Category: meta quest

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Meta Quest 2 Is Already Replacing Oculus Quest 2 Branding

A week on from its Connect conference, Meta is moving ahead with rebranding the Oculus Quest 2 as the Meta Quest 2.

In last week’s keynote, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Meta is the new corporate company name for Facebook. Almost all individual services under the company’s umbrella, including Whatapp, Instagram and the actual Facebook social platform itself will keep their names. But, just after the keynote, Meta’s Andrew Bosworth revealed that the Oculus brand covering VR products and services would start to be switched out with Meta branding. Bosworth explained that “you’ll start to see the shift from Oculus Quest from Facebook to Meta Quest and Oculus App to Meta Quest App over time.”

Turns out “over time” was just over a week – the Meta Quest 2 branding is already featured prominently in a new blog post on the official Oculus webpage. Confused yet?

Meta Quest 2 Promo Art

The post outlines a new installation at Downtown Disney District at the Disneyland Resort showcasing Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge on the “Meta Quest 2.” Promotional art for the installation seen above also carries the Meta Quest 2 logo despite the fact that the Oculus icon is front and center of the art. Unfortunately, we can’t make out if the logo on the Quest headset itself is for Oculus or Meta. But if you try and buy a Quest 2 at the top of the same page, it’s still branded as the Oculus Quest 2 for now.

The intro to the post reads: “Meta Quest and ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s award-winning immersive entertainment studio, are offering a special Quest 2 preview” of the game. It later adds that “This type of event is a first-ever for Meta Quest at the Disneyland Resort”.

It seems like this change is happening pretty rapidly heading into the holiday season, then. What do you make of the Meta Quest 2 branding? Let us know in the comments below!

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Application SpaceWarp: 70% mehr Performance auf Oculus Quest

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In der kommenden Woche wird die Quest ein neues Feature erhalten, welches den Namen Application SpaceWarp trägt. Hierbei können Anwendungen mit der halben Framerate ausgespielt werden und sollen dennoch flüssig dargestellt werden.

Application SpaceWarp: 70% mehr Performance auf Oculus Quest

Durch ASW (Application Space Warp) wird für jedes echte Bild ein plausibles nächstes Bild generiert. Somit können Anwendungen und Spiele auf der Quest 1 beispielsweise mit 36 FPS ausgespielt und in 72 FPS dargestellt werden. Die Quest 2 könnte somit mit 60 FPS bereits 120 FPS darstellen.

Laut Meta soll ASW bis zu 70% mehr Leistung zur Verfügung stellen, ohne das Spielgefühl negativ zu beeinträchtigen. Zudem sollen nahezu keine Artefakte beim Verwenden der Technologie auftreten, da die Daten für die Schätzung nun eine deutlich höhere Qualität hätten. Diese sollen nun direkt von der Game Engine kommen.

Application SpaceWarp wird voraussichtlich am 8. November mit dem neuen Oculus SDK erscheinen. Eine Verwendung ist jedoch nur mit einer Scriptable Render Pipeline möglich.

(Quelle: Upload VR)

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Quest 2 Can Now Label Keyboards With AR In Passthrough

An update to Horizon Workrooms on Oculus Quest 2 adds the ability to overlay AR labels onto your tracked keyboard when using passthrough mode.

The feature is one of a few added in the Workrooms 1.1 update. As previously reported, the update includes support for M1 Mac models, but also introduces the AR keyboard labels, quicker connection to your computer via Oculus Remote Desktop, and “more intuitive whiteboard design” that lets you use your hands more.

quest ar keyboard label

You can see some photos of the AR keyboard labels spread throughout the article — on a flat 2D photo, they look hard to distinguish from the normal light-up keys on the MacBook Pro. However, the depth perception in VR makes the labels look just slightly elevated from the keys themselves.

quest ar keyboard label

This only applies to tracked keyboards (which currently only includes the Logitech K830 and Apple Magic Keyboards and laptop keyboard) when using the desk passthrough cut-out. If you’re just using the standard tracked keyboard in Workrooms without passthrough there’s no need for the AR labels — a 1:1 digital model represents and displays your keyboard in VR, matched to the position of your physical keyboard.

It’s only when using the passthrough desk cut-out feature that the AR labels come to life. This makes the passthrough cut-out feature much more useable, as you retain full visibility of your keyboard keys while also being able to see other desk accessories such as your mouse, drinks etc.

In a future update, Workrooms will get support for Zoom conference call integration and room customization.

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Manage A Classic Games Arcade With Arcade Legend For Quest, PC VR In 2022

Arcade Legend releases in 2022 for Oculus Quest and PC VR, presenting a pretty compelling concept that sees you build your own arcade from scratch, using licensed arcade games, which you can then play by yourself or with friends.

As you can see in the trailer above, the game looks to mix gameplay elements from several games into something new for VR. It has elements of a tycoon/sim management game, a touch of The Sims and then a big sprinkle of the emerging and increasingly popular social magic of VR.

arcade legend oculus quest pc vr

Providing players with a framework and campaign to build a unique arcade space with licensed games is interesting enough in itself, but being able to actually use the space like a real arcade, playing games and hanging out with friends, is a really unique angle.

arcade legend quest pc vr

Here’s a more detailed description from the developers LAI Games:

Inside Arcade Legend, an arcade builder and gameplay simulator, you’ve inherited a mysterious old arcade which was once a legendary entertainment destination … Restore and customize your arcade using a wide range of materials, then fill it with officially licensed arcade games to earn revenue and build Reputation, which unlocks new attractions that you can play solo or with friends.

Casual, competitive, and always social, you can chill out with friends, go head-to-head on global leaderboards against the best players in the world, or open your doors to the public to show off what you’ve built.

It sounds like a properly unique and different experiences, that merges gameplay structure with the social opportunities of apps like BigScreen, VRChat and Facebook Horizon.

arcade legend quest pc vr

There’s no word on the exact full roster of licensed arcade games yet, but you can catch a few classics shown in the trailer.

Arcade Legend will release in 2022 for Oculus Quest and PC VR via Steam.

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Stride Update Adds Features, Details Plans For Story Mode & Multiplayer Content

Stride’s newest 9.0 update brings parity to the Quest and PC VR version of the game, while adding some brand new features to both.

The development team has also outlined future plans for in-development content, including the game’s story and multiplayer modes.

The 9.0 update’s biggest changes include a new tutorial, more options for Endless Mode, power-ups, new interactive elements, reworked graphics and new enemy types. Arena mode also has new modifiers and enemies can throw grenades at the player, which can be thrown back.

Improvements and additions have also been made to enemy voiceovers, gun models and effects, and the general enemy AI. For the PC VR version specifically, a whole bunch of new additions and changes have been made that bring features to PC VR that were previously only available on Quest.

This is just scratching the surface — it seems like a huge update that adds lots of new features, bug fixes and improvements. You can see footage and details of the additions in the video from JoyWoy embedded above.

In the video, Joy Way also discuss their plans for future content, including an update on the previously announced but unreleased story and multiplayer modes for Stride.

stride oculus quest slum

The bad news is that Story Mode is unlikely to arrive this year. However, the video gives a first-look at new environments designed for story modes, including new urban slum areas (pictured above) and more affluent skyscraper environments.

Joy Woy says the team are considering releasing the campaign split across several releases, in an episodic format, to get it out faster. The other option is to receive the whole campaign at once, but with a longer wait. Joy Way will take player feedback into consideration when making this decision.

With regards to multiplayer, Joy Woy thanked everyone who took part in testing and noted that the servers are being taken down temporarily to make improvements based on player feedback. There are also “several brand new online modes” in development, which will feature different modes to what was previously available in the Alpha test. More multiplayer tests will be available in the future, with no word on a full launch date yet.

The 9.0 update for Stride is available on PC VR and Quest now.

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Meta: Facebook Facial Recognition Shut Down But May Return On-Device

Meta announced it will shut down the facial recognition system used across its Facebook social media network. However, the company will likely still employ on-device facial recognition in future hardware.

In a post on the Facebook blog, VP of Artificial Intelligence Jerome Pesenti outlines that the system would not only be turned off in the coming weeks, but all associated data would also be deleted. This will “result in the deletion of more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates. ”

The system is currently used on Facebook to identify and recognize the faces of Facebook users who appear in photos on the social media network, uploaded by themselves or others. This had various uses, including suggested/automatic tagging of people in photos and an automatic alt-text generator, which used AI to form a description for the visually-impaired and identify if their Facebook friends appeared in a photo.

The decision to remove and delete the system is part of “a company-wide move away from this kind of broad identification, and toward narrower forms of personal authentication.” Pesenti says that while there are helpful applications for facial recognition systems, they also “need to be weighed against growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole.”

While the broad system used across the Facebook platform is being shut down, Meta’s director’s still believe that there will remain “a narrow set of use cases” where facial recognition technology will be appropriate. One of these could be identity verification using an on-device facial recognition system, or potentially for driving some form of Meta’s in-development photorealisitc ‘Codec Avatars’.

Talking about on-device recognition, Pesenti had this to say:

This method of on-device facial recognition, requiring no communication of face data with an external server, is most commonly deployed today in the systems used to unlock smartphones. 

We believe this has the potential to enable positive use cases in the future that maintain privacy, control and transparency, and it’s an approach we’ll continue to explore as we consider how our future computing platforms and devices can best serve people’s needs.

Meta also recently announced that it will no longer require Oculus Quest headsets to be linked to a Facebook account from 2022, and existing headset owners will soon be able to unlink their Facebook account from their Quest.

This slew of recent policy changes likely points to Meta eventually releasing a VR headset that can be unlocked with on-device facial verification and no requirement to connect or link your Facebook profile.

Meta VP of VR/AR and incoming 2022 CTO Andrew Bosworth tweeted (embedded above) that the decision to move away from broad facial recognition on Facebook is “very important” and encouraged continued discussion about the implications of emerging technologies.

You can read the full post by Jerome Pesenti here.

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Project Cambria 3D Model Formed From Texture Leak

Last week we reported on another Project Cambria leak that revealed a set of textures for Meta’s new headset. Now those textures have been stitched together to give us a closer look at the device.

Twitter user Bastian, who was behind the original leak of the textures, posted new images of all the assets molded into 3D models. There’s one for the headset itself, plus the new controllers and the controller dock that we first saw in another leak.

Of course, when we first saw these leaks we were waiting on the reveal of Cambria — which we’d been referring to as Oculus Quest Pro — at the Connect developer conference. In the end, we didn’t get a full reveal of the device (Cambria itself is only a codename), but the little footage we did see of it is consistent with the 3D models here.

Namely, we can see a black headset with an integrated headband, a pair of controllers that no longer have the tracking rings of the original Touch designs, and a circular pad to charge them on. Bastain made a video flythrough of the models, too.

We also know that Cambria will not be a part of the Quest line of products, though it does look to be a standalone headset. The device uses multi-element pancake lenses for a more compact form factor, high-resolution color passthrough and eye and face tracking capabilities.

We’ll hopefully see more from Project Cambria soon, though the headset doesn’t have a firm release window just yet.

 

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Oculus Quest 2 Grows To 35% Of SteamVR Headset Usage

The Oculus Quest 2 now accounts for over 35% of VR headset usage on Steam.

That figure was revealed with this month’s update to the Steam Hardware Survey. Quest 2 claimed an additional 1.84% of overall headset usage over last month, growing to 35.02% of the total share.

Steam Hardware Survey October 2021

Meta’s standalone headset was one of the few devices to gain ground in October; both the HTC Vive Pro and Pro 2 also made small gains, as did the Windows Mixed Reality devices. But the Valve Index receded slightly back to 17.30%, while every other Oculus headset continued to decline.

As it stands, Meta (which was rebranded from Facebook last week) devices now account for 61.15% of the total VR headset usage on Steam. Valve follows with its 17.30% and HTC takes up 13.68% between the original Vive, Pro units, and Cosmos headsets. As always, we should point out that the Hardware Survey is entirely optional and not necessarily accurate but, given that no VR companies are sharing headset sales, it’s the best we’ve got.

Last month saw the announcement of the Varjo Aero SteamVR headset, though it won’t be arriving at doorsteps until December. Even then, its $2,000 price tag means it’s unlikely to claim much of the SteamVR market share. There’s also an improved version of the HP Reverb G2 with better tracking on the way, though it’s unclear exactly when that will be shipping.

With no new Oculus hardware due in 2021 and the recently-announced Project Cambria looking like a much more expensive prospect, we’re unlikely to see Quest 2’s throne be challenged anytime soon.

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The Secret of Retropolis erscheint morgen für Oculus Quest

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Nach einer erfolgreichen Veröffentlichung im App Lab für Oculus Quest und Oculus Quest 2 wird Secret Of Retropolis morgen nun auch im offiziellen Store von Oculus (bzw. Meta) erscheinen.

The Secret of Retropolis erscheint morgen für Oculus Quest

The Secret of Retropolis ist ein Point-And-Click-Abenteuer für die Oculus Quest und Quest 2. Die Entwickler und Entwicklerinnen empfehlen das Spiel speziell für Menschen, die ihre erste Virtual Reality-Erfahrung erleben, da die Steuerung besonders einfach und intuitiv sein soll. Solltet ihr bereits erfahrene VR-Nerds sein, dann erwartet euch eine entspannte Reise, welche aber nicht weniger charmant ist.

Morgen wird The Secret of Retropolis offiziell im Store von Oculus für die Oculus Quest erscheinen. Das Studio plant auch eine Veröffentlichung für die HTC Vive Flow. Wann diese Version erscheint, ist jedoch aktuell noch offen.

(Quelle: Upload VR)

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Quest v34 bringt Space Sense, Verbindung zum Smartphone und MR Apps

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Wie Oculus auf dem eigenen Blog schreibt, beginnt das Unternehmen bereits mit der Auslieferung des Updates v34 für die Oculus Quest, welches einige neue Funktionen einführt.

Space Sense, Verbindung zum Smartphone und MR Apps

Mit dem Update v34 werden die Sprachbefehle ausgebaut und ihr sollt nun beispielsweise auch Anwendungen per Sprache starten und Medien starten und stoppen können. Ebenso soll die Quest nun antworten auf einfache Fragen geben.

Wenn ihr ein Android-Smartphone besitzt, könnt ihr zukünftig eure Benachrichtigungen in der Oculus Quest angezeigt bekommen. Hierbei können alle Benachrichtigungen angezeigt werden, die auch auf einem gesperrten Bildschirm auf dem Smartphone angezeigt werden würden.

Das wichtigste neue Feature ist jedoch Space Sense. Oculus hat das Guardian System überarbeitet und nun sollen Objekte live angezeigt werden, wenn sie sich in eurem Spielbereich befinden und beim Einzeichnen nicht vorhanden waren. Diese Funktion soll zunächst als experimentelle Funktion optional in den Einstellungen bereitstehen.

Entwickler und Entwicklerinnen können sich zudem freuen, dass Oculus mit dem neuen Update auch Mixed Reality-Content zulassen wird. Eine experimentelle Passtrough API hatte Oculus bereits vor einigen Monaten für Entwickler bereitgestellt.

Wie jedes Update für die Oculus Quest wird auch dieses Update nicht zeitgleich an alle Personen ausgespielt. Es kann also noch einige Tage dauern, bis ihr das Update installieren könnt. Wenn ihr noch keine Oculus Quest 2 besitzt, dann schaut in unseren Langzeittest zur Brille von Meta.

(Quelle: Oculus)

Der Beitrag Quest v34 bringt Space Sense, Verbindung zum Smartphone und MR Apps zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!