Meta Is Experimenting With Awesome Quest Features

Meta Is Experimenting With Awesome Quest Features And Lots More

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Today we will talk about the meta-news and I will tell you what meta is experimenting with Quest features and some more VR-related news.

Emulating Controllers With Hand Tracking

We have quite a few exciting pieces of information about new Quest features that may or may not be coming to us very soon. Because, with meta rollouts, we never know that. 

The first thing, that Meta is experimenting with which is going to help out a ton for those of us who enjoy using hand tracking. Meta is still experimenting with hand-tracking controller emulation. 

In case you don’t know what this could mean, it means that Meta is essentially trying to emulate controllers— all the buttons, triggers, and joysticks— with just hand tracking. Where did I get this information? Well, of course, from Luna on Twitter. 

Don’t ask me how I found this, but Meta may still be experimenting with the ability to emulate controllers with hand tracking. 

This looks like a feature under experimental settings. A screenshot that isn’t exactly amazing, and we’re not supposed to ask where this was found, so we’re not going to.

Either way, I think this is cool and would add the ability to play many different games with just hand tracking. 

It would also make it a lot easier for the developers if you ask me if they didn’t have to invent controls. 

We could just kind of map them ourselves with gestures inside the settings.

Quest 3 Augments Finally Here

The next thing that we have on the list is augments. Here multiple users are reporting finally having access to the v64 PTC, and that’s rolling out the previously Quest Pro exclusive virtual environment Cascadia to all users. 

And it now has a spot for the first encounters augment for those that are on Quest 3. 

In case you don’t know, augments are those funny things we can place around our homes inside an augmented reality. They were shown off during meta connect.

A lot of people are still waiting for them to happen. Well, they may now finally be rolling out. 

External USB Mic Support

Do you know what else is rolling out? A lot of people were waiting for USB external microphones.

I don’t know how many of you guys record on Quest, but I know it’s a larger amount than I originally thought, judging by the comment section. And I know a lot of you dislike Quest 3’s mic. 

This isn’t just about recording, by the way; this, as a feature should allow you to use USB external microphones systemwide on the Quest, meaning you should be able to use your favorite USB microphone, enhancing your audio in any multiplayer game that you play

I think that’s cool, and it’s a feature that will improve the gameplay for many users. 

AR Quality Improved

Not only this but there may be an undocumented change that will improve augmented reality for many users. 

Luna posted on Twitter, ‘I have no way of verifying this, but in v64 PTC, Quest 3 seems to have slightly higher dynamic range and/or better contrast adjustment in pass through,’ and then Luna retweeted with, ‘I may not be crazy, translating this post: v64 PTC came to Quest 3. 

It might just be my imagination, but I feel like the pass-through makes it easier to see my PC and smartphone screens. I feel like the whites were more blown out before. You can read it even if Twitter or Teams doesn’t expand.

Of course, Meta is constantly improving augmented reality. A lot of people love criticizing augmented reality on our Quest devices. 

I mean, if you look at the way it looks and the way it looks in promo shots, yeah, there is a bit of a discrepancy. 

I do find it weird, though, that this does seem to be an undocumented change. This happens a lot, though. 

Companies sometimes just undocumented changes. Then again, we might see it in the official change log. 

Hopefully, this is the case because I would seriously enjoy not having to take my headset off to read finer text.

Change Release Channel Inside Quest

Another very cool feature that I’m surprised wasn’t here until now is we can now change release channels inside the headset. 

Previously, to change release channels for apps, we would have to use a web browser, scroll down to the bottom, and change a release channel. 

So, say you wanted to use the beta version of Virtual Desktop, that’s the way you would need to do that.

According to Luna, we can now do that by going to Settings, Apps, Installed, and clicking on the app. 

This will be a welcome change for many beta testers or people who just want to change to a specific channel on a specific app because there have been more and more apps recently utilizing that beta Channel feature.

Meta Only Allowing Certain Devs To Disable AR Guardian

Meta is reportedly only allowing certain developers to disable the AR boundary system. 

As per Transfer VR, Mission blended reality applications can debilitate the irritating wellbeing limit, however just a modest bunch of whitelisted engineers can transport this on the Journey Store.

And APPL boundary, formerly called Guardian, is certainly useful in virtual reality so that you don’t hit anything, you know, in your play space. 

You don’t make anything fall, you don’t destroy your TV, etc., etc. However, in augmented reality, this is pretty much useless, as you should be able to see the space around you already. 

This should be completely unnecessary, and yet it’s still there.

Sometimes in the v57 system software change, Meta said some apps with mixed reality will no longer have boundaries, but the company didn’t say which apps this included nor the mechanism for this happening. 

Transfer VR has now discovered that any Journey application can impair limits while utilizing through by including a context-oriented boundaryless application banner in the Manifest.

However, the upload system for Quest Store and App Lab will automatically reject any app build using this flag unless the developer is on a special Meta whitelist. 

Currently, some whitelisted apps include Cubism, Archo, Aspiro, Stealth Operatives, Meta’s own First Counters demo, and Laser Dance.

That’s incredibly annoying. Why on Earth would some people be whitelisted to remove the boundary and others not? I don’t know, maybe you guys have an idea. Leave it down below if you do

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