At its sixth Oculus Connect conference on Wednesday, Facebook reiterated its plans to build augmented reality (AR) glasses. The company also announced a project called ‘Live Maps’ that will create 3D maps of the world by fusing crowdsourced data and traditional maps with images and videos captured through phones and AR glasses.
At its presentation, the company also employed hi-tech holographic imagery to demo how it envisages its new project, which it says will be a ‘multi-layer representations of the world’. According to the demo, the AR glasses, used in conjunction with Live Maps, will be able to project notifications and even holographic avatars of real people in thin air.
Another big announcement at the event relates to Oculus Link, which allows users to connect the Oculus Quest VR headset with a PC via a USB-C cable. It is getting a new update that adds Horizon and finger tracking for Quest. Oculus Link is a new way for people who own Quest and a gaming PC to access content from the Oculus Rift Platform.
The company will release the software in beta this November and it will work with most high-quality USB-C cables. Later this year, the firm will also release a premium cable with maximum throughput to run Rift content and a longer cord to enable users to move freely while enjoying their VR content.
In case you’re wondering about Facebook Horizon, it’s a new social experience in VR where one can build their own worlds with easy-to-use tools without any coding skills. In addition, Facebook also announced hand-tracking on Oculus Quest, enabling natural interaction in VR using own hands on an all-in-one device with no extra hardware required. Hand tracking on Quest will be released as an experimental feature with a developer SDK in tow early next year.
With inputs from IANS
