All Mode
Facebook-owned Oculus – one of the major companies involved in VR headset manufacturing and developing of VR related technology – has always stayed at the forefront of discussion. Last month, things were not going quite well for the VR giant as it was facing some serious accusations from game-making rival ZeniMax.
Oculus was pulled to the court by ZeniMax alleging the former with the charges of stolen tech. Though Oculus tried its best to provide enough evidence claiming that the company was not at all involved in such shoddy activities, it did not prove to be enough to convince the courts. Oculus was charged with a fine of $500 million to be paid as part of the compensation to ZeniMax as result.
However, all these matters are just too small to deter this VR giant from working towards its major goal of bringing the best VR tech solutions to its consumers. Last week, some major updates and announcements came from the Oculus headquarters along with some glimpses of Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to the company’s own high-end R&D lab.
More Accessories at the Oculus Store
Recently, Oculus went out on adding a range of accessories to the Oculus Store. In addition to the Oculus-branded earphones and an additional sensor for room-scale capabilities, the Store features a facial lining for $29, a 4-meter headset cable for $49, a simple input remote for $29, and an on-ear headphone replacements for $39. Note that these are exclusive product prices and do not involve the shipping charges.
Image Credit: Oculus
Thus, after getting properly acquainted with your new Rift experience, you can certainly consider enhancing your VR experience by buying these accessories later.
Voice Search on Oculus Home for Rift and Gear VR
There is no denial to the fact that the development team at Oculus is constantly finding ways to improve the user-interactivity and interface. The team is working towards making things simpler for users to find content from its huge library. The latest update of Oculus Home adds a voice search feature to your Rift and Gear VR headsets.
Moreover, the Rift owners can trigger this feature by just calling, “Hey Oculus,” in addition to clicking the search button. To see how it works, take a look at the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6bwsSsLWvk
The new Voice Search feature makes it very easy for users to find a particular app from the group of apps that are stored in your library. On your Rift or Gear VR headsets, just press the Voice Search button to find some specific apps or even launch an app straight away.
Eye-Popping Visuals of the Oculus R&D Lab
In his latest visit to the Oculus Research Lab in Redmond, Washington, Mark Zuckerberg himself shared few of the visuals of the Oculus R&D Lab which the company calls as “the most advanced virtual and augmented reality research center and team in the world.”
Image Credit: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook
In his Facebook post, Mark tells about what all takes place at the R&D center with his team working with a dedicated vision under the leadership of Michael Abrash. He writes:
“The team is led by Michael Abrash and focuses on things like advanced optics, eye tracking, mixed reality and new ways to map the human body. The goal is to make VR and AR what we all want it to be: glasses small enough to take anywhere, software that lets you experience anything, and technology that lets you interact with the virtual world just like you do with the physical one.
Oculus Rift is already the best VR experience you can buy—and the technology being built in this lab right now makes me want the future to get here a lot sooner.”
Image Credit: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook
Among all the photos, you can see one where Mark supposedly wears a pair of tracked VR Gloves (see the header image to the top), and if Mark’s expression has anything to say about it, he seems to be quite satisfied with the ongoing development and progress.
Image Credit: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook
Image Credit: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook
this is kinda setup I would like to have but this looks so huge setup and hard to have at personal level, hope it improves in future.
Yeah those gloves are interesting. Oculus is like the Manhattan project of VR, and has been that way for a long time.
Need to try the voice feature soon and these images are just too exciting and specially the one where Mark’s wearing a VR Glove…. Something big seems to be cooking here at Oculus