Articles by Sean Endicott

You can protect your Surface Duo with new accessories from the Microsoft Store.

What you need to know

Microsoft’s website now has accessories for the Surface Duo.
The site lists a set of screen protectors and a bumper case.
The Surface Duo is available starting today for $1,400.

Microsoft’s Surface Duo is available starting today. Along with the device itself, Microsoft’s website now has accessories for the Surface Duo, including screen protectors, a bumper case, and chargers.

The Surface Duo already comes with a bumper case, but if yours breaks or you want another one for any reason, you can order one from Microsoft’s online store. The bumper case costs $40 and adds protection to the Surface Duo without limiting its ability to rotate around 360 degrees.

The InvisibleShield screen protectors for the Surface Duo is made out of hybrid glass to help protect your device’s screens from scratches and damage. It’s also anti-microbial, which is a nice bonus. The Surface Duo has two sc…

The tea leaves are lining up to suggest a successor to the Oculus Quest is around the corner.

What you need to know

The codename “Del Mar” reportedly appeared for a brief time within the Oculus app.
Leaks suggest that Del Mar refers to a successor to the Oculus Quest.
Renders of what appears to be the Oculus Quest 2 recently leaked online.

The Oculus app seems to have briefly included the codename for what could be the Oculus Quest 2. In a post by VRScout that has since been taken down, the outlet reported that the codename ‘Del Mar’ appeared in the Oculus app. The Del Mar codename reportedly appeared next to the Oculus Quest within the app, suggesting that it could have been a placeholder for the Oculus Quest 2. The website VR Headset covered the story following VRScout removing its initial post.

Del Mar no longer appears within the Oculus app, and VRScout took down their post covering the appearance, so we don’t have any screenshots with the codename in the app.

Rumors are s…

The Surface Duo’s form factor provides a unique opportunity for designers.

What you need to know

Microsoft’s head of designs and lead of the design team for Office discuss developer experiences for the Surface Duo in a new post.
Friedman explains that the Surface Duo’s form factor provides a unique opportunity for development.

Microsoft’s Surface Duo has a unique form factor that creates new ways for people to interact with apps. In a blog post, Jon Friedman, head of Microsoft designs, shares how designing for the Surface Duo created an opportunity to create for a new category of device.

“For a designer, such an opportunity is rare and exciting. It’s like discovering a new room in the house you’ve lived in for decades” says Friedman in the post. The dual-screen nature of the Surface Duo led Microsoft figuring out how to best take advantage of the larger and more versatile space.

The bulk of the post is a question and answer session between Friedman and Deepak Menon. Menon lead…

Oculus Quest is Facebook’s last piece of hardware in its first generation of VR devices. It has six degrees of freedom, movement tracking so you can game throughout an area and two Touch Controllers, which facilitate a wide range of gameplay. The Oculus Quest now has over 100 games available, ranging from first-person shooters to musical saber swinging titles. We marked the latest titles with “new,” and at the top of the list, so you can keep track of all the latest games.

Most recent titles
Available now
Supported Oculus Go games
Confirmed future titles
Teased future titles

Most recent titles

Tactical shooting

Onward

New

Onward is a tactical shooter that forces players to rely on wit and skill rather than gimmicks or gadgets. Players get just one life and have to battle foes in the day, night, and a variety of weather conditions and environments.

$25 at Oculus Store

Rogue combat

In Death: Unchained

New

This unique title features procedurally-generated levels t…

Beat Saber is one of the best titles on the Oculus Quest. It has you slash blocks and dodge bombs to the rhythm of pop, drum, bass, and more. While Beat Saber has a nice selection of songs built-in and has more songs through DLC, it falls short when it comes to most contemporary music. Thankfully, users have created custom song levels for Beat Saber.

It’s worth noting that an update to Beat Saber stopped some methods for sideloading songs from working. This updated guide has a newer method that does work and the old method in case you’re running an older version of Beat Saber.

Getting your Oculus Quest ready for sideloading

Sideloading content onto your Oculus Quest is relatively easy thanks to a program called SideQuest. You can check out our full guide to sideloading apps on the Oculus Quest or read the relevant steps for sideloading custom songs onto Beat Saber below. If you’ve already set up SideQuest on your PC, you can skip directly to the steps to prepare to install songs.
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The Oculus Quest has built-in sensors that can make any area into a VR space. Oculus’ Guardian system lets you set up a boundary in any room or area that you’d like, and the device sets up a virtual grid to ensure that you stay in your secure area. But if you drew an area wrong, made changes to the area, or are setting up your Oculus Quest in a new space, you’ll need to set or reset your boundaries. Fortunately, Oculus made this incredibly easy.

Products used in this guide

Wireless VR fun: Oculus Quest ($399 at Amazon)

How to set up a roomscale boundary

One of the Oculus Quest’s best features is that you can map out a room, and the headset can remember the boundaries. This is referred to as “roomscale” and is the ideal setup for most VR games. You draw a map of the boundaries, making a border that can be bent around items like house plants and sofas. The Oculus Quest then creates a virtual grid that turns red if you get too close. If you pop your head out of the roomscale bound…

Oculus Quest is Facebook’s last piece of hardware in its first generation of VR devices. It has six degrees of freedom, movement tracking so you can game throughout an area and two Touch Controllers, which facilitate a wide range of gameplay. The Oculus Quest now has over 100 games available, ranging from first-person shooters to musical saber swinging titles. We marked the latest titles with “new,” and at the top of the list, so you can keep track of all the latest games.

New titles
Available now
Supported Oculus Go games
Confirmed future titles
Teased future titles

New

Battle in darkness

Gloomy Eyes

New

After the sun went dark, zombies rose from their graves. While humans and zombies clash, a human girl and a zombie boy fall in love in this VR experience.

$8 at Oculus Store

Four!

Pro Putt by Topgolf

New

Play on your own or in multiplayer modes in this golf game with a 10,000 square foot practice green and three courses. You can also play in the Topgolf Putt L…

Best answer: You don’t need any external sensors or any additional hardware to use the Oculus Quest. Everything you need is in the box, and its sensors are built into the headset. The device even now supports Playspace Scanning, which helps you even more to avoid tripping on your environment.

Standalone virtual reality: Oculus Quest ($399 at Best Buy)

Insight tracking

The Oculus Quest has an array of four wide-angle cameras built into the device. These are in lieu of any external sensors, towers, or cameras that are common among other headsets such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. These cameras help power Oculus Insight, the headset’s tracking system that maps out the area you’re in real life, tracks your movement, and tracks your Touch Controllers.

The Oculus Quest supports six degrees of freedom tracking. This means that the Oculus Quest can track your movement up, down, left, right, forward, and back. As a result, the Oculus Quest can track your movements as you move around …

What’s better than finding a game you love, finding a game you love and only having to pay for it once to play it on two devices. Many popular games support cross-buy between the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift. If you buy any of the games in this collection for one platform, you’ll get them on the other without having to spend another penny.

Shoot to the music

Pistol Whip

Staff pick

This rhythmic shooter brings the action to you. You shoot, dodge, dance, and defeat enemies to the rhythm of the music to feel like you’re in an action movie.

$25 Oculus Store

Seeeeet hut!

2MD: VR Football Unleashed

You can immerse yourself in VR football with this game. You throw the ball with your Touch Controller, draw plays to run, and play against AI on the gridiron.

$15 at Oculus

“Accounting”

Accounting+

This comedic game is just about everything other than accounting in an office. It takes you to a series of virtual worlds where you go on a humorous adventure.

$12 at Ocul…

Hand tracking is now generally available for the Oculus Quest, and games can use it later this month.

What you need to know

Oculus Quest hand tracking is now generally available.
Hand tracking has been an experimental feature for a year.
Third-party games can include hand tracking starting on May 28, 2020.

Oculus announced a slew of updates and bits of information to celebrate the anniversary of the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S. One of the largest changes is that hand tracking is now generally available. The feature has been classified as an experimental feature for the last year but is now fully available on the Oculus Quest. Oculus will start accepting third-party titles that include hand tracking on May 28, 2020.

Developers have now had a year to work with the hand tracking SDK, and Oculus has had long enough to improve the feature to roll it out to the public. Later this month, several apps and games will gain hand tracking support. Here’s the list that Oculus shares in i…