It’s clear Facebook is working on all-day AR headsets, and although they still aren’t showing any hardware just yet, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned today at Facebook Connect 2021 that it’s indeed still full steam ahead on its first “fully-fledged augmented reality glasses,” revealing the code name ‘Project Nazare’.
Vertigo Games teased that its long-awaited co-op VR zombie shooter After the Fall would be getting some “big news” to share at today’s Facebook Connect, but it seems the company had something bigger in mind. The VR studio and publisher announced a new partnership with Facebook which will bring five new VR games to the Oculus platform.
Facebook today announced that it’s working with Rockstar Games to bring Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) exclusively to the Oculus Quest 2 headset.
Facebook launched Horizon Workrooms back in summer, bringing to Quest a new enterprise-focused virtual collaboration platform that connects both VR and video chat users in the same place. Soon the app will let you choose from different environments which will be customizable to some degree—a prescient step on the way to Facebook’s vision of its metaverse.
At Facebook Connect 2021 today, the company announced it will be releasing a new Quest for Business program that’s rebooting its enterprise-focused VR software by bringing its growing suite of business tools to the consumer version of Quest 2, which you can buy from anywhere.
Facebook announced at its Connect 2021 AR/VR developer conference today that Oculus is finally replacing its janky cloud save system for one that will work with every Quest app automatically.
Oculus plans to further open up the mixed reality capabilities of Quest with new tools that will allow developers to build apps which more intelligently integrate with the user’s real room. In the near future developers will also be permitted to distribute mixed reality apps to customers via the Quest store or Oculus App Lab for the first time.
Today Facebook announced that it plans to expand the capabilities of its Spark AR platform to give developers more tools to build experiences that leverage existing smartphone-based AR and the company’s upcoming AR glasses.
Oculus today announced that web apps and WebXR apps will soon be allowed into the main Quest store and App Lab. Apps served this way will support multitasking, allowing users to run them side-by-side for increased productivity. Developers will also be able to charge for these experiences just like any other app on the headset.
One of our longstanding critiques of Quest’s social features is the lack of a simple, first-party place to meet up with friends. Finally that’s set to change thanks to ‘Horizon Home’ which will enhance the existing Quest home environment with social features, allowing you to invite party members to visit, hang out, or launch into VR apps together.
Facebook Connect is the company’s AR/VR developer conference that often plays host to product reveals, industry insights, and plenty of talks to get developers on the right path towards building for the company’s existent and upcoming XR hardware. Here’s the top-down skinny on what, when and where.
The latest version of Ultraleap’s hand-tracking tech is finally available today on Windows for use with the Leap Motion Controller accessory and promises to improve two-handed interactions, speed, and robustness. The release includes a demo experience showcasing how hand-tracking can be used as a primary input for a standalone XR device.
Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife, the single-player horror-adventure set in the storied ‘World of Darkness’ universe, is finally set to launch on PSVR October 27th, delivering frights, intrigue, and plenty of opportunity for Alien: Isolation-style hide-and-seek.
In a livestreamed presentation this week, VR headset maker Pimax announced its Reality “12K” QLED headset which aims to pack in a kitchen sink’s worth of wishlist features, not least of which is a dual-mode capability which allows the headset to function as a standalone headset or a native PC VR headset. With the slew of capabilities and specs the company hopes to deliver with the headset, it comes as no surprise that it’s also their most expensive device yet; the Pimax Reality “12K” QLED starts at $2,400 and is expected to ship at the end of 2022.
In the company’s Q3 2021 earnings call Facebook today said it expects its XR investments this year to top $10 billion, and advised investors that it plans to spend even more than that in subsequent years.
