Although the Oculus brand is now dead, Meta is making one big change to how these headsets are accessed. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a Facebook post that logging into Quest headsets will not require Facebook sign-in starting “sometime next year”.
This comes over a year after Meta said that Oculus users would require a Facebook account to use their headset (via). This led to a lot of headset owners being unable to use their devices. Expectedly, this decision was met with universal condemnation. Moreover, it may have even sparked off the idea to rebrand Facebook as per Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“In terms of the experience having people sign into Quest with Facebook, it’s not the direction we’re going to go in going forward,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Stratechery.
The feedback that we got on that was one of the things that made me actually feel a sense of urgency that we did need to make it so that people had a different brand relationship with the overall company than the Facebook app.”
Meta is preparing a next-gen VR headset under the codename “Project Cambria”
The social media giant acquired Oculus in 2014. This saw the introduction of products like the Quest in 2019 and the Quest 2 a year later. The latter uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 platform, made specifically for virtual reality headsets.
Reports suggest there won’t be a Quest 3 or even a successor launching anytime soon. Meta is reportedly preparing a next-gen VR headset with the codename “Project Cambria.”
Zuckerberg didn’t offer a lot of details on this device but suggested that it would be a high-end offering. It will reportedly offer advanced capabilities not seen on any other existing VR headset.
Project Cambria will supposedly involve new sensors on the headset capable of reflecting facial expressions and maintaining eye contact. The company said Cambria will also bring new optics that can increase visual fidelity. The Meta introduction video offered a brief glimpse into how this could materialize.
The company said it would offer more information on Project Cambria in 2022. Meanwhile, third-party developers are already working on experiences for this new headset. Meta is also working on mixed-reality experiences for Cambria. Using a combination of reconstruction algorithms and new sensors, the new headset can portray objects around you with perspective and depth.