No More facebook accounts tied to your Quest!

The day has finally come, well almost, starting in August you will no longer need a facebook account to use a quest VR device.

Zuckerberg and Meta announced today they will begin rolling out Meta accounts, a new way for people to log in to their headset that doesn’t require a facebook account. Once you make a meta account you’ll also need to create a Meta Horizon profile aka a social profile in VR. THis sorta sounds like a facebook account right? Well I’ll get to that in a minute along with the new privacy settings that will be implemented.

For those of us that already have accounts that are tied to a facebook or have an old school oculus account that you had to merge with facebook you can choose to remove your facebook account during the setup process. But do know you will still need to create both a meta account and a horizon profile before being forced to on January 1st 2023 to continue using your Quest. So Happy early New Years!

As stated on meta’s blog your meta account is not a social media profile. Its a little confusing but just remember your meta Account is separate from your meta Horizon profile. The meta account is specifically for logging into your VR devices, and viewing and managing your purchases inside Meta the app store. Meta does have plans in the future to extend the account function so you can use it to login to other furter meta devices. Hmm I wonder what those could be…

Of course you can connect your meta account to your instagram or if you don’t care facebook to gain access to connected experiences like finding your friends on those platforms to play vr games with. Again this connection is optional.

Now on to your Meta horizon profile. Once you finish setting up your meta account you’ll be asked to set one of these up which is a social profile that can be accessed not only in vr but also on the web. #metaverse here we come. Inside your profile you can customize your appearance and username which thankfully doesn’t have to be your real name which will be displayed to others while you are VR. From here your oculus friends then become your followers like instagram with meta claiming this provides more ways of being social and connecting with others. You can then choose to share activity updates, achievements etc with your followers. By default if you already own a quest headset your oculus friends will automatically become your followers and you’ll be following them back. But you can choose to unfollow or remove anyone at anytime.

Looking to the privacy settings, meta accounts will give you the options of your profile being open to everyone, friends and family which gives you control to connect only with people you know, and where only the people that now follow you can see your activity and active status, or go Solo where people cannot see your activity or status and you’ll be asked to approve every follower requests. But even choosing the private solo option your profile picture, avatar, username, display name, follower count and number of people you follow will be publicly visible.

With these new meta horizon profiles we have seen what seems to be confirmation of new avatar images inside the past few meta quest firmware updates And believe it or not… they have legs!!

Lastly I’ll leave you with this bit of Project Cambria news. It seems Meta is going to take the apple approach and has decided to name project cambria the Quest Pro. Mac Rumor writer and iOS code digger Steve Moser found a string in the latest ios Quest app referencing pairing a new controller that reads, Pair Meta Quest Pro right controller. 

We soon will be free from facebook accounts attached to our quest. Let me know what you think about this if you care or will still keep your facebook connected to your new meta account. Thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next quickie.

Thanks to an oopsie by VR developer Bit Planet, the makers of the Ultrawings games posted what looks to be a PSVR 2 in the wild in someone’s spine indented leather office chair.  It’s fair to assume this is more than likely a dev kit but it does look very much like the production design we have seen from Sony. It even had two cables still in plastic packaging so Internet sleuthers you tell me is this a dev kit or what we will see in our living rooms? Bit Planet gave the tweet a few hours but then removed it after garnering a few hundred retweets and a lengthy thread. In the thread below their redo tweet with a stock PSVR2 image Bit Planet claims it was fake news but great photoshop. Fake or not this was some good publicity for the VR devs, I just hope they didn’t break any NDA’s they had with sony. 

Speaking of developers, the company with all VR headsets Meta found itself in the hotseat this week with developers as a story came out that some devs are not happy with Meta’s 30% cut in their app store. Especially after Zuckerberg has openly criticized app stores on Andorid and Apple being a quote unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper of what gets on phones” The 30% to the app store cut is standard across steam, google play and the apple app store. Meta defends its share by saying unlike apple and android its easy to download apps through third party stores giving sidequest as an example. Obviously the baked in Meta app store that comes with the headset is going to get the bulk of the players eyes so I’m not sure that’s exactly a fair point. Sidequest is a great third party store and even with its newly released easy install setup you still need to know how to enable dev mode on your headset to access it. Which I'm not sure everyone would want to do. I guess on the bright side 30% is better than the 50% meta is taking from horizon worlds creators…But if you do want to learn how to download the new easy install version of sidequest and access their appstore in your headset I made a tutorial this week, expand the description to find the link.

On the other side of the coin, meta did finally release video recording settings for the quest this week. Well for developers for now at least. If you have made a developer account for your quest you can download the oculus developer hub and sign in. Once your headset is connected you can check out the video settings they made available in the dev hub 2.6 update. Including  4k, 1440p and 1080 60fps widescreen options. And the real winner in my eyes is the bit rate options for higher quality captures and less noise and artifacting. In a helpful touch, when you choose a widescreen mode and single eye view for recording,... inside the headset you are given black bars on the top and bottom to let you know what is and isn’t being captured. Hopefully this will become a feature for all to access in upcoming quest firmware updates but the caveat here is that when you record with high settings it does effect game play performance and I’ve seen frame drops, but hey I’m just glad it’s an option now.  

In VR Game news just a quick reminder for the PCVR gang out there the steam summer sale is blazing hot right now and running until July 7th. So if you haven’t yet go grab half life alyx now for half off and a ton of other great games with big discounts. Personally I picked up the survival game the forest for 5 bucks and I mean payday 2 with its VR mode is 99 cents so yeah. I’ve linked the VR store sale in the description. Also can someone let me know if Rick and Morty’s virtual rickeality is any good? I mean at $5 I know I should just do it but I figured it doesn hurt to ask.

For those of you looking forward to the new Among Us VR adaptation from schell games we got a little update from the games project director Mike traficante in an interview with VR Scout. When asked about the teams plans for future updates he stated, “Right now it’s all about getting the game out. But I mean, we’re close and we already know that we’re going to continue to add stuff to it. I think most of our questions about what we do next—whether it’s a new map or whether it’s more hats or whether it’s, I don’t know, wristwatches or something weird—it’s all going to depend on what we see players doing and asking for and where the community has excitement.” So I guess the good news here is that they are close to finishing up and hopefully we will get a solid release date soon. Mike also revealed a new among us task built for vr in the game where you have to lean over in real life long enough to have your character's face scanned without looking away. Hopefully you won’t get chopped in half while uploading your yellow mug to the spaceship data base.

In some fun news VR dev and youtuber Valem challenged himself to create a VR game fully inside his quest 2 headset in 24 hours. Using horizon workrooms he prepped his idea from scratch and then accessed his computer virtually for coding. He then used shapes XR to design the game world and Virtuoso for the soundtrack. The journey is a wild one culminating in a hang gliding experience you can play yourself. Checkout his channel in the description below and make sure to watch his video where he created the largest VR game using an outdoor athletic track, quest passthrough and a bicycle.  

Sadly this weeks vr news has come to an end but just like that weird guy on the bus, I’ll see you next week.

Sidequest Easy Install: https://youtu.be/0OGATkBy3DM

Steam VR Summer Sale: https://store.steampowered.com/vr

Valem Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ValemVR

Sidequest the app that lets you sideload and download games from applab and other vr developers just made it easier to get those new games onto your quest headset. Here’s how.

If you haven’t used sidequest before you will first need to setup an oculus developer account. Head over to https://developer.oculus.com/ and sign up using your facebook slash Oculus account and then head to https://developer.oculus.com/manage/organizations/create.

Now that you have dev mode ready head over to sidequestvr.com and set up an account you’ll need this here shortly. Next download and install the new sidequest easy installer from the get sidequest link in the top bar on their site and then plug in your quest to your computer. You may need to give the USB connection access inside the headset so click allow if you see this prompt and 

then back on the computer inside the easy sidquest installer app check to for a dot indicator next to headset connected. Once that dot is green you can then click the pink install in your headset button. You’ll get the confetti and now you are good to head back into your headset and under the app library panel go to the top right and choose unknown sources and then sidequest app. 

Memorize this code and head to the link in the message or the sidequest homepage where you are logged in with your account and click your circle icon in the top right then link my sidequest. Enter your unique code and boo ya now you are set up. 

Finally jump back into your headset and you’ll see the window has changed to the sidequest app library where you can search for games and apps that won’t necessarily show up in the regular quest store or are in early development in the app lab like dungeon maker or the contentious gorilla tag. 

You can also now more easily check out some new custom home environments by clicking that little menu burger in the top left then choose custom homes. Find on you like, and click the pink download button. For your first download you’ll see an android app dialogue box to install unknown apps, click settings, move the slider to allow from this source, click back and then finally install.

To view your new custom home click the little oculus home icon up in the top right and the virtual environment page will appear scroll down and find your new home click and now you are in a whole new world. 

Well now I’m here in the holodeck and I’m gonna go to my imaginary happy place byeeee

The team at Meta’s Reality Labs pulled back the curtain and unveiled some of their research work today in the form of some working prototypes and future designs to explain what they hope to achieve with VR in the next few years.

During the 30 minute conversation between Zuckerberg and Reality labs chief scientist Michael Abrash we learned about the 4 main problems meta is trying to solve to pass what they call the visual turing test or basically making VR look the same as our actual reality.

The first and probably the most important problem of course is resolution. The meta team is looking to reach 60 pixels per degree to try and closely match the human field of view which Mark stated would take more than 8k resolution to reach a retinal resolution in a headset. Meta currently has achieved a 55 pixel per degree display which is 2.5 times higher than on the quest 2. They showed this off in the VR prototype named butterscotch where you would be able to see the fine print on an opthamologists eye chart. To make this work Abrash did say the team created a hybrid lens and had to shrink the fov to about half of the Quest 2. But he said after trying it on it was hard to go back to regular VR because it was so sharp..

Next up is focal length. Because our eyes change shape and flex for focusing and looking around, when this is paired with a solid immovable lens things can become uncomfortable quickly. So on top of needing the retinal display resolution you need a depth of focus that can also hit that 60 pixels per degree number at all distances for near and far rendered images. Since currently this doesn’t exist meta worked to achieve this with varifocal technology that moves the lenses dynamically using eye tracking. This was built in the concept design iterations of half dome that has been progressing since 2017. 

Coupled with the focal length challenges is then fixing optical distortion. This is now being done in software and mark says it needs to be dynamic rather than static through software. To research this reality labs built a distortion simulator with 3D tv technology so they test out new lens designs without actually building all new headsets which can take months. This tech again relies on eye tracking to only render what the user is focusing on rather than the whole scene which is necessary to cut down on the processing power cost and subsequently the heat that is produced from the device to be safe for your face.

Lastly let's get our nit on. Meta really wants to push HDR in VR headsets to try and match the dynamic range and light we see in real life. Right now we get around 100 nits for a VR headset while the desired nits for a tv is around 10,000. To research this challenge Reality labs made another prototype called starburst that put a super bright lamp behind the lcd panels. I personally just love those noctua fans on the top. Mark touted the prototype to be the first HDR VR system that they know of in existence which is pretty cool and said obviously its wildly impractical in this first generation of its design but its has been invaluable in learning a bout HDRl in vr.

All of these paths and challenges have led to one fully fleshed out design that you may have actually seen on this channel before. Combining everything they have learned to create visual realism and pass the visual turing test Meta has created holocake 2. We’ve seen Andrew bosworth in a photo with the headset on before. The design is the lightest and thinnest headset Meta has ever created and Mark stated it can run any existing PCVR title. The team at reality labs removed the need for thick and heavy pancake lenses by not sending light through a lens, but it sends light through a holograph of a lens. Which as he explains holographs are recordings of what happens when light hits something. So basically the lenses inside the holocake are much thinner and flatter holographic models of the standard heavy lenses we see today Kind of like what we saw from Nvidia a few months ago.. They then combine this with polarized reflection to reduce the effective distance between the display and eye for a more efficient use of light.

But here’s the bad news. Which I feel like in this interview Zuck is the dreamer and Mike was the cautious yet optimistic Dad coming in with reality. In its current state Holocake 2 requires specialized lasers to give it the proper light source it needs to be a usable headset. The lasers that it uses in testing currently aren't available in consumer products nor at the cost, performance and size that is needed for this headset to be a consumer ready stand alone product. But he did have this to say…. “The jury is still out”

Lastly to end the video Mike shared the latest headset design Meta is working on to try and combine all of that research from the last 7 years entitled Mirror Lake. This is what a complete next gen display system could look like. So this design combines the advanced eye tracking, varifocal tech, and holographic lenses to make everything thin and flat. It also plans to have prescription correction remove the need for glasses attachments. But again I’ll let daddy mike give the warning.

So meta has given us a great and transparent look at what they have been working on for the past few years and the plans for the future. It all looks very exciting. What year do you think we will see a headset with holographic lenses? Or will we see one at all? Let me know down below and I’ll catch you in the next quickie. Sorry this one wasn’t exactly quick…

After the leaks from last week Zuck confirmed on his facebook page today that horizon homes is launching with the next quest update version 41 sometime next week.

Horizon home in Marks words will bring social presence into your virtual home as soon as you put on your headset. Invite friends to hang out, watch videos together, or jump into apps right from your virtual home. He also stated that more options to customize your home space are currently in development. 

Zuck showed off the new quest feature with free climber Alex Honnold whose film free solo showcased his death defying climbs without any harness or safety back up. They watched part of his 360 film the soloist VR together using the new horizon home share feature to give us an idea how it would look to bring our friends into an experience together virtually.

I’m interested in how this is going to work “as soon as you put on your headset” but I will say I am all for new features and updates to the quest as long as we can still use everything else properly.

Do you plan on using this feature? Let me know down below and of course I’ll catch you in the next quickie.

Getting a new quest? Get $30 free store credit on me by using my oculus quest coupon code: https://www.oculus.com/referrals/link/QuestQuickie/

My Favorite Oculus Quest 2 Accessories:

Quest 2: https://amzn.to/3PfvOi7

BOBO Battery Headstrap: https://amzn.to/3FvYVcw

Kiwi Pro Grip Covers: https://amzn.to/3l09346

VR Cover Facial Interface: https://amzn.to/3L1prf8

With the newest quest update version 40 an experimental feature landed on our headsets to prepare us for the upcoming mixed reality presence platform. Here is how to find it and set it up.

Inside your headset go to the quick settings menu on the left side of your home nav bar. Then hit the cog wheel for the settings menu and over to guardian. Under general scroll down to room setup dash experimental.

This will take you to a passthrough view, with a pop up box to setup your room in VR.. Hit continue to begin digitally marking your walls by first finding a bottom corner of a wall in your room and pulling the trigger to drop the first marker. I would suggest unlike me start with a wall that isn’t obstructed, then go ahead and pin the top of that corner to set the wall height. Next just mark the top corners of each of the surrounding walls until you connect back with your first corner and hit confirm.

If you’d like you can now outline your desk by marking the floor underneath the left side of your desk first, then the top left corner surface of your desk and then over to the right corner to set the width and then mark the back right corner to mark the depth. 

Feel free to also set up windows and doors by finding the top left corner then dragging to the bottom right corner of those areas.

Drop in a couch or in my case I used my office chair with the same directions as the desk and there you have it, your room is now set up for mixed reality.

Unfortunately the frustrating thing is as of recording this video there is no way to use the room you just set up.. A window pops up asking you to download the Mixed reality app zuck talked about in the project cambria highlight called the world beyond. But I can’t find it in the store, on mobile, desktop or in headset yet. I guess that is why this feature is still under experimental. Hopefully we will get to play with sweet little oppy soon. 

What do you hope to see make use of this room setup feature and the upcoming presence platform. Let me know in the comments and I’ll catch you in the next quickie

Getting a new quest? Get $30 free store credit on me by using my oculus quest coupon code: https://www.oculus.com/referrals/link/QuestQuickie/

My Favorite Oculus Quest 2Accessories:

Quest 2: https://amzn.to/3PfvOi7

BOBO Battery Headstrap: https://amzn.to/3FvYVcw

Kiwi Pro Grip Covers: https://amzn.to/3l09346

VR Cover Facial Interface: https://amzn.to/3L1prf8