Blog

Facebook’s Infinite Office is a virtual office space for the WFH crowd

[ad_1]

A couple of years ago, Facebook announced Oculus for Business, a software suite for enterprise-grade VR. But today, at Facebook Connect, the company is introducing a new virtual office experience for the work-from-home crowd. It’s called Infinite Office, and it promises to make WFH a lot more immersive.

With Infinite Office, you can put on the headset and be transported to a virtual office space that you can make as big or small as you wish. You can also add multiple customizable screens, which mimics a multiple monitor setup. The company has already begun experiments that incorporates Infinite Office with Spatial, a collaborative AR platform that lets you have virtual meetings. You can see how Spatial works with Passthrough below.

[ad_2]

Source link

Oculus Quest 2 delivers standalone VR with sharper 90Hz screens for $299

[ad_1]

Facebook says the Quest 2 is around 10 percent lighter than before, and it’s also a tad smaller, which should alleviate the front-heavy annoyance from the first model. There’s also a new head strap that relies on flexible material, instead of the stiff mechanism from before. The revamped controllers also take a few cues from the Rift touch controllers. They’re slightly larger, and they bring back the thumb rest that I sorely missed from the first Quest.

Oculus Quest 2

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

The company is also making the Quest 2 more customizable this time around. It plans to offer different face plate options for wider and narrower heads. And if you missed the previous headstrap, that’ll return as a “premium” option with room for a rear battery pack. Facebook says that extra battery will double the Quest 2’s runtime, and act as a counterweight to balance the whole contraption on your head.

So with the Oculus Quest 2 being so capable, what’s the point of the Rift S? Well, it seems even Facebook realizes that middling headset doesn’t serve much of a point anymore. The company says it’ll stop selling the Rift S in the spring, and it’ll focus on the Quest 2 as its flagship device for the next year. It’s also devoting resources to building more Quest 2 units (to help overcome the production issues from before), and it’s making a bigger push into Japan.

You’ll be able to snag the Quest 2 on October 13th. The $299 model will come with 64GB of storage, but there’s also a $399 model with 256GB for you game hoarders out there.

[ad_2]

Source link

How to watch Facebook’s Connect keynote today

[ad_1]

Facebook’s annual AR/VR conference kicks off at 1PM ET today. You may know the event as Oculus Connect, but this year, the company rebranded it Facebook Connect to “better reflect its broader scope.” 

This summer, the next Oculus headset, the Quest 2 VR, leaked, and rumors circulated that it would arrive in September. So, there’s a good chance we’ll learn more about that hardware today. A new VR headset means we’ll likely get to see new VR games and experiences, too. Judging by the name change, we’ll also get some non-Oculus updates.

[ad_2]

Source link

Bose turns its beloved QC 35 II headphones into a gaming headset

[ad_1]

Bose QuietComfort 35 II Gaming Headset

Bose

As you’d expect, the headset is compatible with all major gaming platforms. It works with Alexa or Google Assistant, and it should be sleek enough to go from gaming to work and anywhere in between.

The new gear is listed at $329.95 and is available for pre-order now (in the US and Canada). The QC35 II launched at $350 years ago, and at the time, the headset made our best wireless headphones list. In the world of gaming headsets, $330 is pretty expensive, so Bose will have to sell the idea that these can be used for both gaming and real life by popping off the microphone.

[ad_2]

Source link

Apple calls Epic lawsuit a ‘campaign to reinvigorate interest in Fortnite’

[ad_1]

Apple argues, once again, that it has a right to enforce its rules and that it’s not being anticompetitive. Apple claims Epic has benefited in many ways from the partnership and Fortnite’s placement in the App Store and that a 30 percent commission on in-app purchases is a small price to pay for those benefits. Apple alleges that Epic is doing all of this to advertise Fortnite and that Epic has sacrificed third-party developers, who use its Unreal Engine to build 3D games and other programs, to advance its own interests.

“This lawsuit (and the front-page headlines it has generated) appears to be part of a marketing campaign designed to reinvigorate interest in Fortnite,” the opposition states. 

Apple claims interest in Fortnite dropped by nearly 70 percent from October 2019 to July 2020, and that Epic is “a saboteur, not a martyr.”

“The only reason third-party Fortnite players and Unreal Engine developers are threatened by this commercial dispute between Epic and Apple is because Epic is sacrificing them to advance its own commercial interests,” the court document reads.

These fire comments don’t immediately change anything. They only suggest that Apple is preparing for a fight. Next, Apple and Epic are scheduled to appear in court on September 28th.

[ad_2]

Source link

NVIDIA RTX 3080 review: A huge leap for 4K gaming with raytracing

[ad_1]

The 3080 Founders Edition card we reviewed isn’t much bigger than the 2080 Ti. It has a sleek, almost office-professional aesthetic that’s a nice contrast to the gaudy third-party cards we’ll inevitably see. The cooling is also dramatically different: NVIDIA made the PCB more dense to fit a fan that blows air directly through the card, while another ejects warm air from the rear. There’s also a new compact 12-pin power connector that opens up more room on the PCB (and yes there’s a dongle in the box for two 8-pin cables). 

Under the hood, the RTX 3080 is powered by 8,704 CUDA Cores, 68 RT ray tracing cores and 272 tensor AI cores. It has more than twice as many CUDA cores as the RTX 2080 Ti, and while its RT count is the same, the new architecture is around twice as fast. 

Surprisingly, its tensor core count is dramatically lower than the 2080 Ti, just 272 compared to 544. But again, NVIDIA claims this new generation of tensor AI cores is significantly faster than before. And if all that isn’t enough, NVIDIA also stuffed in 10GB of GDDR6X RAM, a new type of memory that’s making its debut in the RTX 3000 GPUs. 

All games tested in 4K/HDR with the highest graphics quality settings and ray tracing (where available), on a rig powered by an Intel Core i7-8700K and 32GB of RAM.

All of that hardware is in the service of one thing: Making the RTX 3080 the fastest GPU we’ve ever tested (that is, until we get our hands on the 3090). It reached 82FPS in the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark, while running in 4K with maxed out graphics settings and “ultra” RTX shadows. In comparison, the 2080 Ti hit only 52 FPS. It clocked in around 2,500 more points in the 3DMark Port Royale ray tracing test, as well as 1,400 more points in the TimeSpy Extreme 4K benchmark. The big takeaway: this GPU isn’t just a modest improvement over NVIDIA’s last card, it’s a huge leap forward.

The 3080 also made Control playable in 4K with all of the graphics and ray tracing settings dialed up. It sat comfortably between 53 and 60FPS. I had to turn on DLSS to reach those speeds, though. That’s NVIDIA’s technology for upscaling low-res textures with its AI cores. The 2080 Ti, topped out at around 40FPS. Running Control natively in 4K on the 3080, without DLSS’s help, I hit a middling 32FPS. Clearly, ray tracing can still crush this hardware, which is why NVIDIA is investing so much in other ways of delivering high-res gameplay.

If you’re lucky enough to have a high-refresh rate 4K monitor or TV, the 3080 will also help you get the most out of that. I was able to play Wolfenstein: Youngblood in 4K with DLSS and ray tracing settings turned on at around 119 FPS. The 2080 Ti, meanwhile, could only hit around 70 FPS. I’ve argued for a while that framerates matter more than rendering resolution — the 3080 will finally let you have both.

[ad_2]

Source link

GM reveals the ‘Ultium’ motors that are key to its all-electric shift

[ad_1]

For its part, GM said that its five Ultium Drive motors (packaged with single-speed transmissions) will make EVs lighter and more efficient. That’s because the power electronics are built into the drive assemblies, reducing their mass by half while increasing capability. That also makes it easier to scale the Ultium motors and batteries to high output vehicles like pickup trucks and performance EVs.

The company will develop the motors alongside its next-gen EVs in order to keep everything in-house. Future vehicles using the tech could include Cadillac’s’ freshly announced Lyriq luxury SUV, the Hummer EV coming next month, the next-gen Bolt EV (delayed until next year) and the crossover Bolt EUV coming in summer 2021.

[ad_2]

Source link

Logitech G mice get the world’s first sub-micron sensor with an update

[ad_1]

Your screens are starting to feature higher and higher resolutions so it makes sense that your controllers should also become more precise, or at least that’s what the marketing hype suggests. Either way, Logitech has advanced the sensor technology in its high-end gaming mice so that the HERO (High Efficiency Rated Optical) sensor is capable of tracking movement at the sub-micron level for the first time, going from 16,000 DPI to 25,000 DPI.

The better news is that for owners of certain newer models, you can experience the upgrade for free via a software update. As Slashgear points out, while some older HERO-equipped models are left out, the newer ones with an upgraded sensor include the Pro, G903 HERO, G502 Lightspeed, Pro Wireless, G703 HERO, G604, G502 HERO and G403 HERO.

[ad_2]

Source link

Samsung says its OLED folding display has the world’s smallest curvature

[ad_1]

Samsung’s OLED display used in the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has the “world’s smallest curvature,” with a radius of just 1.4mm (1.4R), the company’s display division announced. That tight curvature allowed Samsung to build the Fold 2 with a smaller folded gap than the original model, allowing for a more attractive design while reducing previous problems like dirt entering the display.

Samsung also said that French firm Bureau Veritas certified the display for 200,000 folds, calling it a benchmark for future displays. That durability is apparently possible due to the multi-layered structure of the display that acts like a “cushion” when the panel is folded. However, Samsung also claimed that the original Galaxy Fold would withstand at least 200,000 folds, and it fell short of that in testing done by CNET.

[ad_2]

Source link

AT&T could offer ad-subsidized phone plans starting next year

[ad_1]

AT&T is looking into the possibility of offering cellphone plans subsidized in part by advertisements, company CEO John Stankey told Reuters in an interview. Subscribers will still have to pay the bigger chunk of their bill, but Stankey said he believes there’s a segment of AT&T’s customer base “where given a choice, they would take some load of advertising for a $5 or $10 reduction in their mobile bill.” The CEO also revealed that the carrier could introduce the subsidized plans in a year or two.

There are other companies already offering ad-subsidized products, such as Amazon with its Kindles and phones. Stankey didn’t go into the nitty-gritty of how the offer would work, but based on what he revealed during the interview, it sounds like AT&T plans to serve individual customers with targeted advertisements. The ad-supported version of HBO Max launching next year will serve as key to the new phone plans, since it will provide the company with new advertising inventory. Apparently, the carrier’s engineers are creating “unified customer identifiers” that would allow marketers to recognize users across devices to serve them with relevant ads.

[ad_2]

Source link