Meta’s v47 software update for the Quest platform is packed with quality-of-life features that look to improve the user experience across Quest Pro and Quest 2, offering things like better media sync, an avatar mirror, and the ability to directly gift apps from your wishlist to friends and family. More importantly, Quest Pro is finally getting mixed reality passthrough recording in v47, and unlocking Quest Pro controller support for Quest 2.
First, here’s a look at the Quest Pro specific stuff, followed by updates affecting the whole Quest platform.
Quest Pro Updates
Meta is looking to make good use of the extra horsepower in Quest Pro, as it’s set to gradually rollout background audio playback as an experimental feature, which will let you listen to music and podcasts Browser as well as Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), which include things like 2D apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Spike, but also WebXR-based stuff too.
Not being able to record mixed reality footage was a bit of a letdown when Quest Pro launched back in late October, but now Meta says v47 will soon (again, gradual rollout) let you capture photos and videos while using mixed reality in passthrough mode. Here’s a look at how you can easily transition from VR to passthrough MR during the same recording:
Quest-wide Updates
Speaking of video capture, Meta is making it easier to capture video and images on Quest with the addition of capture controller shortcuts. Once you have v47 in-hand, you’ll be able to capture images by holding the Oculus button down and pulling the right controller trigger. To record video, hold the Oculus button and long-hold the right controller trigger.
And syncing media is supposed to be a better experience too, as Meta says it’s improving how you view, edit and share your photos and videos you capture in VR. We’re hoping the new syncing method is faster and more reliable than the previous, which promised to automatically sync to the Oculus app, but often times left us waiting for days for images and video to show up.
Meta is also unlocking Quest Pro Touch controller compatibility with Quest 2 in v47. Quest Pro’s controller is the company’s first inside-out tracked controllers due to the inclusion of its own camera sensors. That means a wider range of motion in-game since you don’t need direct line of sight between the headset and controllers.
Quest 2 Controller (top), Quest Pro Controller (bottom) | Photo by Road to VR
Many social VR apps have mirrors for easier avatar management, and now Quest will too. The v47 update lets you view and edit your avatar with a new mirror added to Home. This is set to roll out gradually and will be initially available in four environments: Desert Terrace, Space Station, Winter Lodge, and Cascadia.
Here’s a couple more goodies being added in v47:
Universal Menu Customization – You can start, find, and jump into a multiplayer session with your friends directly from the home screen. You’ll be able to pin and unpin apps from your library to your Universal Menu for quicker access to apps.
Revamped device management screen – Makes it easier to know when your headset needs to be charged.
Shareable Wishlists – Make your app wishlist public and send a link to friends and family. Modify your wishlist from the Store tab on your headset or the Meta Quest mobile app. Friends and family will be able to directly gift apps from your wishlist.
Meta Quest Digital Gift Cards – Redeemable for any app or game in the Meta Quest Store.
Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface (BMI) company Neuralink has been fairly quiet since it last showed off a live trial of the company’s implant in a macaque early last year. Although originally scheduled for October 31st, Musk says a “show & tell” update is coming on November 30th.
The event is said to take place on November 30th at 6: 00 PM PT (local time here). The company’s Twitter profile left a possible hint at this year’s update in an announcement, and it appears to be focused on text input.
The company says in its application FAQ it hasn’t yet begun clinical trials, although BMI text input may be difficult to prove in non-human subjects, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Like many of Musk’s startups, Neuralink has some fairly lofty goals. The company says in the near-term it wants to help those with paralysis and neurological conditions and disorders and “reduce AI risk to humanity in the long term.”
Here’s a quick recap of events to bring you up to speed for Wednesday’s show and tell:
The gift giving season has started early this year, it seems. Star Wars: Squadrons (2020), the highly-rated space dogfighter from EA’s Motive Studios, is free to claim on Epic Games Store from now until December 1st.
Star Wars: Squadrons was primarily created for console and PC, although its VR implementation was right at home in the game’s immersive cockpits. Everything can be played in VR, from its full-length single player campaign to its 5v5 multiplayer mode.
We liked it so much back at release in late 2020 that we gave it a ‘Great’ rating of [9/10] in our full review. We also gave it our Excellence in VR Adaptation award in 2020 alongside our 2020 games of the year.
There are some misgivings, although they’re mostly forgivable. Cinematic cutscenes are reduced to 2D windows, but it’s hard to knock when stacked up against the game’s visual detail, which includes some of the most refined character models we’ve seen in VR.
Multiplayer has also dried up a bit over the last two years, although with it free on Epic Games Store for the next few days that’s likely to change with the influx of new players.
Remember: you don’t need to download it right this second, just claim it before December 1st.
We’ve long suspected the human brain is a quantum computer but we’ve never had any actual evidence to back this theory up. That is, until now. A pair of researchers from Trinity College in Dublin and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw recently published what may turn out to be landmark research in the quest to understand the human brain, consciousness, and the physical nature of the universe itself. The team’s paper, titled “Experimental indications of non-classical brain functions,” details an experimental MRI paradigm in which it appeared test subjects’ brains were entangled with their hearts. Entanglement refers to…
