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Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

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Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#321

Post by LegitShady »

narism wrote: post #222
gear54rus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty much agree but what do you mean stolen tech?

They are probably talking about ZeniMax v. Oculus. ZeniMax owned the company where John Carmack worked. While the original Oculus Rift was being prototyped and later crowdfunded, Carmack was interested in VR and worked on the code/headset to get Doom 3 running on it. He later left to become the Oculus CTO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_v._Oculus

also see this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28871907

Carmack's actions in light of the pattern of Oculus acquiring tech from valve in shady ways can't be seen as anything other than just another guy betraying his former employer for oculus.

A giant stain on his reputation for anyone who can see just how oculus was built.

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#322

Post by LegitShady »

lostgame wrote: post #169
cortesoft wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used the Quest 2? I've owned the original rift dev kit, a vive, a vive pro, and a quest 2.... the stand alone quest 2 experience is actually pretty amazing. I was skeptical, too, but it is quite impressive.

Current owner and I agree. It’s an incredibly quality experience compared to, E.G., the Vive, even!

It was released 4 years after the vive - I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#323

Post by LegitShady »

numpad0 wrote: post #231
gear54rus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty much agree but what do you mean stolen tech?

1st-gen Rift was co-developed with Valve, and there's a sentimental narrative among gamers that Oculus backhanded Valve by fleeing to FB and becoming a platformer.

Not exactly. See my comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28871907

It's not that valve co-developed the rift, its that CV1 was exactly the steam sight headset with the CV tracking system and new fresnel lenses.

Valve employees convinced whoever made decisions over there to just give the tech over to oculus without a license or contract, and then those employees jumped ship to facebook/oculus in one of the most egregious unethical backstabs in recent tech memory.

Carmack couldn't convince his employer to give away the work he did, so he just took it with him and somehow was involved in a 'clean room' reimplementation of work he did for someone else. It's part of a pattern of unethical behaviour for the big names in oculus.

I wouldn't give them a penny.

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#324

Post by HWR_14 »

charcircuit wrote: post #265
HWR_14 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother specifying hardware? No, thank you, I have no desire to have a cloud account for my purely offline software either.

If it requires a cloud account it isn't purely offline software. How else do they authenticate you?

It's purely offline software that reaches out to the cloud solely to spy on me and/or make me log in. There are no online features I need or want from it.

What authentication do I need or want on a local device that is software specific?

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#325

Post by LegitShady »

d3nj4l wrote: post #201
LegitShady wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

standalone VR is pretty garbage running off a phone graphics card. The quest is only interesting where you connect to PCVR, and then its not standalone.

This is the old PC master race thing again. Well duh, of course the Quest 2 is garbage compared to your $3k VR setup, but a $300 flat entry point to the VR space - no additional purchase or PC required - is undeniably a good thing for everyone.

honestly not if it gives facebook control of the VR market.

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#326

Post by jmac01 »

archontes wrote: post #317
roguas wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already did. A lot of companies entered the game, but none of them can sell headsets with such heavy losses as facebook. None of them have successful all-in-one headset which after sometime facebook has learned is the headset type that sells (not everybody has money for 2k pc).

No. This: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22699914/valve-deckard-st...

But that'll be like $899 if we lucky. Occulus Quest is like $300

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#327

Post by katbyte »

lostgame wrote: post #318
Claude_Shannon wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your point, I feel like you can't say that PSN account is equivalent to FB. I can create "fake" PSN account, but FB is tied to my real data.

I have four fake FB accounts I've had for years. Not sure how this is an issue?

From what I understand Facebook making it harder to create fake accounts and enforce real names is a more recent trend and old accounts fly under the radar (for now)

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#328

Post by dougmwne »

thebigman433 wrote: post #57
dougmwne wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great way to make Facebook drop PCVR support and allow standalone apps only. At this point, I think things are going in that direction rapidly anyway. Oculus has already shifted most of it's game development resources away from PCVR.

What makes you think theyre dropping PCVR support? They just spent 3 years getting wired and wireless Link working. They clearly want to unify their products into a single hybrid standalone/pcvr lineup. PCVR software sales are just absolutely abysmal, there is no way to make a profit on a large scale app, so theyre only going to invest in AAA content for standalone now.

Yes, it's the lack of investment and profit potential on PCVR. It also may interest the Oculus founders who want the highest quality experience, but it does not fall in line with Zuck's vision which is a cheap and good enough social VR machine.

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#329

Post by tristor »

I've been wanting to use PCVR for a long time, especially for virtual desktop scenarios, not even just for gaming. But the reality is I will never buy anything that puts money in Facebook's pocket. End of story. I really appreciate the work the developer did on this, but philosophically I see things like this that attempt to break the walled garden as a net-benefit to a bad actor (Facebook) rather than a net-benefit to consumers and users. It's actually better for the world and better for users if they have to make a hard choice about the ethics of their purchases, rather than feeling like they have an "out". So I commend the work, but Oculus is a no-go for anyone who gives any care at all about ethics for SO MANY reasons, Facebook owning it just being the largest (read the origin story for more).

Re: Oculess – Removes account requirements and telemetry from Oculus Quest devices

#330

Post by idiotsecant »

jmac01 wrote: post #326
archontes wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22699914/valve-deckard-st...

But that'll be like $899 if we lucky. Occulus Quest is like $300

There's a reason for that. I'm not sure I want to own hardware that facebook is willing to take a $300 + haircut on to get it into my hands.
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