Eye tracking has enabled people with paralysis or with conditions such as cerebral palsy and ALS to connect to computers for years. A new iPad accessory made by Swedish eye-tracking company Tobii Dynavox will do the same for Apple’s tablets. Tobii Dynavox is a separate assistive-device-focused subset of Tobii, a company that also makes eye-tracking …

A ton of companies are racing to get people interconnecting in an immersive metaverse using smart glasses. Right now, few even exist that can work with the phones in our pockets, though. Qualcomm’s latest initiative called Snapdragon Spaces seeks to act as the glue between phones and future smart glasses, with a focus on supporting open web platforms.  The catch, …

There really isn’t a “Zoom for VR” yet, despite many companies working on offering virtual meeting rooms. The mainstream work tools most people use haven’t made the leap. Facebook, which is trying to push its entire company into the metaverse, doesn’t have one yet. Meanwhile, Microsoft is finally pushing Teams into a VR/AR-bridged tool that’s arriving in beta form in the …

Facebook was renamed as Meta this week, as part of a broad push to focus on the cross-device multiverse vision for social networking that Mark Zuckerberg has talked about for months. The name change, announced at the company’s developer-focused Connect virtual conference, happened in the same week that a cache of internal documents pointed to Facebook’s role in perpetuating hate speech, …

The newly renamed Meta (previously Facebook) has big plans for fitness and the metaverse. Meta just acquired one of the Oculus Quest’s more notable subscription-based fitness companies, Within, which makes an Oculus app called Supernatural. The app connects with Apple Watches to track real-time heart rate, working similarly to Apple Fitness Plus and Amazon’s upcoming Halo fitness video service. Supernatural was …

This story is part of Making the Metaverse, CNET’s exploration of the next stage in the internet’s evolution. Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash is about a pizza delivery man by day, VR superhero by night, who lives in an online universe called the Metaverse. “So Hiro’s not actually here at all. He’s in a computer-generated universe that his computer …

Facebook (now rebranded as Meta) has a new VR headset in the works, but it’s not designed as a replacement to the Quest 2. Think of it more as a more expensive, future-forward pro model. At the company’s developer-focused Connect conference, amid broad news of the company’s plans for a cross-device metaverse and next-generation smart glasses (and a name change as …

The Oculus Quest (soon to be Meta Quest) started as a head-mounted game console, but now its parent company Facebook (renamed Meta) is trying to push the platform further by connecting with you across VR headsets, AR headsets, metaverse avatars and in other ways. The timing for the annual VR- and AR-focused Facebook Connect conference couldn’t be worse, with the …

Facebook (now renamed Meta) is still trying to make AR-enabled, AI-assisted smart glasses happen. The company announced plans to field-test its camera and sensor-studded Project Aria research glasses in more places, with neural input wristbands, and even in cars. These plans for even more data-hungry glasses were announced during a week where a trove of leaked internal documents has reignited …

The year has gone by in a blink and, throughout it, Facebook’s VR headset remains one of my favorite pieces of tech. As Facebook pushes to reinvent itself, perhaps even rename itself amid recent turmoil, and makes a new wave of AR/VR communication the backbone of a metaverse, the Oculus Quest 2 seems like the little $300 device at the center …