Virtual & Augmented Reality and 3D News - Page 10

Yesterday, Facebook announced that it would be rebranding the company as Meta to better align with its efforts to build the metaverse. Most of the company's other brands, like Instagram and Whatsapp, and even the Facebook social media platform, will keep their names and remain unchanged. Except for Oculus. That brand is done.

By next year, the Oculus brand name will cease to exist in the market. The company's AR/VR division will adopt the Meta name, and the Oculus Quest will go on to be known as the Meta Quest, and the Oculus App will change to Meta Quest App.

"We're bringing our brands and products closer to Meta, which is the umbrella for all our products and services," said Andrew Bosworth, Head of Reality Labs. "When people buy our products, we want them to clearly understand that all of these devices come from Meta and ladder up to our metaverse vision. That's why we're evolving our brand across our current lines of hardware in-market, as well as for all future products, in order to bring more consistency across the portfolio and more transparency to consumers."

Facebook Connect kicked off with a keynote presentation on Thursday, and the company had several announcements to share. Including a new company brand name, new games on the way, and some insights into its experimental work with advanced XR technology. Meta also revealed that it would release a new Oculus headset next year, but it's not the Quest 2 successor you might be expecting.

Meta revealed Project Cambria, an advanced device that will be on the market next year with a premium price tag.

"This is not the next Quest. It will be compatible with Quest. But it's a completely new, advanced, and high-end product. It will be at the high-end of the price spectrum, too, said Mark Zuckerberg. "Our plan is the keep building out this product line to release our most advanced technology before we can hit the price points that we target with Quest. "

During the Facebook (now Meta) Connect keynote presentation, the company didn't have a lot to say about upcoming content. We got a hint at a new feature for Beat Saberthat would introduce a level progression system, and we found out that Population: One has more DLC just around the corner with a Winter event announced. But the thing that stood out most is the announcement that Grand Theft Auto is officially coming to Oculus Quest.

The details about the game are all but non-existent. However, we now have confirmation that Rockstar games are finally bringing its beloved franchise to the VR medium. There are no details about the release date yet, and we didn't get any screenshots or videos of the game in action, so it's probably going to be a while. Either way, this is an exciting development for VR content.

There are now and will soon be a good selection of VR headsets on the market. Great content exists, but it's few and far between, and there aren't many recognizable franchises in VR yet. Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular games in history. If anything will attract newcomers to VR hardware, it's a title like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

More than half a decade ago, Mark Zuckerberg saw the future when he tried the Oculus Rift prototype for the first time. The founder of Facebook quickly realized that immersive technologies would become the next computing platform. Now he's going all-in, with a new company name to show how serious he is. Today, he's so confident in the idea of the metaverse that he's rebranding his business to match his conviction. Facebook will now be known as Meta.

During the Facebook Connect keynote presentation, Zuckerberg explained his position. Facebook has always been a company that builds technology that connects people, he said. When he founded Facebook, social media was the platform available to connect people online. In the future, the internet will be much more immersive, and Zuckerberg wants Meta to have a foundational role in crafting our future metaverse.

The vision of the metaverse the Meta laid out is a vast social world that blends the real-world with different levels of the digital world. It's what the company sees as the next iteration of the internet. It will be accessible through AR devices, VR devices, and smartglasses, as well as the mobile devices that we're used to.

Pimax revealed the Pimax Reality 12K QLED VR headset today during the company's Frontier virtual event. This new headset is the most ambitious attempt at a perfect VR headset that any company has ever made. Get ready to spend some big money because this thing is incredible.

The specifications of the Pimax Reality 12K QLED don't even make sense to me. Pimax crammed two 6K mini-LED QLED panels into its new headset, which is a massive increase in resolution compared to the current 8K X flagship, which boasts dual 4K panels.

Pimax partnered with Tobii to integrate Tobii eye-tracking hardware and enable foveated rendering to achieve smooth framerates at such high resolution. The headset also had a motorized automatic IPD system, kind of like the Varjo Aero's solution.

The rumors of a new Oculus headset are starting to look very real. A set of video clips leaked from the Oculus website shows a headset with a more compact design. Could this be the rumored Quest Pro?

Twitter user Bastian (@Basti564) dropped a bombshell leak this weekend, with four new animated clips from Oculus that show different user experiences for an as-yet-unannounced VR headset. The cartoon renderings show a headset with a smaller, more compact visor that follows the contour of the lenses and nose cut-out. It also appears to have a more robust head strap with a counterweight-possibly where the battery is stored like in the Vive Focus 3.

The first video clip shows a woman trying out outfits for her avatar in front of a virtual mirror. There may be more than just a fashion aspect to this scene, though. Bastian also pointed out that Facebook Reality Labs filed for a patent covering a full-body motion tracking mixed reality solution that requires a reflective surface like a mirror.

Tobii announced a partnership with Pimax to put its industry-leading eye-tracking technology in future Pimax headsets. That is the first hint at what's around the corner from Pimax's next generation of VR headsets.

Tobii said that its eye-tracking technology would become a standard feature of future Pimax headsets. Kevin Henderson, COO of Pimax, confirmed that this partnership would make Tobii the exclusive eye-tracking partner for future Pimax headsets and that the company's entire future lineup would include eye-tracking hardware.

"We are excited by the opportunity to, together with Pimax, help push the boundaries for state-of-the-art and truly immersive VR experiences," said Johan Hellqvist, VP of XR at Tobii. "Our first collaboration on premium VR headsets for consumers is an important milestone in our path to mass market adoption, and it confirms Tobii's leadership position for extended-reality (XR) market."

Xbox head Phill Spencer has been reluctant to invest in VR hardware for the Xbox platform for years, and despite the growth in the market, he's still holding back from jumping into the mix.

Microsoft has VR headset technology, and the Xbox Series X has the horsepower to drive a VR device, but Spencer just doesn't see value for the Xbox brand right now.

Spencer sat down this week for a chat with the Wall Street Journal, during which he outlined his thoughts on the subject. Shoutout to Video Games Chronicle for the transcription.

Not even two weeks ago, Oculus released the last ever Rift-exclusive title. But you may not have even realized it because the marketing campaign was almost non-existent. Contrast Lone Echo 2's launch with today's Resident Evil 4 VR release, and the difference may shock you. It's absolutely obvious where Facebook wants you to focus.

Resident Evil 4 VR just landed on the Oculus Quest, and Oculus sure wants you to know that. The company has been playing around with social media drops and easter eggs for this game for a few weeks now. The Oculus Twitter page is plastered with RE4 content, and if you go to Oculus.com, you'll find a video of RE4 in action right on the front page.

The marketing behind Resident Evil 4 VR is really quite brilliant. Oculus put together an amazing website demonstrating what the game is like and what's possible with modern web design. I would recommend you check it out, even if you don't care about VR. It's just a really cool website experience.

Oculus just released the unlocked OS for the Oculus Go, the company's deprecated 3-DoF standalone VR headset, which will allow anyone who owns one to do anything they want with it. This should keep the Go out of landfills for a while.

Oculus dropped support for the Go nearly a year ago. The last official Go releases landed on the store in early December 2020. Since then, the Go has largely been a dead platform. The only problem with that is there is a lot of life left in these devices, and there's a good number of them out there.

Last month, John Carmack revealed that Facebook had given the go-ahead to open the platform up for people to use how they want now that it's no longer officially supported by the company. Today, Oculus made good on that promise and released the final OS build for the Go, which, as promised, is unlocked.