It’s 10:30 p.m. on a Friday night in Ellicott City, Maryland and I’m in the mood for some comedy. The Ellicott Silly festival is in town and there are local comics all over the town entertaining people from all over the state. But at the Wine Bin down the street, projected on a 130-inch screen …
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It’s been two years since Facebook — now Meta — first showed off its VR metaverse app, Horizon Worlds. The app, which was in private beta until now, is at last open to the public starting Thursday. The virtual meeting space and gaming hub is a familiar mix of existing VR social apps such as Rec Room, AltSpace VR and VRChat, but its …
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This story is part of Gift Guide, our year-round collection of the best gift ideas. The metaverse is happening now! Or it’s already happened. The metaverse is gaming. It’s virtual reality. It’s a marketing term. It’s Web 3.0. It’s Facebook’s quick-change identity shift to Meta. Or, of course, it’s still a decade away. I’ve been covering VR and AR for years, …
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There’s been some debate over the future of location-based VR, those mall-based entertainment venues where you show up with friends and take part in a 20- to 30-minute experience together. Some of the more popular experiences have closed permanently in the face of the pandemic. And as the at-home room mapping in (increasingly cheaper) consumer headsets becomes more capable, how …
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One of the biggest challenges of mixed-reality headsets is the size. That’s the challenge a Chinese upstart called NReal wants to tackle with its sunglass-style AR glasses. The company, which raised $100 million this year, is planning to release its Android-based glasses in the US on Nov. 30. If you’re curious, you can try the smart accessory at select Verizon …
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VR visuals can only look so good, given current display technology, and we may already be approaching their limit. But what about our other senses? Facebook parent Meta’s dream of an immersive metaverse makes big promises, but current VR interactivity is limited. The Oculus Quest’s controllers, for example, still feel more appropriate for gaming than work. After immersive video, mixed …
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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 …
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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, …
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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 …
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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 …
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