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Meta Slows Hiring For Some Positions As Reality Labs Priorities Shift

May 15, 2022 From uploadvr

Meta is cutting back or postponing some projects in its Reality Labs division and halting hiring for some positions.

Reuters first reported earlier this week that Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth broke the news to Reality Labs staff in a weekly Q&A session, according to a summary of his comments viewed by Reuters, with more specific changes to be announced within the week. We independently reached out to Meta about the report, and a spokesperson reiterated to UploadVR they’re “evaluating key priorities,” not planning layoffs “at this time,” and “so far, Meta has hired more engineers in Q1 than all of 2021.”

While Meta’s Reality Labs revenue grew 35% year-on-year in Q2 2022 ($695 million, compared to $534 million Q1 2021), costs  grew 55% as well, up to $3.7 billion from $2.4 billion in Q1 2021. During a recent earnings call, CFO David Wehner said the growing costs were “driven by employee-related costs, R&D operating expenses and cost of goods sold.” While those numbers may appear big at first glance, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave warning ahead of time by signaling a $10 billion loss in overall 2021 profit related to the company’s VR/AR investment, while also warning he expects that investment to “grow further” for the next several years.

Despite the increase in costs, revenue from Quest 2 continues to grow and Meta plans to expand its consumer headset offerings building out from the standalone platform. A high-end consumer headset, codenamed Project Cambria, is slated for release later this year. Two new Quest headsets and a subsequent iteration of Cambria may be in the works for 2023 and 2024 as well, according to a recent report from The Information. The company also opened its first brick-and-mortar consumer store this week, selling Quest, Portal and Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses.

While Meta isn’t alone among platform-building tech companies that seem to be preparing to weather a “market downturn“, Zuckerberg’s investment in realizing VR and AR technology remains significant and we’ll be curious to see how the company focuses its efforts going forward. In June, for example, the poorly rated Venues app will disappear as events move inside Meta’s broader Horizon Worlds effort.

Filed Under: Business VR, Facebook, mark zuckerberg, Meta, meta ar, meta busines, meta company, meta earnings call, meta facebook, meta platforms, meta quest, meta reality, meta reality labs, meta technology, meta vr, meta vr company, meta zuckerberg, Reality Labs, virtual reality, virtual reality experience, virtual reality game, virtual reality new, virtual reality news, VR, VR app, vr article, vr experience, VR game, vr game news, VR Headset, vr headset news, vr new, VR news

Meta Cancels F8 Conference This Year To Focus On Connect

April 8, 2022 From uploadvr

Meta is not holding its annual F8 conference this year, but will still host the VR & AR focused Connect later in the year.

“Similar to years past, we are taking a brief break in programming and will not hold F8 in 2022 while we gear up on new initiatives that are all tailored towards the next chapter of the internet, and the next chapter of our company too: building the metaverse“, Meta said in a blog post.

F8 is normally held in the first half of the year, between March and June – though F8 2011 was in September and it wasn’t held at all in 2009, 2012, and 2013.

F8 is mainly focused on Meta’s traditional businesses; Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. It hasn’t been the venue for VR or major AR announcements since F8 2019, when Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S were launched and body tracking research was teased.

Since September 2014 Facebook has hosted a separate annual conference for VR and AR later in the year, originally called Oculus Connect. The consumer Samsung Gear VR was launched at Connect 2, the Oculus Touch controllers were launched at Connect 3, Oculus Go was announced at Oculus Connect 4, and Oculus Quest was announced at Oculus Connect 5. Controller-free Hand Tracking and Oculus Link PC VR for Quest were announced at Connect 6, as was the Horizon metaverse platform.

In 2020 Facebook rebranded Oculus Connect to just ‘Connect’, dropping the number sequence too. Quest 2 was announced and launched at Connect 2020. At last year’s Connect Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, revealed the upcoming high end headset Project Cambria, and teased an AR glasses prototype.

Each year’s Connect also almost always sees Chief Scientist Michael Abrash show off research and development towards the long term future of VR and AR – technologies that won’t be seen in products for many years if ever.

Meta confirmed Connect will continue to take place “later this year”, saying “we’ll share the latest on our VR, AR, and metaverse platform offerings”.

Filed Under: conferences, Events, f8, Facebook, Meta, top stories

Horizon Workrooms Update Adds Beach Environment, Desktop Streaming Audio

March 16, 2022 From uploadvr

Horizon Workrooms 1.3 is now available, adding a new environment, high-fives and improvements to the remote desktop capability.

A relatively minor update, the big draw of the latest update for Meta’s remote collaboration software is a beach environment that places your workspace in a tropical, relaxing seaside enclosure.

Beach day 🤝 workday

Work in VR with a new beach environment, collab next level with high-fives and more in Horizon Workrooms v1.3 🏖

— Meta Quest (@MetaQuestVR) March 15, 2022

As you can see in the video above, the environment looks very Greek in its design. If you can’t be in Santorini on holiday, I guess working in a virtual room that looks somewhat similar is the next best thing?

Besides the beach environment, you’re also now able to high-five colleagues in Workrooms — doing so will display a new effect.

Other significant changes in this update are found in Workrooms’ remote desktop functionality. Most notably, Workrooms now supports streaming desktop audio to your workspace while using remote desktop with your PC or Mac. Previously you could only stream a video feed of your desktop, without accompanying audio. This change should be useful for presenting videos and the like to a group of colleagues, depending on the latency between the video feed and the audio.

Audio streaming aside, Meta also notes that it’s made other improvements to Workrooms’ remote desktop features, particularly in relation to “discovery and connectivity, as well as general app stability.”

This update for Workrooms follows on from 1.2, which added more room customization, room themes, custom graphics for walls and a lectern for presenting to a group of people.

Still on the horizon (you decide if the pun was intended) is support for native integration of Zoom meetings into Workrooms, announced in September as part of a new partnership.

Horizon Workrooms 1.3 is available now for Quest headsets.

Filed Under: Facebook, facebook quest, horizon, horizon quest, horizon workrooms, horizon workrooms update, Meta, meta ar, meta company, meta facebook, meta platforms, meta quest, meta quest 2, meta quest vr, meta technology, meta vr, meta vr company, meta zuckerberg, oculus, Oculus Quest, oculus quest 2, Quest, quest 2, quest 2 headset, quest 2 vr, quest headset, quest virtual reality, quest vr, quest workrooms, virtual reality, virtual reality experience, virtual reality game, virtual reality new, virtual reality news, VR, VR app, vr article, vr experience, VR game, vr game news, VR Headset, vr headset news, vr new, VR news, workrooms, workrooms beach, workrooms beach environment

Meta: $1 Billion Spent In Quest Store, 8 Titles Surpass $20 Million In Revenue

February 3, 2022 From uploadvr

As part of its quarterly earnings call, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that users have spent more than $1 billion on Quest store content.

Zuckerberg announced the amount in connection with his prepared remarks, a transcript of which is available online. Here’s what Zuckerberg said specifically about Quest store content:

On the hardware front, we’re seeing real traction with Quest 2. People have spent more than $1B on Quest store content, helping virtual reality developers grow and sustain their business.

Meta’s Director of Content Ecosystem Chris Pruett shared further details on Twitter as well, noting that eight titles on the Quest store have made over $20 million in gross revenue (one of which we know to be Beat Saber), while 14 have made over $10 million and 17 over $5 million.

Additionally, over 120 titles have generated more than $1 million in revenue on the platform. Around a year ago in January 2021, that number was only 60 titles. In March 2020, it was only 20.

These new content statistics are just one facet of Meta’s quarterly earnings call announcements. For the first time ever, the company broke out its revenue from Reality Labs in this earnings call, revealing more specific revenue and spending numbers for the segment responsible for Meta’s VR/AR efforts.

Overall, Reality Labs revenue totaled almost $2.3 billion for Meta in 2021 and marked Reality Labs’ revenue roughly doubling year-on-year. This was bolstered by particularly strong revenue in Q4 2021, due to strong Quest 2 sales in the holiday season. You can read more here.

Filed Under: Facebook, facebook quest, mark zuckerberg, Meta, meta ar, meta company, meta earnings call, meta facebook, meta platforms, meta quest, meta quest 2, meta quest vr, meta revenue, meta technology, meta vr, meta vr company, meta zuckerberg, oculus, Oculus Quest, oculus quest 2, oculus store, Quest, quest 2, quest 2 headset, quest 2 revenue, quest 2 store, quest 2 vr, quest headset, quest revenue, quest store, quest store revenue, quest virtual reality, quest vr, top stories, virtual reality, virtual reality experience, virtual reality game, virtual reality industry, virtual reality market, virtual reality new, virtual reality news, VR, VR app, vr article, vr experience, VR game, vr game news, VR Headset, vr headset news, vr industry, vr industry news, VR Market, vr new, VR news, vr news market

Meta Announces Big Update For Its VR Avatars

January 31, 2022 From vrscout

These new-and-improved 3D avatars will be available on Meta Quest, Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.

Meta today announced that its lineup of expressive 3D avatars will be getting a major face lift in the form of new facial expressions, assistive devices, and limited edition clothing options. These new-and-improved avatars have already begun rolling out on VR headsets as well as Facebook, Messenger, and—for the first time—Instagram Stories and DM.

Last year Meta spent a significant amount of time and energy on improving its 3D avatars with new customization options that allow users to craft their own digital persona with an impressive amount of detail. Today, the company announced new updates the promise to expand the platform even further.

Image Credit: Meta

This includes new facial shapes as well as improvements to the skin shader that add even more customizations. In an effort to remain inclusive, the company has added new items such as Cochlear implants, over-the-ear hearing aids, and wheelchairs in a variety of different colors. In honor of the upcoming Super Bowl between the LA Rams and Bengal Tigers, Meta has also introduced limited edition clothing for each time.

As previously stated, these new-and-improved 3D avatars will be available in VR via Meta Quest headsets as well as Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram Stories and DM. You can create separate avatars for each platform or use the same avatar across all three.

Image Credit: Meta

“Being able to have the same avatar across our platforms is an early step towards making this a reality, and one we’ve been working towards for a long time,” said Aigerim Shorman, General Manager for Avatars and Identity at Meta. “We hope your new virtual self enables you to represent yourself online the way you want to be represented—whether that’s to friends and family, your local community, or beyond.”

These updates will begin rolling out on Quest, Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram over the next few months, so don’t freak out if you don’t see the options available right away.

Feature Image Credit: Meta

Filed Under: Facebook, instagram, meta quest, meta quest 2, News, Oculus Quest, oculus quest 2, VR Avatars

Apple vs. Meta: Who Will Offer the Better Metaverse Experience?

January 21, 2022 From vrfocus

As we edge closer towards Web 3, it seems like every company wants a piece of the pie. After rebranding to Meta and laying out its plans to dominate the metaverse, Facebook has made significant waves within the last few months. Other Big Tech giants such as Microsoft, Samsung and Sony have also sunk their teeth into the metaverse space, with offerings such as collaborative software, better connectivity and more immersive user experiences.  

  • Mark Zuckerberg @ F8 2018 - Virtual Reality

The spotlight has also long since been on Apple, with many analysts and experts waiting for one of tech’s biggest trailblazers to introduce their own ‘mixed reality’ headset. However, recent reports have confirmed that Apple has no short-term plans to enter the metaverse with their much-awaited device, which is set to be announced later this year. Instead, the company is allegedly focusing only on providing access to gaming, communications and entertainment content for the time being.

With the metaverse being an inevitable prospect, will Apple eventually enter the market with a Web 3-compatible device? First, let’s take a look at what’s in store for both Apple and Meta’s next headset releases in 2022. We’ll then review what both Facebook and Apple are best at doing — and why we think that Apple won’t necessarily stay behind the curve.

Facebook’s first high-end headset under the Meta moniker is due for release sometime later in 2022 — though an exact timeframe has yet to be confirmed. 

Dubbed ‘Project Cambria’, Meta’s latest device was initially referenced last year at the company’s virtual Connect conference. This headset has been promised to be the successor to the popular Oculus Quest 2, packed with immersive features that were previously unseen in previous headset releases.

Notable features include lifelike facial communication capabilities, the ability to track users’ facial expressions, reconstruction of mixed reality objects, a special avatar personalisation engine and other advancements that are in line with bringing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s promise of an ‘embodied’ metaverse experience to life.

In terms of its design, several defining assets were also revealed in Meta’s Connect 2021 demo. Some of the most notable ones include:

  • A more ergonomic design: In its current prototype form, Project Cambria will come in a sleek, all-black structure that is lighter, more compact and equipped with a much slimmer strap than its Oculus predecessors.
  • Tracked controllers: Project Cambria is also expected to feature full-body tracking capabilities, giving users a better sense and level of control over their virtual surroundings.
  • More advanced sensors and reconstruction algorithms: Project Cambria is also set to feature more superior sensors and reconstruction algorithms, with the ability to represent physical objects in the real world with impeccable perspective and depth. The sensors will also accommodate various different skin tones and facial features, making users’ experiences more immersive and lifelike.

According to Meta analyst Noelle Martin, the company: “aims to be able to simulate you down to every skin pore, every strand of hair, every micromovement […] the objective is to create 3D replicas of people, places and things, so hyper-realistic and tactile that they’re indistinguishable from what’s real.”

So far, Meta’s project appears to be off to a smooth start. Since its rebranding, the company’s share price has risen by about 5%. Meta’s plans involve hiring at least 10,000 new staff members to build out their metaverse space. And while this news hasn’t exactly been hailed across the board, Meta has even started poaching staff members from both Microsoft and Apple and recruting them to join their mission.

What do we know about Apple’s upcoming ‘mixed reality’ headset?

While multiple sources initially claimed that Apple’s upcoming headset would be set to launch in 2022, Bloomberg now suggests that we will more likely see the announcement of the new headset closer to the end of this year. 

Some features that are projected to be featured in Apple’s first XR offering include:

  • Turbo-fast processing: Apple’s headset release is expected to wield the same level of power as the M1 processor currently found in its latest MacBook Pro lineup, with a 96W USB-C power adapter at its helm. It’s also reported to feature a lower-end processor, which will power up any sensor-related computing.
  • Tracking cameras: Apple’s headset will apparently feature two tracking cameras, with the ability to relay information to two 8K displays located in front of the user’s eyes.
  • LiDAR sensors: These sensors have been cited as a possibility for Apple’s first headset — with lasers to measure distance, allowing for the fast and accurate gathering of a space’s area. This would allow for better placing of objects in AR.

Despite ample predictions that Apple would join the likes of Meta, Microsoft and other tech leaders in creating a metaverse-compatible device, it appears that they won’t be in the ranks just yet. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, known to be a reliable Apple analyst: “The idea of a completely virtual world where users can escape to — like they can in Meta Platforms/Facebook’s vision of the future — is off-limits from Apple.” Instead, he has said that the upcoming mixed-reality headset will allow users to perform shorter activity sessions — such as gaming, communications and entertainment consumption.

With Web 3 clearly on the horizon, Apple’s refusal to enter the metaverse space has prompted reactions of shock and disappointment from spectators. This news also places both Meta and Apple in very different areas of the playing field, with Apple’s upcoming vision feeling like a sharp contrast to that of Meta’s — a brand that has completely centralised its new positioning around creating a metaverse space in Web 3.

If we shift our focus back to Meta, we’re left with an important question — what kind of advantage do they have in this race? Has Facebook’s success and business model laid down the right foundation for Meta to rightfully take off?

What Facebook has done best: connecting people

From its earliest days, Facebook was created with one primary mission: to bring people closer together.

A then-sophomore at Harvard, a young Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook — a social media website built to forge better connections between Harvard students. This force of connectivity was then used to help students across different institutions connect with each other. Eventually, the Facebook universe would completely revolutionise how the rest of the world would connect, communicate and share personal information across a centralised database.

Photo by © Wachiwit – Shutterstock.com

Now as Meta, the company’s goal is to enhance the user experience and make these virtual connections more immersive. According to Mark Zuckerberg: “the defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence — like you are right there with another person or in another place.” Moreover, he describes the objective of allowing users to feel truly present with one another as: “the ultimate dream of social technology.”

Today, it can be argued that Meta is the only Big Tech corporation with the scale and capital to create a metaverse space — with a user base of 3.5 billion people and a total of $86 billion in generated profits from within the last year. With an unparalleled number of users at its fingertips, Meta already houses the largest web of interconnected people in all of social media history.

However, will the expansiveness of Meta’s ecosystem continue to foster a safe and equitable space for users to freely connect and share information? Despite Facebook’s long history of controversies, Zuckerberg seems to have a pretty egalitarian version of the metaverse — promising a need for greater interoperability and lower fees for developers. But with the advent of virtual land on decentralised platforms such as Decentraland and Somnium Space, questions have now arisen about how Meta will govern its new internet medium, or about where communities may find ways to connect more freely in Web 3.

With this taken into account, it’s also easy to wonder: should Meta be forced to share the metaverse with these newer, blockchain-powered platforms, will the Project Cambria headset offer fair access? Or will this one day be offered by another, potentially more mainstream and user-friendly device?

What Apple has done best: innovation

Apple is often credited for revolutionising some of our most widely-used product innovations. Well-known examples include the iPod, the iPhone and, of course, the Apple Macintosh — one of the very first machines that helped make personal computing ubiquitous. To illustrate an example, let’s jump into a time machine and backtrack to the very early days of computing. 

Steve Jobs, a then-aspiring tech mogul, paid a visit to Xerox’s PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) laboratory back in 1979. During this time, Xerox was the first company to have produced an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI) — a remarkable device called the Xerox Alto. 

However, the Alto would never see a commercial release. With a price tag of $32,000 USD (the equivalent to $114,105 USD in today’s market), Xerox’s managers saw nothing but an overly complicated workstation that was far too expensive to mass-produce. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, saw much more than that. He was amazed by the GUI and believed that the Alto was the ideal blueprint for how all computers should operate.

Photo by © Wachiwit – Shutterstock.com

Most analysts agree that the Xerox Alto was far ahead of its time. Before any other machine in computing history, it featured the same type of keyboard and mouse interface we still use today. It also, incredibly enough, featured now-universal concepts such as email, event reminders and word processing. 

Wanting a piece of the innovation for himself, Jobs sold shares of Apple to Xerox in exchange for access to the Alto’s technology. Apple would then use their data to create a more refined, user-friendly and affordable home computing device.

The same logic can be applied to the creation of the iPhone. While Apple wasn’t the pioneer of the mobile smartphone, they were able to reinvent the handset concept and turn it into the closest thing we then had to a pocket-sized computer. To date, the iPhone’s build has served as a de facto blueprint for how future touch-screen devices would be constructed and integrated into our everyday lives.

Throughout the course of tech history, Apple has mastered the art of taking existing technology and making it better. And while Steve Jobs may no longer be at the forefront of Apple’s empire, their continued efforts (such as the M1 processor in today’s lightweight, industry-standard MacBooks, or the highly expansive App Store library) have proven that the tech giant hasn’t lost its innovation edge.

So, how does this all relate to our current technological paradigm, which is Web 3? 

Well, it’s a prime example of what Apple does best: innovation. And while it might be too soon to tell, decades of Apple’s design-first trends suggest that we could very well see history repeat itself once the tech giant decides to create an innovative, metaverse-ready device. Like the iPhone or the Macintosh, it just might be the one that finds its way into the households of the masses.

So, what’s next?

With neither tech giant having released their dedicated XR headset yet, it’s still far too early to tell which path either will take. Recent reports have revealed that Meta plans to enter the NFT marketplace, though no evidence yet suggests that the company has any plans to embrace a more decentralised business model.

When we look back at the history of computing, however, one thing is clear: computers — or in this case, headsets — have never been the end goal. They’re not the thing, per se — they’re the thing that gets us to the next thing. And when it comes to getting closer to Web 3, the company that brings us towards the better, more ubiquitous user experience will win.

To keep learning more about Apple, Meta and other industry trends related to the metaverse and Web 3, stay tuned for more updates on gmw3.

Filed Under: Apple, Facebook, Features, Meta, Metaverse, project cambria, XR News

Report: FTC Investigating Meta’s Competitive Practices

January 17, 2022 From uploadvr

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating Meta for potentially anti-competitive practices, Bloomberg reports.

The recent report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Naomi Nix indicates the FTC is investigating Meta’s virtual reality units over potential anti-competitive practices.

Last month, a report from The Information indicated the FTC opened an antitrust probe into Meta’s acquisition of VR fitness platform Supernatural. The new report from Bloomberg indicates the FTC’s investigation is “scrutinizing how Meta, the world’s largest social media company, may be using its market power in the VR space to stifle competition,” including asking about Meta’s sales strategy for Quest 2 which sees it priced starting at just $299, far below the nearest competition.

Apps like Virtual Desktop and Bigscreen have faced situations where Meta (formerly Facebook) made it either difficult or unprofitable for certain aspects of those products to function on Quest. In the case of Virtual Desktop, for example, developer Guy Godin wasn’t allowed to release a PC VR streaming feature for his app through official channels for more than 20 months. When Facebook finally allowed the feature officially it was just a couple months before Facebook launched its own version of PC VR streaming called Air Link. The Bloomberg story reports the FTC “quizzed outside developers that make Oculus apps in recent months as part of the inquiry,” particularly in relation to how the company might discriminate against third-party services or apps that compete with solutions or apps offered by Meta directly.

The full report from Bloomberg, which may be behind a paywall, is available here. It’s been a busy start to the year — other recent reports indicate that Apple’s unannounced mixed reality headset might not ship this year, amid reports of lucrative hiring pushes between Meta, Apple and Microsoft.

Filed Under: Bloomberg, bloomberg report, Facebook, facebook ftc, ftc, Meta, meta anti-competitive, meta ftc, meta report, quest 2, quest 2 ftc, quest 2 meta, report, top stories, virtual reality, virtual reality experience, virtual reality game, virtual reality industry, virtual reality market, virtual reality new, virtual reality news, VR, VR app, vr article, vr experience, VR game, vr game news, VR Headset, vr headset news, vr industry, vr industry news, VR Market, vr new, VR news, vr news market

Stanford Now Offers A Class Held Entirely In Virtual Reality Using Quest 2

December 13, 2021 From uploadvr

A new course being offered by Stanford University garnered some attention in the last few weeks for being the institution’s first class taught and held entirely in VR using Meta Quest 2 headsets.

Taught by Professor Jeremy Bailenson, Communication 166 deals with the various angles of emerging VR technology and its use cases. Bailenson, who you discusses the course in the video above, is the author of the seminal VR text Experience on Demand, which also is one of the class’ assigned readings.

Here’s a course description:

Virtual Reality is becoming mainstream, with more than ten million systems being used in the United States alone. This class examines VR from the viewpoint of various disciplines, including popular culture, engineering, behavioral science, and communication. Each student will receive an Oculus Quest 2 headset, and the bulk of our learning will occur while immersed in VR.

According to the course structure, students will sometimes use lecture time to take part in VR experiences by themselves (such as watching a 360 degree video in VR) or as a group (such as attending a meditation session in Altspace as a group). Class discussions take place in VR too, using Engage.

According to this site, 263 students took the course in 2021 using their own VR headsets and spent a shared 200,000 minutes in VR for the course.

The course attracted some attention last week when it was mentioned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook profile, where he revealed that the students are all using Quest 2 headsets.

Stanford University has a strong history with VR, with the Stanford VR Experience tour playing a strong role in Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to purchase Oculus in 2014.

You can read more about Stanford’s Communication 166 class held entirely in virtual reality here.

Filed Under: Engage, engage vr, Facebook, Facebook headset, facebook vr, mark zuckerberg, mark zuckerberg stanford, mark zuckerberg stanford vr, Meta, meta quest, meta quest 2, meta quest education, meta quest vr, meta vr quest, new headset, new oculus, new oculus headset, new quest 2, new quest headset, oculus mobile vr, oculus news, Oculus Quest, oculus quest 2 headset, oculus quest 2 vr, oculus quest 2021, Oculus Quest facebook, Oculus Quest headset, oculus quest new, Oculus Quest news, oculus quest update, oculus quest vr, oculus standalone vr, Oculus VR, Quest, quest 2, quest 2 class, quest 2 education, quest vr, Quest vr news, standford university, Stanford, stanford quest 2, stanford vr, virtual reality, virtual reality experience, virtual reality game, virtual reality industry, virtual reality market, virtual reality new, virtual reality news, VR, VR app, vr article, VR Education, vr experience, VR game, vr game news, VR Headset, vr headset news, vr industry, vr industry news, VR Market, vr new, VR news, vr news market, vr quest 2

‘Quest Day’ Email From Meta Teases Holiday Drops

December 10, 2021 From uploadvr

Some Quest owners received an email from Oculus teasing surprises for the holidays.

The email labeled as coming from a “(Meta Quest Engineer)” named “Dr. 6DOF” comes from oculus@email.oculusvr.com with the subject line “Re: Holiday Drop Inquiry”.  It’s a cryptic message, but Meta confirmed to UploadVR it’s a real marketing email from the company.

Here’s the message:

So there you have it. In lieu of a new Quest or really any truly new VR hardware at all in 2021, Meta is planning…”something for our fan base.”

Filed Under: Facebook, Meta, Quest Day, VR news

Horizon Worlds Beta Goes Public In US & Canada With 18+ Age Requirement

December 9, 2021 From uploadvr

After years of waiting, the Horizon Worlds beta is opening to anyone in the US and Canada, with no invite required.

Meta announced the change today, which moves the beta from an invite-only system to a public beta with no invite requirement. Anyone who is in the US and Canada and over 18 can download Horizon Worlds and try it out from today.

UploadVR asked Meta for clarification on how the 18+ age requirement will be verified, to which a spokesperson responded: “When you log into Horizon Worlds with Facebook, you’ll be able to use the app in VR if your age on Facebook is over 18.”

Horizon Worlds is the social hub and creation tool created by Meta as part of the wider Horizon brand, which also includes Horizon Venues and Horizon Workrooms. It was announced all the way back in 2019, then known as Facebook Horizon, and displayed similar social, world-building functionality as VR apps like VRChat and Rec Room.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has emphasized Horizon Worlds’ priority within the company’s VR/AR efforts, hoping it might start the ‘social fabric’ of VR. Likewise, Meta Consulting CTO John Carmack has stated that he wants the next iteration of the company’s annual Connect conference to be held inside Horizon apps.

We first tried Horizon Worlds at Oculus Connect 6 in September 2019. A Closed Alpha began in March 2020, followed by a transition to an invite-only closed beta in August. It was then that we were able to go hands-on with Horizon Worlds for a second time, which left us feeling that the app had good foundation but didn’t necessarily feel like the full picture of Meta’s social VR puzzle.

In October, Meta rebranded Facebook Horizon to Horizon Worlds and announced a $10 million fund to encourage Horizon creators, despite still being in closed beta at the time.

Now, more than two years after it was announced, the beta will be open to those in the US and Canada. There is no word on other regions at the moment, but expect to hear more as the open beta progresses towards (hopefully) a full launch in the future.

Horizon Worlds beta is open to anyone aged 18+ in the United States and Canada from today on the Quest and Rift platforms. Support for the original Quest 1 will end January 13, 2022.

Filed Under: Facebook, Facebook headset, facebook horizon, facebook vr, facebook worlds, horizon, horizon connect, horizon facebook, horizon home, horizon vr, horizon workrooms, horizon worlds, instantsocial, Meta, meta horizon, meta horizon worlds, meta quest, meta quest 2, meta quest vr, meta vr quest, meta worlds, new headset, new oculus, new oculus headset, new quest 2, new quest headset, oculus mobile vr, oculus news, Oculus Quest, oculus quest 2 headset, oculus quest 2 vr, oculus quest 2021, Oculus Quest facebook, oculus quest game, oculus quest games, Oculus Quest headset, oculus quest new, Oculus Quest news, oculus quest update, oculus quest vr, oculus standalone vr, Oculus VR, Quest, quest 2, quest games, quest vr, Quest vr news, top stories, virtual reality, virtual reality experience, virtual reality game, virtual reality industry, virtual reality market, virtual reality new, virtual reality news, VR, VR app, vr article, vr experience, VR game, vr game news, VR Headset, vr headset news, vr industry, vr industry news, VR Market, vr new, VR news, vr news market, vr quest 2, worlds

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