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Don't turn down eBay's 15%-off deal for the new Nest Hub, Google Wifi, and tons more smart tech
Kick off summer in style with deals on a ton of gadgets
It's been a while since eBay last held one of its big sitewide sales, but that doesn't mean you can't score some big savings. To kick off the start of summer, eBay is offering major discounts on nearly 100 products across the site, including a ton of gadgets that are probably on your wish list. From Google's smart home gear to customizable lights for your home, there's a little something here for everyone.
Oculus forcing users into mandatory Facebook accounts for full functionality
Pushing a new reality onto existing users starting in 2023
Virtual reality was beginning to feel like a big deal back in 2014, and Oculus was one of the prime players. After a successful Kickstarter campaign for the Rift VR, Facebook saw a chance to snatch the company up and purchased it for $2 billion in cash and stocks. Now after six years, Oculus is announcing that Facebook accounts will be mandatory for new users starting in October, and existing users may lose functionality if they don't merge their accounts by 2023.
The VR hype train has slowed down considerably over the last couple of years, but that doesn't stop companies invested in the technology from iterating on their products. The same is true for Facebook, which announced a number of significant improvements to its VR division during its annual Oculus event on Wednesday, making advanced virtual reality experiences more accessible at lower prices. Among a plethora of changes to the platform, you can now let the Oculus Quest track your hands without additional hardware and connect it to a computer via USB, allowing you to get some of the full Rift VR experience.
Since the advent of virtual reality hardware, there's been a drive toward wireless. But the dream of an exceptional VR headset that doesn't tangle isn't quite there yet — the performance and graphics quality can't compare to wired systems. Facebook's Oculus seems to believe it has cracked the code, though. At Oculus Connect 5 (OC5), the new all-in-one Oculus Quest headset debuted with the advertising copy: "This is the VR experience everyone's been waiting for." In addition to the new hardware, the VR headset maker announced that its mobile app now supports the Oculus Rift, and that Oculus Go will soon gain access to YouTube VR's full library.
Chrome 66 adds experimental support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets
Google Chrome 66 came out a few days ago, with your usual list of new APIs and user improvements. However, one major new feature flew under the radar. This is the first stable Chrome release with experimental support for Valve's OpenVR API, allowing VR content to be viewed on all popular headsets. This includes the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
Today Google has announced Blocks, a new tool for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift for making 3D objects. Think Google's Tilt Brush, but with a 3D spin. As the name might suggest, Google's motivation seems to have been making 3D modeling easier for everyone. Crafting objects literally with your hands should make Blocks much more approachable for users compared to the regular keyboard-and-mouse-driven method on a 2D screen.
Perhaps you haven't noticed yet, but virtual reality is kind of a big deal. Samsung has holiday-themed ads running on primetime TV and sports, the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are breaking new ground in a stale gaming industry, and even Google is pushing its new Daydream platform hard. The powers that be think there's money to be made, and that means they're willing to work together (at least to some degree) in pursuit of it. Hence the creation of the Global Virtual Reality Association, announced by Samsung on its corporate blog.
The current boom in virtual reality tech is progressing along roughly two lines: big, complex, and expensive VR headsets driven by full-power gaming machines, like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and small, cheap headsets that slot a high-resolution smartphone in to pull double duty as processing unit and display, like Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. Users who don't have four figures worth of money to burn have had to make do with the latter. But a new app is hoping to change that.
Virtual reality (or whatever term some picky people would like to apply to it) is the hot new thing. Conventional businesses are trying to incorporate it into their plans, and nothing shouts "conventional business" like a hardware store. To that end, US hardware chain Lowe's is working on some interesting ways to get customers involved in their renovation projects, even before they start putting down plastic sheets. At a few stores in Colorado and Ohio, Lowe's has created special VR stations that will let you recreate an entire room, then swap out 3D appliances, apply different paint colors, and do all kinds of home improvement things while seeing the results in real time with an Oculus Rift headset.
Oculus VR has been through quite a ride since it raised nearly $2.5 million on Kickstarter in 2012. It has produced two prototypes of the Oculus Rift head-mounted display, and been acquired by Facebook along the way. Now the company has announced a release window for the first consumer version of the Rift—Q1 2016. That's almost all we know, though.
The Oculus Rift has been in development for a few years with development kits available to those who wanted to experience the future of motion sickness, but now the second iteration of the development hardware is out. Naturally, iFixit got one to tear apart. What they found is solid evidence of the collaboration between Oculus and Samsung. The screen in the Oculus Rift DK2 is literally the whole front panel of a Galaxy Note 3.
This is Google Cardboard. It's really, really weird.
Rumors are flying about Samsung's plans for the virtual reality headset market. Just a week after Engadget's last unconfirmed report on Samsung's VR device, there's a new post that sheds quite a lot more light on the subject. First of all, Samsung and Oculus VR (makers of the Oculus Rift and recently acquired by Facebook) are sharing technology to improve each other's products. And secondly, Samsung's device uses a dock for your phone, which then becomes the primary display for the device.
I get the feeling that Samsung often makes hardware just to be sure they've got something ready, on the slim but possibly lucrative chance that an upcoming hardware market explodes. The Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Gear, the Gear Fit, the Galaxy Beam - all of them slightly crazy niche products following a trend. If Engadget is to be believed, you can add a virtual reality headset to the mix. A Samsung VR headset, similar to the Oculus Rift but intended for use with Samsung phones and tablets, is rumored for production later this year.
Facebook usually buys apps and various online services, but not today. The company has just announced that it has agreed to purchase Oculus VR, the company working on the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The final price for the company was $2 billion ($400 million cash, $1.6 billion stock). That's 2 Instagrams, if you're keeping track.
Virtual reality didn't die in the 90's, it just needed the right hardware to get going again. The Oculus Rift VR headset has developers and enthusiasts excited, but it's currently tethered to the PC. According to Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe, that's a temporary situation – the team is planning to bring the Oculus Rift to Android.