Virtual Reality

Meta and Lightstorm Vision’s partnership will help “scale the creation of world-class 3D entertainment experiences spanning live sports and concerts, feature films, and TV series featuring big-name IP on Meta Quest — which will be Lightstorm Vision’s exclusive MR hardware platform,” according to a Meta blog post. Cameron says it’s a multi-year partnership.

Meta has been working on improving the Windows VR experience with its Quest headsets in recent months, and now Microsoft says the full capabilities of Windows 11 are coming to the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S in December. You’ll be able to have a large multiple-monitor workstation through Quest 3 headsets in public preview next month.

We’re still waiting to hear when Windows Volumetric Apps will be available, though.

...on Apple’s Vision Pro headset. “Open Hearts,” which Apple describes as a “new immersive music experience,” debuts on Thursday. The company is steadily introducing new immersive content for the headset.

The company just released the developer beta for visionOS 2.2, which brings with it wide and ultrawide curved virtual display options for the Vision Pro, 9to5Mac reports.

Beta users will also finally be able to output their Mac’s audio on the headset while using the virtual display with this update. (Before, the audio would only come from the Mac’s speakers.)

The strap, which is listed on Apple’s store for $49.95 but not yet available, combines with the Solo Knit Band, giving wearers over-the-head support that looks nicer than fiddling with the Vision Pro’s included Dual Loop Band.

As 9to5Mac notes, it’s similar to an accessory that appeared in materials when Apple announced the headset, but was never something you could buy.

Square Enix’s strategy game is out now for Meta’s Quest headsets. Based on a trailer, VR seems like an interesting way to take in the battlefield.

And if you were wondering, the game’s developers know it has a weird name.

Trombone Champ: Unflattened launches on Meta Quest headsets on November 26th. If you pre-order, you’ll get a ridiculous fish-themed trombone you can use in the game.

If you’ve already watched Submerged on your Vision Pro, there will be additional Immersive Video content over the course of this year, and you can see the list of what’s coming on 9to5Mac.

Dimensional Double Shift is a four-player co-op game from Owlchemy Labs, the creators of Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator and Cosmonious High.

Like those games, you’ll be doing hilarious oddball tasks in VR — but now you’re working for an “interdimensional” gas station, diner, and garage, and using your actual tracked hands to manipulate objects.

And later in 2025, users will be able to generate a new avatar with an AI prompt.

5X usage growth in 2024, and the app is a top five Quest 3 app in terms of weekly users, the company says.

Correction: Horizon Worlds is not a Quest 5 app.

Could be a really big deal for developers — the announcement got huge cheers in the Connect keynote room.

We’re in the developer-focused section of Meta’s Connect keynote. CTO Andrew Bosworth is onstage and starts with an apology: “We have not made it easy to develop for our platforms. I want you to know that we know that, and we’re sorry.”

He goes on to say that the “ground has constantly been shifting under your feet for years now.” Meta just recently killed Spark, its AR effects platform, without warning and has made more changes than I can count to the Quest’s software.

Zuckerberg has wrapped up announcements. We just watched a video made by director Matthew Vaughn filmed on Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

Now Andrew Bosworth is here for the developer keynote.

At Meta Connect, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Quest VR headset users will be able to connect to Windows 11 PCs just by looking at their keyboard — much the same way Apple’s Vision Pro can do that when you look at a MacBook.

Here’s a gallery of pics from the presentation.

That could be kind of useful, actually.

I still think it’s pretty bad, but people in the crowd seem to love it.

A person in the audience was wearing the Quest 3S to show off the passthrough, but the demo failed pretty quickly.