder of his time, he intends to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI). Carmack notes that in all the things he has done in games, aerospace, and VR, he has always felt that he had "at least a vague line of sight"...
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Oculus CTO and legendary game developer, John Carmack recently went on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast where he talked about the state of augmented and virtual reality. Carmack talked a bit about Facebook's recent suggestions that the future of Insight and Guardian motion-tracking technologies is all-day wearable augmented reality glasses. He underscored that future isn't immediately on the horizon. Carmack also talked about other companies in the AR and VR space, such as Magic Leap. He said that Magic Leap has been underdelivering on its early hype. He says that technology hasn't advanced to the point yet where AR glasses can be made small enough for users to wear all day, and that Oculus could...
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Oculus launched its Oculus Quest and Rift S devices a little over two months ago. Both devices have received fairly positive reviews, but most users would like to see more content. Oculus just released new features for the Oculus Quest and Rift S, including Oculus Venues, improved tracking, and new home highlights. Oculus Quest users will now be able to participate in Oculus Venue events. Oculus Venues allows users to watch select live events in VR. This feature had previously only been available to those who owned a Oculus Go or Gear VR device. Oculus Quest users will be able to experience “full hand presence and 6DOF tracking, so you can dance to your favorite songs, cheer for your...
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VR headsets haven't taken off with the boom that many game developers and publishers expected. In fact, VR headsets have proven to be more popular with companies than consumers; for instance, Walmart grabbed 17,000 Oculus Go VR headsets for employee training. Oculus also recently announced its next-gen VR headset called the Oculus Rift S. Oculus' co-founder Nate Mitchell has said on Twitter that tens of thousands of Oculus Touch controllers shipped with bizarre Easter Egg messages hidden inside on internal hardware that are privacy related. Since the messages are inside on the hardware, you won't see them when using the controllers. The messages on final production hardware say “This Space...
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Facebook’s Oculus was one of the pioneers with respect to modern virtual reality (VR) headsets with the original Rift, and now the company is ready to deliver an evolutionary successor in the form of the Rift S. The Oculus Rift S represents a mixed bag on the specs front compared to its predecessor and was developed in conjunction with Lenovo. This time around, the maximum resolution has been bumped up slightly from 1080x1200 per eye to 1280x1440 per eye. In addition, lens quality has been improved for better optics (and less eye strain/fatigue). Pupillary distance is no longer a manual adjustment; it is now down in software according to Oculus. Interestingly though, the refresh...
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The first hints we get that new products are incoming frequently surface in software updates for existing products. A recent software update for the Oculus devices for PC users has dropped a hint that Oculus has a new headset in the works called the Rift S. Rumors suggest that the device will have better resolution than the current Oculus Rift and feature an inside-out tracking system akin to what is used on the coming Oculus Quest headset. When perusing the PC software, Upload VR says that it found a setting in the user interface code that allows PC users to select between 50Hz and 60Hz room lighting along with an option for auto-selecting between the two. The description for the setting read...
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Brendan Iribe, co-founder and former CEO of Oculus, is leaving the company to embark on whatever the next chapter in his life holds. His departure from the company that started the modern VR push (or at least gave it a major boost) creates a murky future for Oculus. Why did he leave, and how does this impact Facebook, which owns Oculus? Those are both questions he did not answer in his farewell post on Facebook. Instead, he spent most of words on praise for the team effort that "started a revolution that will change the world in ways we can't even envision." He ended the post by saying "this will be the first break I've taken in over 20 years," and that he'll use the time off to "recharge, reflect,...
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Oculus is moving swiftly along with the development of its virtual reality (VR) headsets. The company announced today that its next-generation, all-in-one VR headset will ship in Spring 2019 priced at just $399. Called the Oculus Quest, this VR headset will provide six degrees of freedom and will come with Oculus Touch wireless controllers. Oculus Quest represents the production release of the Project Santa Cruz that was first teased nearly a year ago by Facebook. The VR system supports inside-out tracking, and makes use of four ultra wide-angle sensors for real-time positioning in a virtual world (meaning that you can walk around instead of standing still). When it comes to optics,...
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Facebook has been fighting a legal battle with its Oculus arm against ZeniMax for a while now. In February 2017, Facebook's Oculus was ordered to pay ZeniMax $500 million for patent infringement. With that sort of money on the line, Facebook and Oculus appealed the decision. A new ruling in the case has been handed down and Facebook came out on top this time. The ruling sees the $500 million award given to ZeniMax halved to $250 million. U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas, TX also rejected a request by ZeniMax that sales of Oculus VR headsets be banned in the U.S. The ZeniMax and Oculus legal drama started way back in 2014 shortly after Facebook acquired the Oculus. ZeniMax at the time...
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There are many components to a fully realized virtual reality experience. The visual aspect is obviously the most important piece of the puzzle, but it's far from the only one. Accurate hand tracking is key as well. While hand tracking is pretty good in its current form on systems like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, there is room for improvement, and Oculus believes it's come up with a breakthrough of sorts. At Facebook's F8 conference this week, Maria Fernandez Guajardo, head of product management on Core Tech at Oculus, talked about a computer-vision based hand tracking system that uses a self-optimizing machine learning algorithm. According to Guajardo, this method produces hand tracking that...
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First announced back in October, Facebook today announced that it is now shipping the Oculus Go standalone wireless VR headset. Unlike the original Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive/Vive Pro, the Oculus Go doesn't require a PC and won’t limit your freedom of movement with bulky cables. The Oculus Go is also different from solutions like the Samsung Gear VR in that it doesn't require you to strap in your smartphone. Powering everything is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, which was hot stuff in the flagship smartphone world in late 2016. Paired with the SoC is 3GB of RAM and either 32GB ($199 model) or 64GB of storage ($249 model). There are no provisions for a microSD slot on the Oculus...
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Back in late July, Plex tiptoed into the world of virtual reality with the support for Google's Daydream VR platform via the Plex VR app. For those with a supported smartphone and a Daydream View VR headset, you could experience your movies and TV shows in immersive virtual reality -- complete with the "effect" of watching content in a drive-in theater environment. Now, Plex is extending its embrace of all things virtual reality to Gear VR headsets and the Oculus VR software platform. As it turns out, Plex likely intended to offer support for the Gear VR all along, but it was prompted to speed up its efforts due to eager beaver Plex users that were more than a bit jealous that only Daydream users...
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Oculus has made a big announcement at CES 2018 with the unveiling of details on its partnership with Xiaomi and Qualcomm Technologies for the Chinese market. Oculus says that the deal will "deliver the next generation of VR products at accessible prices to people worldwide." One of the fruits of that partnership won’t be for the people of the world. It will be for a standalone VR headset based on Oculus technology that is exclusive for the Chinese market. The headset is called the Mi VR Standalone, which happens to look very much like the Oculus Go that will be launched globally. There is good reason that the Mi VR Standalone and the Oculus Go look the same, they are both powered by the...
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Earlier this week, Facebook made a huge step forward in making virtual reality headsets more adorable for the enthusiast community. For the rest of the summer, the Oculus Rift and Touch bundle will cost just $399, which is a $200 discount from the usual price. However, according to a new report, Oculus is looking to drive the price down even further in the future and provide a “cord-free” VR experience. Oculus is looking to bridge the gap between cord-free headsets that rely on your smartphone to power the VR experience (a la Samsung Gear VR) and more powerful corded systems like the Rift and HTC Vive, which offer a vastly superior level of immersion. This new wireless headset will reportedly...
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ZeniMax scored a big payday as a result of its lawsuit against Oculus, ultimately winning a $500 million award from the Facebook-owned VR company and its co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe. Now ZeniMax is turning its attention to Samsung and its Gear VR headset, claiming that the company is profiting from Oculus technology that was first developed at ZeniMax. Samsung often advertises its Gear VR as being powered by Oculus, and therein lies the trouble. According to the lawsuit, Samsung either knew or should have known that the technology used in its Gear VR headset was developed at ZeniMax and misappropriated by Oculus executive John Carmack, whose company id Software was acquired by...
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Critics had a lot of good things to say about Henry, a short film based around the first original character designed for virtual reality. The protagonist is a less-than-cuddly hedgehog who is lonely and in search of friendship, and he captured the hearts of viewers. Henry ended up winning an Emmy award for Outstanding Original Interactive Program, though despite its success and that of other projects, Oculus has decided to shut down the studio that was pioneering these efforts. This will not happen overnight. Oculus said it is amidst a shift in which it is "winding down Story Studio," which it created two years ago to showcase what VR is capable of. The hope from Oculus was that Story Studio...
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Palmer Luckey is leaving Facebook. The Oculus co-founder came up with the Rift and is largely responsible for popularizing VR. Now he departs the world's largest social network three years after selling his company to Facebook. Today will be his last day on the job. Publicly, the parting of ways between Luckey and Facebook is amicable, with Facebook putting out a statement wishing him well. "Palmer will be dearly missed," Facebook said in a statement. "Palmer’s legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and build an industry. We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best."Image Source: Flickr (eVRydayVR)...
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Apple may look to the field of augmented reality to help set its upcoming iPhone 8 device apart from the competition. Perhaps just as importantly, infusing AR into the iPhone 8 would set its next flagship phone apart from previous iPhone models, a not unimportant goal after Apple faced criticism for the lack of innovation that went into designing the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. That is not to say the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are bad phones. Far from it—they're the best iPhones to date, and some would consider them the best smartphones available. But compared to previous models, Apple's latest generation iPhone devices are a bit boring. Sure, they're faster, take better photos, and sport some...
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