When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The company that brought virtual reality to the mainstream barely mentioned gaming when it showed off its new flagship headset. That's bad news for anyone who likes VR. I have a medium-intensity interest in virtual reality gaming. I'm excited to try Valve's new Steam Frame, and an older VR headset design helped me lose a ton of weight .

After a few leaks, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally revealed the company's next-generation Meta VR Glasses at its Connect event tonight. Arriving in Spring 2027, they look like oversized sunglasses (similar to display frames from Xreal and other), paired with an external power and computing pod, like the Apple Vision Pro. The Meta VR Glasses also have onboard cameras to detect the wearer's hands for gesture-based controls. And at first glance, they look exactly like how I'd imagine a true successor to the Vision Pro -- a pair of unobtrusive and lightweight VR glasses at a more palatable price. Meta is pitching the VR Glasses as an all-in-one entertainment and productivity device.

Versus Say More Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Creator Playbook In My Bag Trending Now Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices All Series Valve's VR headset has arrived. But, should you get it? Matt Binder joined Mashable's tech vertical in 2018, where he covers social media, tech policy, cybersecurity, online scams, cryptocurrency, AI, creator news, weird tech, and other related tech beats. The Steam Frame VR headset is here. What do the reviewers think?

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Linux fixed a Windows frustration I didn't know I had Who knew window management could be this easy? I don't know about you, but when I tuned into this week's episode of The Full Nerd I was mostly just excited to hear about the Steam Frame. I haven't bought a VR headset since the Quest 2 but I'm still curious about the state of VR gaming, and I'm sorely tempted to buy a Frame despite the eye-watering $1,000+ price tag. But as it turns out, I was a lot more excited to hear about Linux!

Polyarc, the developer behind virtual reality games Moss and Moss: Book II, has closed, according to a new post on the studio's LinkedIn page. Based on a reverse recruiting sheet shared alongside the announcement, at least 29 members of the studio's staff are now looking for work. "After nearly 12 years riding the joyous rollercoaster of emotions that is making video games, our time together has come to an end," Polyarc says. "As we wind down active development, we are saying our farewells to each other. Working together over all of these years has been an honor. Bringing surprise and delight to those who played our games has been a privilege. Thank you to everyone at Polyarc, our work is now finished."

Meta's flailing virtual reality social experience is being discontinued in June. It's part of Meta's broader moves to slim down the business that became its namesake. Pour one out from your digital bottle, because Meta is shutting down the virtual reality experience of Horizon Worlds. Meta sent an email blast to Horizon Worlds users today stating that the social VR world will officially end on its Quest VR headsets; starting March 31, Horizon Worlds will no longer be in the Quest store. Some Horizon-specific perks, including Meta Credits, avatars, and some digital clothes and in-world purchases, will also be removed.

Agent-based models (ABMs) and video games, including those taking advantage of virtual reality (VR), have undergone a remarkable parallel evolution, achieving impressive levels of complexity and sophistication. This paper argues that while ABMs prioritize scientific analysis and understanding and VR aims for immersive entertainment, they both simulate artificial worlds and can benefit from closer integration. Coupling both approaches indeed opens interesting possibilities for research and development in various fields, and in particular education, at the heart of the SIMPLE project, an EU-funded project on the development of digital tools for awareness raising on environmental issues. However, existing tools often present limitations, including technical complexity, limited functionalities, and lack of interoperability. To address these challenges, we introduce a novel framework for linking GAMA, a popular ABM platform, with Unity, a widely used game engine. This framework enables seamless data exchange, real-time visualization, and user interaction within VR environments, allowing researchers to leverage the strengths of both ABMs and VR for more impactful and engaging simulations. We demonstrate the capabilities of our framework through two prototypes built to highlight its potential in representing and interacting with complex socio-environmental system models. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of continued collaboration between the ABM and VR communities to develop robust, user-friendly tools, paving the way for a new era of collaborative research and immersive experiences in simulations.

In this paper, we introduce a new methodology for assessing the positioning accuracy of virtual reality (VR) headsets, utilizing a cooperative industrial robot to simulate user head trajectories in a reproducible manner. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation of two popular VR headsets, i.e., Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro. Using head movement trajectories captured from realistic VR game scenarios with motion capture, we compared the performance of these headsets in terms of precision and reliability. Our analysis revealed that both devices exhibit high positioning accuracy, with no significant differences between them. These findings may provide insights for developers and researchers seeking to optimize their VR experiences in particular contexts such as manufacturing.

It's a slower October than usual in the tech industry, thanks mostly to Google and Microsoft having held their typical fall hardware announcements earlier this year. Still, we've seen a fair number of companies reveal new devices in the last two weeks, while Amazon's October Prime Day raged on. Whether you were busy shopping or watching Elon Musk talk up robotaxis and cybervans, the Engadget team continued to review recently (and not-so-recently) launched products. As usual, this bi-weekly roundup is here to help you catch up, though because I missed last week's edition (as I was out on time off), the cadence is just a bit off. From Meta's Quest 3S VR headset and the DJI Air 3S drone, to Sony's midrange suite of audio gear, these weeks have coincidentally been about the less premium, more affordable "un-flagships," if you will. And it turns out you don't have to throw chunks of your retirement savings at companies to get solid devices that are well worth the money.

Although Meta Connect 2024 lacked a marquee high-end product for the holiday season, it still included a new budget VR headset and a tease of the "magic glasses" Meta's XR gurus have been talking about for the better part of a decade. In addition, the company keeps plowing forward with new AI tools for its Ray-Ban glasses and social platforms. Here's everything the company announced at Meta Connect 2024. Today's best mixed reality gear -- like Apple's Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 3 -- are headsets with passthrough video capabilities. But the tech industry eventually wants to squeeze that tech into something resembling a pair of prescription glasses.