Facebook kicked off Oculus Connect 4 on Wednesday, October 11 with a two-hour long keynote, offering a sample platter of what we can expect from Oculus for the coming year. New hardware, new software, and a ton of new features are coming to the Oculus ecosystem — along with some new pricing. Let’s dig into it.
First up is the new Oculus headset, the aptly named Oculus Go. The new headset isn’t going to be a competitor for the Gear VR or the Oculus Rift, but it will instead occupy a space between the two extremes. With a retail price of $200, the totally wireless Oculus Go aims to bring VR into more peoples’ lives by lowering the barriers to entry, and offering immersive, fully featured experiences without the need for a powerful gaming PC. The Oculus Go will be available for $200, starting in early 2018.
The next generation Rift headset isn’t going to hit store shelves anytime soon but it will boast some impressive new features. In addition to inside-out tracking, the new headset will receive a pair of totally redesigned Touch controllers which will feature a refined version of the current Touch controllers’ constellation tracking system. Without any external lighthouses, the new headset will use four cameras located on each corner of the headset to not only track your movement, but also the movement of the controllers.
For anyone interested in taking the plunge into VR for the first time, the best news out of Oculus Connect is the new pricing model for the Oculus Rift and Touch Controllers. You will be able to snag both for just $400. That pricing model was previously applied as a temporary promotion, but it is the new standard pricing for the Oculus Rift and Touch Controller bundle going forward.
Among the updates coming to the Oculus platform in 2018 is a completely revamped user interface. Dubbed “RiftCore 2.0” the new software radically changes the way users interact with their applications. Now, instead of using an external application to emulate a desktop environment, we will be able to access our applications right from the new Oculus Dashboard. You can open windows, re-arrange them, and even jump into the Dashboard right from your VR games.
For instance, you can open the Dashboard without leaving your game, just like you can on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4. From the Dashboard you can launch other applications, even web browsers, and pin them into your game experience, so you can watch videos or browse the web while you cruise through space in Elite Dangerous.
Oculus Home is also getting a revamp, now you will be able to decorate your space with furniture, artwork and even achievements you earned in different games. Additionally, you will be able to launch games and apps directly from your home, and even visit your friends’ Homes to leave them notes or just see how they decorated their spaces. Oculus also promises shared spaces will be coming to Oculus Home in 2018.
The beta, however, will be available for free to Oculus owners in December 2017.
During the keynote, we also saw a few brief glimpses at some games coming to the Oculus Rift in the coming year. First among which was an unnamed collaboration between Respawn Games — the developer of Titanfall — and Oculus. Second, the popular Face Your Fears experience will be getting Stranger Things-themed at an as-yet-undisclosed time.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.