Oculus Rift owners will now be able to enjoy the same experiences that HTC Vive users have been partaking in for the better part of this year.
Pre-orders for the Oculus Touch go live on at noon PT on Monday, giving users motion controls, and finally putting it on par with the HTC Vive and PlayStation VR.
Arguably the first to market with a virtual reality headset, Oculus will be last to offer motion controls. Since launch, gamers have had to stick to Xbox One controllers to experience gaming in VR. While Oculus has had Touch in the works for a while, it has been at a disadvantage when compared to Vive. HTC bundled motion controls with the Vive at launch, and that is one possible reason why Steam users have been willing to spend the extra $200 on it over Oculus.
The major distinction between Oculus Touch and the HTC Vive will be how both work with motion. Vive uses full-room tracking, meaning users actually have to install sensors that are constantly tracking movements in a space. Touch, on the other hand, just uses cameras mounted in front of the users. While this gives tremendous tracking when the user is looking directly forward, it can be problematic when users are facing another direction. Because motion-based VR has people moving all around to interact with the environment, users can be lost in a separate world with paths that disorient where they are in actual space.
Now that all three major VR headset manufacturers will have some sort of motion tracking, it will be interesting to see where users gravitate. Because PlayStation VR retails for $400-$500, it is the most economical offering. Vive, on the other hand, has the most technology, and is therefore the most expensive. Oculus, is caught right in the middle, not the cheapest, nor the most technical.
Oculus Touch pre-orders will retail for $199, and begin shipping on December 6.
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.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.