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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

#361

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.

I won't spend money with oculus, as they're a company based on stolen technology who tried to consolize the VR market with exclusives they purchased. Paying them money is cutting your own throat.

That is a very different statement than saying the tech is bad.

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

#363
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuck laughs all the way to the bank, the primary objectives of expanding the platform footprint and getting the consumer to pay for it are already achieved

fb isn't making much, if any, money on the hardware

The point isn't money, it's market share and monopoly. Then money flows on its own.

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

#364

Facebook should have never been allowed to buy them. It is really annoying because there is basically no alternative to it if you want a stand alone VR headset.

There are some good news on this front. Recently, ByteDance (owner of TikTok) acquired Pico, Chinese Occulus-style headset. I have their hardware and it's not on the same level as Quest - yet - but getting close. They also have a couple of great solution that Quest was lacking: balancer in the back, eye tracking in newer headsets. I hope now that they have bigger cash stacks, they can spearhead a competition race.

(it also makes sense, as Quest doesn't work in CN due to blocked FB)

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

#365

Facebook should have never been allowed to buy them. It is really annoying because there is basically no alternative to it if you want a stand alone VR headset.

There are some good news on this front. Recently, ByteDance (owner of TikTok) acquired Pico, Chinese Occulus-style headset. I have their hardware and it's not on the same level as Quest - yet - but getting close. They also have a couple of great solution that Quest was lacking: balancer in the back, eye tracking in newer headsets. I hope now that they have bigger cash stacks, they can spearhead a competition race. (i…

How is ByteDance-controlled ecosystem a lesser evil than a Facebook-controlled one?

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

#366

This reminds me of the time that Steve Ballmer did an Q&A with Microsoft interns saying basically that he's happy everyone in China pirates Windows because then Microsoft sets the standard.

Never heard about Steve Ballmer saying this but I always believed this was (or became at some point) the plan. 100% of SOHO users pirated MS DOS, Windows and Office in Eastern Europe before broadband Internet became widely available. Then legal pressure on small business started so they began buying licenses as Windows and Office have already became the standard. What I never understood though is why did Microsoft (o…

> What I never understood though is why did Microsoft (or anybody else) invest in all this activation bullshit anyway.

I relate this to the adage "locks are to keep honest people honest."

Similarly, bypassing a valid license has to be just hard enough that people have time to think about what they're doing.

To push the metaphor a bit further, someone is more likely to try the credit card trick to shim a door open (type in a fake or shared serial key) than acquire lockpicking tools (download a crack).

There's probably some convenience factor there as well...

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

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it's a net benefit for facebook? They probably make a loss if you buy a headset, don't buy anything on the store and un-facebook it.

The team at facebook will be able to show bigger sales, making the next version more likely. You will count as a "oculus quest user" in steam stats etc. Developers will be more likely to support this headset. Etc etc etc. The market is still so small that network effect like these can be huge. Facebook is selling at a loss in an attempt to destroy the competition and build another monopoly. They don't care if they do…

Luckily, there are laws against monopolies. I don't see what you mean by Facebook currently having a monopoly, because Facebook is not the only social network.

Given the fact one of their main competitors is Valve, I don't think you have to worry about them destroying their competition financially either. Facebook isn't even really competing with them, FB is going for the low end market.

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

#368
post #334

Just a reminder Oculus is a company founded on taking tech from other companies and getting away with it. Don't give them money, don't buy their devices. Getting acquired by facebook and turning the VR sets into spyware and facebook funnels just makes them worse. If you want to be ethical get an HMD from someone other than Oculus/Facebook. I wouldn't give them a dime. Sources: alan yates (posting as vk2zay on reddit)…

> Oculus has their own CV-based tracking implementation and frensel lens design but the CV1 is otherwise a direct copy Tracking and lenses are what make headset. I'm struggling to think of what non-trivial decisions are even left if you exclude those. Panel choice and illumination strategy I guess?

architecture, component choice, etc etc hard stuff that isn't obvious to a consumer.

I guess you haven't thought deeply about developing hardware

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

#369
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employees who advocated 'freely giving' the technology away jumped off to the other company basically right away. It was sabotage by unethical employees. If that's unclear to you, you're probably going to have problems on the ethics exam.

Who signed off on the decision to give the tech away? Anyone can advocate for anything, at the end of the day someone is in charge and the questionable business move is on them.

you're right someone made that decision but on the advice of a lot of experts who sabotaged the company, advocated to giving the tech away to another company, and then left to that company.

This isn't rocket surgery - it's not complicated. You're just trying to minimize unethical actions by a group of people who sabotaged their employer.

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

#370
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should not be down voted. I can personally attest to what you are saying and I am a big fan of VR. Quest 2 games suck. Plain and simple. If you’re used to high fidelity graphically immersive deep story games, then you will never find satisfaction on Quest 2 native games. Connect to a PC for that.

They should definitely be downvoted because such a blanket statement is simply incorrect. I love my Quest and think the games are really awesome. Saying it not stand-alone because you need to connect it to a PC is just absurd.

>Saying it not stand-alone because you need to connect it to a PC is just absurd.

Nobody said anything about it not being standalone because you need to connect to it PC, rather that standalone VR is a poor experience and once you connect it to a PC for a much better experience, it's no longer standalone.

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