Virtual Reality

There’s a reason why the $130 Quest 3 Elite Strap with Battery is listed as out of stock on Meta’s store — the company has temporarily paused sales of the accessory after widespread reports of buggy charging behavior. RoadtoVR reports that it’s having to manufacture new straps to fix the issues.

If your device is affected, try reaching out to Meta Support for a replacement.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with taking your phone to the ceramic throne so you can relax, read, and relieve... but a virtual reality headset? That’s next level.

OK, there are clear benefits to taking the new Meta Quest 3 to the bathroom, though. As Redditor Tall_Whole_5777 describes: You don’t need to touch screens or buttons to watch and control a YouTube video.

Microsoft Teams is about to go 3D thanks to a new VR meetings experience in January 2024. While that’s a new way to chat with coworkers, Microsoft is already teasing how its generative AI Copilot system will be able to handle requests for creating meeting spaces and objects in VR. We’re not sure when this will arrive, but generative AI in VR is certainly on the way.

Check out the process in an onboarding video that 9to5Mac found in the latest visionOS beta.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it will be sold in China and “other markets” as well, and will use cheaper lenses than the Quest 3, but features a more powerful GPU than the older Quest 2. Despite leaving China 14 years ago, Meta’s return will be made possible through a preliminary deal with gaming giant Tencent. The news comes amid weakening demand for VR hardware.

The three companies announced an Android AR / VR headset in February but with few details. UploadVR and Korean business outlet The JoongAng report rumors of a late 2024 launch, after Apple introduces its Vision Pro.

Last month Samsung closed a $218 million deal to acquire eMagin, a US company developing Micro OLED tech that execs have said could surpass the panel in the Vision Pro, could be two to three years from being commercialized.

Meta is making it easier to chat with your Quest friends while you’re in Horizon Worlds as part of the v134 update to the app. It’s the company’s latest way to make Horizon Worlds more social; Meta rolled out “world chat,” an in-experience text chat, to all users earlier this month.

The new options include more hair colors and the ability to create a two-toned hairstyle, according to a Meta blog post. You can read more about the options in my article from September when Meta announced the upgrades. (It has been rolling out the changes since then.)

UploadVR spotted a “coming soon” listing for VRChat, the virtual reality social platform, in the app store for the ByteDance-owned Pico 4 headset.

I wonder if that Four Seasons Total Landscaping hangout is still around.

In partial response to articles documenting people wearing their Meta Quest 3s in the real world (like ours), VR YouTuber Brad Lynch published a video about the experience of using the Quest 3 at Disney World.

Just to be clear: I think that using the headset’s mixed reality features outside still feels like a strange thing to do. But Lynch has some thoughtful perspective on where the Quest 3 falls short as an out-in-the-world mixed reality device.

One of the questions about how Vision Pro users will be able to share content with people who don’t have their own $3,500 headset may be answered, as MacRumors points out code discovered in Apple’s visionOS 1.0 beta 4 release about mirroring content to other devices and sharing via AirPlay or FaceTime.

Another string in the code is a new alert for situations where “This video has excess motion, and could cause discomfort if expanded.”

Developer Steve Troughton-Smith spotted a fun little note today on the download page for the Xcode 15.1 beta that says a Mac with Apple Silicon is required if you want to develop for visionOS.

So alas, you can’t use a decked-out 2019 Mac Pro ($400 wheel upgrade included, of course). But buy a base-model M1 MacBook Air from 2020 for under a grand? Go forth, my friend.

Developer Innersloth announced that the game won’t receive updates or further support on the platform starting October 4th, 2023. As for why, the developer cites “the discontinuation of the Rift S headset, and many Rift players already moving to SteamVR.”

Players can get a SteamVR key for the game by submitting proof of purchase, using this form, by October 20th, 2023.

Remember the whole microscandal about Zuck’s VR legs?

Well... Meta is now using “machine learning models that are trained on large data sets of people” to let developers give you generative AI legs in the Meta Quest 3.

More new dev toys here.

Among Us VR adds to the growing library of games available to PlayStation’s next-gen VR system, which includes No Man’s Sky, Beat Saber, Resident Evil Village, and a lot more.

This clip shows off The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, one of the Quest 2’s headliner games, alongside its upgraded Quest 3 version. We’re still looking at a game powered by a mobile chip, but it’s a significant detail boost.