Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

oculus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#551

Post by mlboss »

latenightcoding wrote: post #479
xg15 wrote: post #386

This is something that still completely baffles me about the "IoT"/"smart devices"/"connected devices"/"whatever you want to call it" space. If someone advertised a device as capable of doing X without it in fact being able to do X, they'd be liable for false advertising. If someone sold you a device, then took it back or destroyed it, they'd be liable for theft or destruction of property. Nevertheless, if someone se…

It baffles me too. My Samsung smart tv started showing me ads in the control panel/home screen. I paid full price for it, why am I seeing ads. I wish I could return it, but the snakes waited until the return period was over.

Better to have a dumb TV with chromecast.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#552

Post by sudosysgen »

ggreer wrote: post #296
umvi wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But did Facebook add any value (i.e. engineering money/hours) to improve the device? What you've listed are all negatives, but there have to be at least a few positives to come out of it.

Without Facebook's capital and Zuckerberg's commitment to VR, I doubt the Quest would exist. That project was announced in 2016 and was likely in development for a couple of years before that. Still it took until mid-2019 to be released to the public. IIRC, Carmack said that development on the Go was started after the Quest, yet the Go went to market a year sooner. I can only imagine what kind of hell it was to get a…

Actually, not really. Inside out tracking runs on one core of my ancient AMD FX 6350 well enough. It was very doable.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#554

Post by jayd16 »

ggreer wrote: post #538
jayd16 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenovo did it before the Go released (or about the same). It was kind of gimped because they went with the Daydream controller instead of full controllers but the headset itself was roomscale VR. It was also bigger and not as comfortable but worked on a previous gen SOC to the Quest. Check out the Lenovo Mirage Solo.

Since it only had two front-facing cameras, the Mirage Solo would have required extra hardware to track any controllers. Also I don't think there was ever an app for it that let you walk two steps away from the origin. The only truly room scale thing I saw was a demo written by some developers. They had to put the headset in dev mode and disable a bunch of safety mechanisms. I wonder if this limitation was imposed to…

I developed on it and the limitation was mostly self imposed for safety/perf reasons. Its much easier to draw a consistent roomscale boundary on the Quest with the 6DOF controller. Without that its a real UX problem. Even the Quest is constantly asking to redraw the boundary. It was one of two SOC generations (as well as VR SDK gens) earlier and it was quite hard to build out a full room without a lot of perspective tricks.

There was an experimental add on for 6DOF controllers https://developers.google.com/vr/experimental/6dof-controlle...

It really wasn't a fundamental technical leap to go from the Mirage to a Quest. The Quest feels like a (well thought out) iteration instead of a revolution compared to the Mirage Solo.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#555

Post by rightbyte »

ryanSrich wrote: post #396
codezero wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your IP address is identifiable enough (combined with all the other joys of big data) to Facebook and its marketing wing, so don't feel too confident, but if you don't care, then that's kind of the point.

Wondering if creating burning accounts for everything would prevent any tracking. Basically - create burner gmail - create burner oculus name/account - create burner Facebook account - always use a VPN It seems like you could completely remain anonymous and provide Facebook with data they could never correlate to a real person.

What do VPN help if you have Facebook firmware on your computer? You also need to never play with friends with the Rift online, or let them borrow your Wifi, etc. If you have Facebook apps or hardware you leak fingerprinting bits. The Rift has bluetooth for the controllers right? Better put it in a Farradays cage because your neighbors will rat on you to Zuckerberg.

There is no having a tiny bit of Facebook. If you give them a finger ...

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#556

Post by Mindwipe »

fiatjaf wrote: post #486
atarian wrote: post #13

Palmer Luckey, the original creator had this to say over on /r/oculus: I am already getting heat from users and media outlets who say this policy change proves I was lying when I consistently said this wouldn't happen, or at least that it was a guarantee I wasn't in a position to make. I want to make clear that those promises were approved by Facebook in that moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it w…

That kind of promise from Facebook should be enforceable on court. If it is not it's only because the current government judicial system is so full of spam-cases and it is so inefficient that it doesn't have room for these things.

Honestly, it might well be actionable for purchasers of existing hardware. They can legitimately point towards a public statement made by a company agent authorised by his employer and that they bought the device on that basis.

The problem is that if Facebook had to pay out $20 million to make this go away they'd consider that to be entirely a cost worth paying.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#557

Post by klyrs »

shazow wrote: post #477
klyrs wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW it's quite simple to make fake IDs that pass FB verification. Not that I support making FB accounts, even fraudulent ones. I'd like to see a class action privacy suit, because in conjunction with their real names policy, FB is forcing identity disclosure simply to use hardware.

I just tried and failed: https://twitter.com/shazow/status/1295835462360338436 I used a realistic sounding name, I tried several email addresses that were rejected as blocked, eventually I landed on an email that worked and my account got immediately disabled. I'm sure I could eventually succeed, but I don't believe that it's fair to brush this off as something that anybody could do easily.

Your tweet indicates that you were stopped by the "government ID required" hoop. I've been there. I'm no graphics design wizard, but I foiled this by (1) taking a photograph of my actual government ID, (2) copying letters around to spell the name I'm known by, (3) applying some noise and blur filters (4) downsampling, and (5) redacting all PII except name & face. Compared to making an actual fake ID, I call this quite simple.

I imagine that you could use a plausible but fake name and a plausible but fake "random person" image, but I'm not interested in actually interacting with that website enough to try.

You might try a clean OS & browser install, to avoid trackers, and maybe if you've been banned a bunch already, use a VPN (or stop using a VPN) or use Starbucks wifi or something.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#558

Post by mdorazio »

latenightcoding wrote: post #479
xg15 wrote: post #386

This is something that still completely baffles me about the "IoT"/"smart devices"/"connected devices"/"whatever you want to call it" space. If someone advertised a device as capable of doing X without it in fact being able to do X, they'd be liable for false advertising. If someone sold you a device, then took it back or destroyed it, they'd be liable for theft or destruction of property. Nevertheless, if someone se…

It baffles me too. My Samsung smart tv started showing me ads in the control panel/home screen. I paid full price for it, why am I seeing ads. I wish I could return it, but the snakes waited until the return period was over.

In the case of the smart tv it's actually because you didn't really pay the full price of the tv. The manufacturer counts on the revenue from those ads to boost the tv profit margin to an acceptable level, otherwise they would have to charge you more for the tv initially.

If you don't believe me, look up the price of a "commercial display" comparable to your tv. And before anyone asks, the majority of customers would rather have a cheaper tv with ads in the menus than a more expensive one without.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#559

Post by AaronFriel »

jacquesm wrote: post #153
vsareto wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook made that promise by approving it on an ongoing basis. They just changed their mind.

Facebook deals in contracts, not promises and even if it was contractually agreed upon, what would you do about it? Sue? At a guess you'd count the money one more time, shrug and maybe send a short apologetic note about how terrible you feel about it. And then count the money again.

Promissory estoppel is a real thing and companies can be legally liable for promises that another party relies upon.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#560

Post by saxonww »

wlesieutre wrote: post #67
eugeniub wrote: post #22

Well this is horrifying. I bought a Quest for a relative. He loves it, but he doesn't have a Facebook account, and has no interest in signing up. I have a Facebook account, but I don't use it, and I certainly don't want to connect my Oculus account. I guess we'll both have to sell our Quests. That means we'll lose all of our game purchases. I came to Oculus with eyes wide open knowing it was a Facebook company, but t…

If you make a Facebook account and never touch the Facebook aspect of it, is there any material difference between that and an Oculus account?

A better question: why does a VR headset require an account at all? Should my monitor require an account? Should my keyboard?

It's a peripheral, not a platform.

Post reply on HN