At least now it will become possible to use Oculus without being forced to have a Facebook social media account. Just like it is possible to use Whatsapp without a Facebook identity.
This is the big point even if we have to have a meta account we are not at the whim of being suspended from using our headset because of something we said on a separate social media platform
The bigger point is how much of your personal info and psychographic profiling will, one way or another, still make its way to The Company Formerly Known As Facebook, which remains to be seen
Do you think they will just ignore those micro-head-movements when they start A/B testing different stuff on screen to figure out the algorithm that is _you_? Who needs a real, physical Westworld?
I hear the next version might even track retinal movement. So many useful audience-segmenting and personalized targeting capabilities!
I challenge them to link my accounts where I'm not using any real details for the Oculus one (aside from IP address). They're gonna accept the challenge though and I'd be safest not using any FB products at all aside from Oculus. I check FB on average every 2-3 weeks so they could probably make the connection. Loose one, but still.
By break away hit, I meant more in line with Nintendo Switch sales. I doubt it's even close due to the login requirement. They lost a lot of word of mouth marketing from would-be evangelists. It's near impossible to defend Facebook / Meta.
The Facebook login was unnecessary friction since they didn't even take advantage of it from the start. It wasn't until a few months ago when I could even find my friends from Facebook.
That's exactly what this is. They killed off the Oculus brand and now it's Meta. You will need a Meta account. I'd be surprised if it doesn't use the Facebook auth system with a different skin.
It looks like Valve is making their own standalone VR headset ,and made Steam Deck along the way to meet minimal amount of orders for custom chip. The chip can deliver 2.5 TFlops if it's clocked like other RDNA2 GPUs, it's almost 2x of Quest 2 GPU performance. Not sure about price though, it will be definitely higher than 300$ of heavily subsidized Quest 2, and I think price will be closer to current "Oculus for Business" offering, which is 800$. Not sure how it will compete with project Cambria.
There is, but it's not even close to being here yet so I don't know why everyone keeps bringing up. Meta's Cambria will be released before Valve's wireless headset.
I doubt Facebook's name change is driven by the last few weeks of bad PR. The relevant model seems Google's change to Alphabet, which wasn't driven at all by an attempt to flee the negative associations with their previous name.
I agree Zuckerberg had probably been thinking about it, particularly since Snow Crash is assigned reading for some of his employees.
It seems, though, that the timeline was moved up dramatically to both distract from other Facebook-related news, and to escape from the toxic branding that is Facebook at this point.
Switching to a name which is already a common english word with many uses, seems like an attempt to make future criticism more confusing, as well.
I wouldn't count them off that easily. Valve is making their own autonomous headset, should be out next year. It will be more expensive, yes. But it will be faster and it will be full blown Linux PC with access to whole library of PC games. Might be very competitive(still will lag in units sold though, but mostly due to supply constraints). Any you shouldn't forget that Sony is still on the market(autonomous PSVR is not out of the question) and Apple is making their own headset.
I sort of have a hard time dishing out $999 for a Index but I’m also in the same boat regarding FB. I don’t want anything to do with them. Even though they have all my information from back in the day when I used it.
Glib but true. Wireless Vs. non-wireless is apples vs. oranges, now that I've experienced apples I want apples and Valve is only currently selling oranges.
Plus you're comparing a "good enough" $300 device to a superior but cost prohibitive $1K device. I feel like people who compare a Valve Index to a Quest really don't get what makes Quest uniquely good to its audience currently.
Nobody is denying that the Index is technologically superior across the board, what I am saying is that the measures we're using are completely different. I consider the Steam Deck a closer comparison than the Index for example.
Well let's get some edumacation goin here, you can be wireless.
Tracking is night and day on a vive vs. fb trash device. Are you really running around with a vr headset on? No, you mostly stay in one area and usually the same one. My vive pro not only has insanely good tracking. The video is amazing and the tracking, you can't say enough good things about it.
Vive costs more because it's that much better. So while I'd buy the facebook trash costs less, that's the only reason to get one. Not even imo, fact.
You replied to the wrong post. My post was a response to one comparing the Quest to the Valve Index, whereas your post is seemingly something about Quest Vs. Vive Pro.
Although regardless of who you were trying to respond to, comes across likely ruder than you intended just fyi.
Theres more than 2 VR headsets, Quest and Index, available at the moment. Just have a brief look.
https://www.vr-compare.com/
.
Eg. If you want wireless one like the quest, the HTC Vive Focus or HTC Vive Focus plus have similar specs to quest 2.. they can play games by themselves without a pc and are wireless
.
If you have a pc and want higher resolution / framerate like the index then DecaGear and HP Reverb G2 look good.
.
I would not get a quest cus of fb, and apparently atm the build quality of index is atrocious.
I've dropped mine, walked in to objects several times. Had the light house trackers fall from a distance and ripped the DP plug out of its port. I've had no issue with the quality; actually been quite impressed.
There's a few VR reviews on YouTube. Many things break for a lot of the user base. One reviewer has been through three headsets and a bunch of controllers. The RMA process is good.
You're a Ghot damn American patriot! Thank you for not giving Facebook money, glad to hear there are other ethical people with at least half an eye open.
I'd upvote this a billion times but once will have to do ;)
No, this would be an Oculus-specific account. There are enough legitimate criticisms of Facebook that we don't have to go around inventing false ones.
Edited to cite the announcement transcript[1]:
> And as we’ve focused more on work, and frankly, as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.
> ... I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences.
Why the fuck do I need to log into my monitor?! it's bad enough the driver demands a running application which tries to sell me shit and pushes me into a place I don't want to be at all. It's literally hijacking my computer.
I do not own an iPad. Also... do you really have to? I haven't used an iOS in a little bit now.
Apple is hardly the model for technology we should be using these days. Their walled garden has rotten fruit and it doesn't even get you drunk, you simply fall ill.
I don't own an iPad, but I flashed my tablet with an Android Open Source Project ROM so that I have the option to not send data to anybody I don't want to.
Is Facebook planning to let us do this? Or are they just changing the brand logo on the login page for their required login?
I use a pin code or thumbprint to unlock my iPad and login to Apples store
I can root it and install alternative store
What alternative software can I run on Occulus?
That and all the extra engineering for managing users for business reasons not technical wastes real resources to prop up a technology company that isn’t interested in novel discovery, but servicing contemporary business obligations
If they’re so smart and capable of pulling useful metadata off unstructured data, why do they need me to maintain a specific profile?
Really kind of feels like they rely on having concrete data and the meta part is marketing
You realize iOS roots are developed by third-party geeks and void your warranty (unless that changed in the years since I've interacted with iOS, but I'd be shocked)? Maybe we should indeed force hardware manufacturers to offer a rooting/open OS option by default, but it's a weird criticism when you start off the comment by licking Apple's boot. Further, Facebook actually does offer to open up your deprecated Oculus Go headset now that they are done with the 2 years of guaranteed support to its devs. As such, people can keep tinkering and keeping it up to date (Carmack's opening remarks yesterday address this) with the help of Facebook. That puts them quite objectively ahead of Apple in this regard, the company which was fined in court [1] for draining older iPhone's batteries and slowing them down thru software updates.
Guaranteed all these people in this thread wouldn't be losing their shit over a hardware account if it wasn't from Facebook's holdco. Forcing a Facebook account was creepy, a dedicated Oculus (well, Meta) account is normal and defensible.
Heya, I noticed that, in responding, you switched your premise from, "You log into an ipad", to, 'The overwhelming majority of people log into their apple accounts when setting up their ipads'.
Since this is disingenuous on your part, telling the person you responded to, to "do better" seems hypocritical.
I wonder who you think I meant by "you"? Did you assume I specifically know the parent in person and how they use their ipad at home? If so, and I can only assume you did otherwise your comment would be nonsense, I can see how that would be confusing and seem disingenuous to you.
If you're suggesting that by "you", you meant "The overwhelming majority of people who set up ipads", that doesn't sound like a very credible retroactive explanation.
Like, it's confusing for sure, but not on the part of the reader. It doesn't even make sense. Most people don't even _have_ ipads.
And even if they did, you're basically saying, "this small subset of self-selecting people who are okay with their tablet requiring a login to work, are okay with their devices requiring a login to work", which isn't very convincing to others, either.
And even if _that_ made sense, 'these other people are okay with it' is probably one of the weakest possible arguments in favor of /anything/.
> this small subset of self-selecting people who are okay with their tablet requiring a login to work, are okay with their devices requiring a login to work
I'll go ahead and assume English isn't your first language. I was saying the vast majority of people who own ipads are fine with needing to login to an account to get the most out of it. Doesn't seem like a particularly controversial statement.
Now go ahead and find some way in which the above sentence is technically incorrect, but you're starting to look silly.
How does the statement "the vast majority of people who own ipads are fine with needing to log into their device" convince those who do not, and are not?
You can just click the skip button and use an iOS device without any account. Whether or not people want to do this is an entirely different conversation but Apple does not require it.
You do better and stop moving the goalposts and lying.
The Oculus isn’t just a monitor, it’s a complete computer system with its own OS. If you just want a VR headset that is purely a monitor, buy one of those.
This wouldn't change if it were a store account instead of a device account.
Most people use google's play store but this doesn't mean every android device needs a mandatory google account.
The MacOS "App Store" (as in the thing they call the app store, rather than all the other ways you can pay for and install apps) does require you to login. Worse, they block updating the non-os software that came with your computer with logging into that app store.
I agree with OP for regular wired Oculus devices. They are essentially monitors, and I wouldn't expect to have to have an account in order to use a dumb peripheral. For the Quest, you're right, it's more like a computer system with OS, apps, etc. I'd still rather be able to use it without an account, and only create an account if I wanted to interact with online services like apps and games.
Still! why must I log in to simply download an app!? Perhaps publishing an app is a more sensitive matter, then maybe it's worth validating things strictly behind closed doors... but to simply download and use software on a device I own, I can't fathom how we've slipped so far.
Not really. Nintendo eShop and Google Play Service will dark pattern you towards having an account in cases where they don't outright require it like DLC expansions to the "physical" cartridge you "bought".
You can't install apps through "normal user" means on the Android phones I've had unless you add an account.
De facto, that means you need an account.
Yes, I know you can try to find copies of your banking apps on apkmirror and sideload, but... no. (Also, wouldn't that mean that you have to manually confirm every single app update, so a 10-minute button pushing session every week?)
You can use via Link with a PC or side load apps, so Oculus apps aren't needed.
Since when is it ok that I need an third party account to access my computer?
False, I purchased a VR headset to use with Steam VR (mostly), but I fully expected it to work in a standard way, with understanding to the variations in the handheld controllers.
> Because you bought a system that only has apps from your monitor's app store available, and that means you have to prove who you are to use them.
Blatantly false. You can either play Oculus games (must, if you are playing without PC; basically the app store) or you can connect to PC and play any SteamVR games just like you would with any other headset (supported officially).
So with Quest 2, I get to play both the Oculus-only standalone games made for the headset specifically, as well as any SteamVR games that my friends with other VR headsets might want to play together.
An oculus is not a monitor, it's an entire game console that includes a screen. Are you this incredulous about having to log in to an iPad or a Switch?
Yes, there was a time when we didn't need accounts for every piece of hardware we use.
It is a fact of life that companies will impose more and more profit-maximizing inconveniences upon the customer as long as the customer is willing to accept them. It only stops when enough customers push back.
Because of the security and risk implication of not preventing it. Goldman Sachs is both an investment bank and an asset management firm, literally the same company. However, they have clear protocols in place to separate the two sides because otherwise the opportunities for impropriety are too high. I could see a similar argument for separating Facebook and Oculus accounts.
The fact that the two components of an analogy are not the same thing is the point of the analogy. If they were the same thing, the analogy would be useless.
In this specific analogy, the point is, despite having different business models, society benefits from either conglomerate separating their respective two aforementioned business units.
No, their businesses are managing money and taking companies public. They're overall revenue would benefit from aligning those businesses, but they aren't allowed to. They are kept separate because of the risks of having them together. The Facebook scenario is a different (but comparable) situation.
That's FB's claim at the moment and after so many tricks and lies by FB I'm pessimistic.
Their contract excuse to circumvent the GDPR does not make them credible.
Does Meta provide a guarantee that data won’t be unified between Facebook and Oculus accounts ever? If not, what is the value of this distinction beyond PR?
This is not stated anywhere. I don't see why Facebook couldn't create a Meta SSO that you can use for Facebook and/or Oculus and call it "job done". For them it's a win/win. Most people would choose to "migrate" their Facebook login to Meta. Those annoyed by this could just create a Meta account. Notably there's no mention of whether you'll need to use your real name for logging into Oculus as you do with Facebook. My bet is: probably.
Hmm, the statements you posted don’t quite say that.
I guess it’s still possible that users could be required to register a “meta” account which is separate to your personal Facebook account, although you can sign into your personal Facebook account with your meta account via single sign on. I think this would technically meet their wording while also not fulfilling the spirit of what everyone wants.
For instance, you can have a Google account that isn’t linked to your personal Gmail account, because not everyone wants their search history linked to their email - just change Google to Meta, Gmail to Facebook and search history to social media.
> And as we’ve focused more on work, and frankly, as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.
> ... I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences.
To me this strongly suggests that it is a separate account, and is not required to be linked to a Facebook account.
I'd love if they clarified if not being directly linked to a Facebook account would mean it's not being harvested and shadow profiling the user to end up linking to whatever is their definition of a "person" in their ad systems.
This corporate-speak makes me very cynical and I hate it but given FB's history I would like a completely clear statement that data harvested from Oculus is not immediately linked to an identity of myself in some system of the FB colossus.
Unless it's part of some legally binding document I wouldn't trust it anyway. Despite the name change they're still Facebook. Data harvesting is their business.
I think the other key feature they’re angling for is suspension or banning of a Facebook account for whatever reason will no longer cost you your entire Oculus library.
It’s a very long standing problem. Many people created new Facebook accounts just for Oculus, bought maybe $80-$100 worth of games, and then got their Facebook account banned[*]. There is pretty much no recourse but to whine on the Oculus subreddit till the community rep escalated them past tier 1 support. Even then, the result would be “We’ve refunded your purchases please use your actual Facebook account.”
It’s probably gotten bad with charge backs and returned headsets that they’re finally doing something about it.
[*]: The common speculation is that this would trip a similar heuristic to “Egg Accounts” on Twitter and would be banned without recourse because that particular piece of Facebook’s automation didn’t have visibility into the Oculus-side purchase activity. The assumption by Facebook being the account didn’t have any content so if it was an actual human they’d just create a new account.
Without giving much detail, where I work many accounts from different businesses aren't linked... in customer facing systems. But internally everything is linked, and well linked (for good reasons). FB will profile you even more even though you can use a different email.
It looks like a company that's been talking about this direction for ~6 years already which decided to precipitate the rebranded holdco (and maybe speed of R&D/capex) in light of recent controversies. Bit of this, bit of that.
Quote: We asked Bosworth directly if we could unlink and delete our Facebook accounts from Quest and still keep our software purchases, to which he simply replied: “Yup”.
Plot twist. When you delete your fb account, your identity is switched to your shadow profile and any account you subsequently link to your oculus is linked to that shadow profile
Umm, what again is the criticism for crating meta account vs creating oculus account(without fb)? I think at this point whatever fb does it will be criticised?
Yep, this is exactly it, they are going to let people use it freely and once meta crashes hard they'll force it back in just to lock vr customers to their trash platform so they can patch the heart bleed that is their userbase running away as fast as they can click.
Every time a Facebook account is closed, a baby in California doesn't die of a cov9d vaccine. ;) <- post that comment and watch your twitter world melt :D
> During the recent Facebook outage, certain Oculus devices were effectively rendered useless due to their inability to connect to the larger Facebook platform. It’s unclear if that specific incident is partially to blame for this change.
No, it's absolutely clear that this has nothing to do with the outage. WhatsApp and Instagram were down too. Their infrastructure does not care if the parent corp is called Facebook or Meta.
I haven’t used it for that purpose but I follow Alanah Pearce and she swears by it for helping her drop weight after she gained a bunch because of an injury. I’ve heard a few other anecdotes about the app she used helping others too called supernatural. Also the boxing ones too.
Quest 2 owner here, "The thrill of the fight" has been my most amazing related discovery. Just 20 minutes playing before shower and you'll be sweating like there's no tomorrow. First days, if not already in gym, you are gonna feel for sure the aches.
Yes, for sure. Much more fun than going to the gym or doing boring exercises at home. Main use would be cardio and stuff like squats etc, not weight lifting. Although Carmack said (in his FB Connect keynote yesterday) that they will soon be fitness apps that incorporate weights as well.
It begs the question: if they host the social media account and VR account and can reliably identify / link them on their end, and the laws and terms allow them to do so, does it really matter if they’re different accounts?
It's still a win if you don't have a facebook account. For everyone else: I would assume that they will identify your accounts reliably.
I guess it depends on what you’re worried about so if it’s identification and targeted ads you’re probably right but I was just worried about losing access if I close or get banned or something from my Facebook account for whatever reason.
I recall reading something about having to have "an account in good standing", which certainly suggests that they can tell if an account is a real one or a dummy one.
My friend and I bought two Oculus Quest 2 for trying out out workrooms. We created new facebook accounts, oculus accounts as well as workrooms accounts. Both of us got the message that our accounts are not in good standing when trying workrooms. See screenshot from another poster in [1].
Yes, because that's literally what they said was the reason for doing so in the stream, but I agree that until there's more clarity here and an explanation of how the terms of a Meta account would work then that's only of so much use.
>It's still a win if you don't have a facebook account.
That's making the assumption that Facebook isn't just going to eventually force everyone to a "meta" account that spans all of their properties. Which is exactly what I expect they're going to do.
If so then it would be a repeat of what they did with Oculus. They've certainly demonstrated their capability. I personally won't be considering any Meta hardware or software until they've demonstrated some seriously benevolent and sustained changes.
I was just trying to comment about what this means right now for people invested in hardware and on the fence.
Google Plus is interesting because whilst the social platform failed, getting you to sign in across a huge swath of properties with your Google account certainly worked. They even had me along for the ride until they started automatically managing Google accounts through their browser.
I think both Google and Facebook have pushed their luck recently and found the edges of their domain and their user's complacency. I imagine they'll just keep pushing and we'll eventually cave, but there has at least been some sensible backlash.
A unified google account predates Google+. Really the two pushes in that direction that Google+ contributed was when they decided to force the holdouts on legacy unlinked YouTube accounts to make G+ brand accounts, and when they shuttered orkut which had its own account system iirc.
There was a recent interview with MZ on HN that addressed this. He was asked if it was a mistake to require one account, and he basically said "we wanted a single-login, but we didn't think about how combining accounts would be undesirable, but we recognize it is"
So I think the end state is a single-log in Meta account with discrete FB and Oculus accounts to accompany it, logged in through Meta?
They aren't planning on it, based on Mark's keynote. They are opening up the products to multiple different account integrations. You will most likely be able to create an account with your Google account or Microsoft account.
It isn't and I've long given up on correcting people. Language evolves and sometimes it unfortunately evolves in ways that actually make communication more difficult (such as the over usage of literally). I've come to terms that if someone uses "begs the question" and then actually follows it with the question it's raising then it's fine. It's still annoying in the same way as using "utilize" instead of "use". It just sounds like someone trying to project themselves in a certain way and it coming across sort of stilted
Yes, it is what “begs the question” as a transitive verb phrase means (though the colon was superfluous, there.)
It is different from what “begs the question” as an intransitive verb phrase, which is older, means, but it also serves as something of a generalization and rationalization of the older phrase that makes the dubious and at best quite outdated translation from Latin have the appearance of some sensible relationship to the common definitions of English words in the phrase, so the pointless pedantry of opposing the clear and distinct transitive use which makes the intransitive use less detached from the rest of modern English is dumb. And tiresome.
What is "the question" in the intransitive sense, that makes it not the object of the verb?
I've given up complaining about the common usage, except that it's a nonsense phrase that apes the technical usage; there's no "begging" involved so the only reason not to say "raise the question" is because it sounds more scholarly to use the Latin, even incorrectly.
> What is "the question" in the intransitive sense, that makes it not the object of the verb?
The phrase “begs the question” is an idiomatic phrase that operates as a verb phrase. It can be either intransitive (“X begs the question” or transitive “X begs the question Y”). In the intransitive use it refers to applying the petitio principii fallacy; in the intransitive form it refers to creating a demand for the answer to a specific question (the former can be viewed as a special case of the latter where the specific question is the justification for the same claim the argument was intended to justify.)
> I've given up complaining about the common usage, except that it's a nonsense phrase that apes the technical usage; there's no "begging" involved so the only reason not to say "raise the question" is because it sounds more scholarly to use the Latin, even incorrectly.
“begging the question” isn't Latin, its an (arguably quite bad even when it was coined and definitely dated) translation of Latin into English.
It seems like it is better in that the arbitrary suspension of your Facebook account for moderation purposes (which is, due to how moderation at scale with machine learning just doesn't work, inherently random) won't cause you to lose access to your Oculus content and paid media.
It's not a total win, probably, but part of the issue is that it's very unclear if you can have multiple redundant Meta accounts, what the ID requirements are for Meta accounts, what the process for appealing against moderation decisions for Meta accounts are, and what the terms of use for Meta accounts are.
Terrible decision, Oculus is a well known brand, the name is catchy, it has good reputation. So, Facebook decides, let's kill off the brand and replace it with. something completely unknown!
Mark's statement was worded carefully in that he stated access would not longer require your _personal_ Facebook account. I interpreted this to mean you'll still need a Facebook account, but it would be through a Facebook for Work account (although I'm not sure if today these are distinct entities).
I assumed that you would be able to have a new Oculus only account. However, all you really have is an Oculus (by Hatebook) account. They promised to keep IG and WA separate too, so this is a bit of "Hey regulator, no it is a different account" non-sense signaling.
nah, they'll create a new single sign on service for Meta and you'll be required to have a Meta account (and Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp will all also require a Meta account).
Yeah. This article seems to be jumping to conclusions based on a vague statement sandwiched between a bunch of PR claptrap about "hearing feedback". The actual statement could mean anything from the return of standalone Oculus accounts to just unifying SSO under a "Meta" account instead of a "Facebook" one. The only concrete detail was support for Facebook "work" accounts for logging into Oculus.
> and frankly, as we've heard your feedback more broadly, we're working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account. We're starting to test support for work accounts soon, and we're working on making a broader shift here within the next year. I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences and I get that, especially as the metaverse expands.
> There were all these subtle ways in which, because the company brand was Facebook, a lot of stuff flowed through Facebook and the Facebook app in ways that may have not been optimal. Facebook is still clearly the app that people use the most out of all the ones that we do. But there are people who want to just use WhatsApp or want to just use Instagram, or just want to have Quest and be in VR or AR and not have to use these things.
> So I think it’s about being able to pick and choose which of the services you want to use and know that, no matter what happens to your Facebook account or your Instagram account, you’re still going to have all the content that you bought in VR or all your virtual goods. You can set up an avatar and it can be tied to one of those accounts or could just be tied to your overall identity across the different family of apps. And you can use it in all these places if you want. I bet that’s going to be pretty powerful.
Oculus won't require an account? Where have I heard that one before... This is just another attempt at being clever (and dishonest), isn't it?
"Sure we said it won't require a FACEBOOK account, but Meta is something totally different and <insert more marketing sentences>. And because of that, a Meta account is required."
Owner of a Quest 1, so I've never linked to FB, but that's also locked me.out of Venues (which was how they broadcast Connect in VR). Any speculation on whether Venues will still require a FB account?
248 comments
[ 0.08 ms ] story [ 444 ms ] threadDo you think they will just ignore those micro-head-movements when they start A/B testing different stuff on screen to figure out the algorithm that is _you_? Who needs a real, physical Westworld?
I hear the next version might even track retinal movement. So many useful audience-segmenting and personalized targeting capabilities!
As an aside, the Quest 2 would have been a break away hit, if they didn’t make the FB login a requirement last year though
The Facebook login was unnecessary friction since they didn't even take advantage of it from the start. It wasn't until a few months ago when I could even find my friends from Facebook.
I do love my Quest 2 though.
Why?
(jk)
Quest 2: €350, standalone
They're not really in the same class at all.
It seems, though, that the timeline was moved up dramatically to both distract from other Facebook-related news, and to escape from the toxic branding that is Facebook at this point.
Switching to a name which is already a common english word with many uses, seems like an attempt to make future criticism more confusing, as well.
how so?
Glib but true. Wireless Vs. non-wireless is apples vs. oranges, now that I've experienced apples I want apples and Valve is only currently selling oranges.
Plus you're comparing a "good enough" $300 device to a superior but cost prohibitive $1K device. I feel like people who compare a Valve Index to a Quest really don't get what makes Quest uniquely good to its audience currently.
Nobody is denying that the Index is technologically superior across the board, what I am saying is that the measures we're using are completely different. I consider the Steam Deck a closer comparison than the Index for example.
And if you care about the higher performance you can still tether yourself to a gaming pc.
Although regardless of who you were trying to respond to, comes across likely ruder than you intended just fyi.
Is it though? I mean given the price difference it should be miles ahead. However I don't see any meaningful difference between the two.
Yes, in low light it might suffer, but then occluded base stations will cock up the vive
.
Eg. If you want wireless one like the quest, the HTC Vive Focus or HTC Vive Focus plus have similar specs to quest 2.. they can play games by themselves without a pc and are wireless
.
If you have a pc and want higher resolution / framerate like the index then DecaGear and HP Reverb G2 look good.
.
I would not get a quest cus of fb, and apparently atm the build quality of index is atrocious.
I've dropped mine, walked in to objects several times. Had the light house trackers fall from a distance and ripped the DP plug out of its port. I've had no issue with the quality; actually been quite impressed.
What source of claims are you using here?
Edited to cite the announcement transcript[1]:
> And as we’ve focused more on work, and frankly, as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.
> ... I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences.
[1]: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/meta-facebook-connect-2...
Apple is hardly the model for technology we should be using these days. Their walled garden has rotten fruit and it doesn't even get you drunk, you simply fall ill.
Is Facebook planning to let us do this? Or are they just changing the brand logo on the login page for their required login?
I can root it and install alternative store
What alternative software can I run on Occulus?
That and all the extra engineering for managing users for business reasons not technical wastes real resources to prop up a technology company that isn’t interested in novel discovery, but servicing contemporary business obligations
If they’re so smart and capable of pulling useful metadata off unstructured data, why do they need me to maintain a specific profile?
Really kind of feels like they rely on having concrete data and the meta part is marketing
Guaranteed all these people in this thread wouldn't be losing their shit over a hardware account if it wasn't from Facebook's holdco. Forcing a Facebook account was creepy, a dedicated Oculus (well, Meta) account is normal and defensible.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/tech/apple-battery-settlement...
Well if you can root an Oculus you can do whatever you want there as well. That's the whole point of... root.
Do better.
Since this is disingenuous on your part, telling the person you responded to, to "do better" seems hypocritical.
Like, it's confusing for sure, but not on the part of the reader. It doesn't even make sense. Most people don't even _have_ ipads.
And even if they did, you're basically saying, "this small subset of self-selecting people who are okay with their tablet requiring a login to work, are okay with their devices requiring a login to work", which isn't very convincing to others, either.
And even if _that_ made sense, 'these other people are okay with it' is probably one of the weakest possible arguments in favor of /anything/.
I'll go ahead and assume English isn't your first language. I was saying the vast majority of people who own ipads are fine with needing to login to an account to get the most out of it. Doesn't seem like a particularly controversial statement.
Now go ahead and find some way in which the above sentence is technically incorrect, but you're starting to look silly.
You do better and stop moving the goalposts and lying.
Specifically I would sideload fdroid, and then install (free) apps from there since it doesn't need a login.
Or maybe I'd (say, on windows) "sideload" steam, and install apps from there instead of from Oculus.
The idea that the only place I can get apps from is the "official" appstore is ridiculous.
You have to pay them, they have to remember you paid them.
Because you bought a system that only has apps from your monitor's app store available, and that means you have to prove who you are to use them.
It's no different to phones, consoles, etc.
You can use a Nintendo Switch or an Android phone without an online account.
De facto, that means you need an account.
Yes, I know you can try to find copies of your banking apps on apkmirror and sideload, but... no. (Also, wouldn't that mean that you have to manually confirm every single app update, so a 10-minute button pushing session every week?)
Blatantly false. You can either play Oculus games (must, if you are playing without PC; basically the app store) or you can connect to PC and play any SteamVR games just like you would with any other headset (supported officially).
So with Quest 2, I get to play both the Oculus-only standalone games made for the headset specifically, as well as any SteamVR games that my friends with other VR headsets might want to play together.
An oculus is not a monitor, it's an entire game console that includes a screen. Are you this incredulous about having to log in to an iPad or a Switch?
It is a fact of life that companies will impose more and more profit-maximizing inconveniences upon the customer as long as the customer is willing to accept them. It only stops when enough customers push back.
If not, sounds like a Facebook account by another name.
In this specific analogy, the point is, despite having different business models, society benefits from either conglomerate separating their respective two aforementioned business units.
This is not stated anywhere. I don't see why Facebook couldn't create a Meta SSO that you can use for Facebook and/or Oculus and call it "job done". For them it's a win/win. Most people would choose to "migrate" their Facebook login to Meta. Those annoyed by this could just create a Meta account. Notably there's no mention of whether you'll need to use your real name for logging into Oculus as you do with Facebook. My bet is: probably.
Hmm, the statements you posted don’t quite say that.
I guess it’s still possible that users could be required to register a “meta” account which is separate to your personal Facebook account, although you can sign into your personal Facebook account with your meta account via single sign on. I think this would technically meet their wording while also not fulfilling the spirit of what everyone wants.
For instance, you can have a Google account that isn’t linked to your personal Gmail account, because not everyone wants their search history linked to their email - just change Google to Meta, Gmail to Facebook and search history to social media.
> And as we’ve focused more on work, and frankly, as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.
> ... I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences.
To me this strongly suggests that it is a separate account, and is not required to be linked to a Facebook account.
[1]: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/meta-facebook-connect-2...
This corporate-speak makes me very cynical and I hate it but given FB's history I would like a completely clear statement that data harvested from Oculus is not immediately linked to an identity of myself in some system of the FB colossus.
It’s a very long standing problem. Many people created new Facebook accounts just for Oculus, bought maybe $80-$100 worth of games, and then got their Facebook account banned[*]. There is pretty much no recourse but to whine on the Oculus subreddit till the community rep escalated them past tier 1 support. Even then, the result would be “We’ve refunded your purchases please use your actual Facebook account.”
It’s probably gotten bad with charge backs and returned headsets that they’re finally doing something about it.
[*]: The common speculation is that this would trip a similar heuristic to “Egg Accounts” on Twitter and would be banned without recourse because that particular piece of Facebook’s automation didn’t have visibility into the Oculus-side purchase activity. The assumption by Facebook being the account didn’t have any content so if it was an actual human they’d just create a new account.
Quote: We asked Bosworth directly if we could unlink and delete our Facebook accounts from Quest and still keep our software purchases, to which he simply replied: “Yup”.
Wonder what will happen to it.
No, it's absolutely clear that this has nothing to do with the outage. WhatsApp and Instagram were down too. Their infrastructure does not care if the parent corp is called Facebook or Meta.
I can't believe it took this long for the policy to be reversed.
The damage to Oculus among enthusiasts was huge. But I guess the Oculus brand is going away anyway leaving just 'Meta' and 'Quest'.
In general, the facemasks are pretty tight around the eyes, and the sweat glands are on the forehead, so it doesn't affect operation.
Of course, it still gets gunky and you'll want to regularly clean the facemasks if you do any exercising in VR.
The Quest specifically has the face mask directly integrated to the spacer, so you have to remove the whole thing to clean it, but it's doable.
They are introducing a new workout pad (the pads are super quick to interchange).
It's still a win if you don't have a facebook account. For everyone else: I would assume that they will identify your accounts reliably.
Yes. If you lose access to one, you can keep the other.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/p8dasg/ive_bee...
That's making the assumption that Facebook isn't just going to eventually force everyone to a "meta" account that spans all of their properties. Which is exactly what I expect they're going to do.
I was just trying to comment about what this means right now for people invested in hardware and on the fence.
I think both Google and Facebook have pushed their luck recently and found the edges of their domain and their user's complacency. I imagine they'll just keep pushing and we'll eventually cave, but there has at least been some sensible backlash.
So I think the end state is a single-log in Meta account with discrete FB and Oculus accounts to accompany it, logged in through Meta?
Yes, it is what “begs the question” as a transitive verb phrase means (though the colon was superfluous, there.)
It is different from what “begs the question” as an intransitive verb phrase, which is older, means, but it also serves as something of a generalization and rationalization of the older phrase that makes the dubious and at best quite outdated translation from Latin have the appearance of some sensible relationship to the common definitions of English words in the phrase, so the pointless pedantry of opposing the clear and distinct transitive use which makes the intransitive use less detached from the rest of modern English is dumb. And tiresome.
I've given up complaining about the common usage, except that it's a nonsense phrase that apes the technical usage; there's no "begging" involved so the only reason not to say "raise the question" is because it sounds more scholarly to use the Latin, even incorrectly.
The phrase “begs the question” is an idiomatic phrase that operates as a verb phrase. It can be either intransitive (“X begs the question” or transitive “X begs the question Y”). In the intransitive use it refers to applying the petitio principii fallacy; in the intransitive form it refers to creating a demand for the answer to a specific question (the former can be viewed as a special case of the latter where the specific question is the justification for the same claim the argument was intended to justify.)
> I've given up complaining about the common usage, except that it's a nonsense phrase that apes the technical usage; there's no "begging" involved so the only reason not to say "raise the question" is because it sounds more scholarly to use the Latin, even incorrectly.
“begging the question” isn't Latin, its an (arguably quite bad even when it was coined and definitely dated) translation of Latin into English.
The Latin is “petitio principii”.
It's not a total win, probably, but part of the issue is that it's very unclear if you can have multiple redundant Meta accounts, what the ID requirements are for Meta accounts, what the process for appealing against moderation decisions for Meta accounts are, and what the terms of use for Meta accounts are.
I suspect that what they are planning to do is to allow thirdparty authentication for "professional" VR devices.
More just instead of a star with each on a spoke and FB in the middle, Meta will be in the middle and FB just another spoke.
> and frankly, as we've heard your feedback more broadly, we're working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account. We're starting to test support for work accounts soon, and we're working on making a broader shift here within the next year. I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences and I get that, especially as the metaverse expands.
> There were all these subtle ways in which, because the company brand was Facebook, a lot of stuff flowed through Facebook and the Facebook app in ways that may have not been optimal. Facebook is still clearly the app that people use the most out of all the ones that we do. But there are people who want to just use WhatsApp or want to just use Instagram, or just want to have Quest and be in VR or AR and not have to use these things.
> So I think it’s about being able to pick and choose which of the services you want to use and know that, no matter what happens to your Facebook account or your Instagram account, you’re still going to have all the content that you bought in VR or all your virtual goods. You can set up an avatar and it can be tied to one of those accounts or could just be tied to your overall identity across the different family of apps. And you can use it in all these places if you want. I bet that’s going to be pretty powerful.
"Sure we said it won't require a FACEBOOK account, but Meta is something totally different and <insert more marketing sentences>. And because of that, a Meta account is required."