Oculus shows off how you’ll hang with friends in VR

Back at F8 earlier this year, we saw a demo of a couple of people interacting with each other via virtual reality — sort of like VR Skype. Now, at the Oculus Connect event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off a much better version of the software. It’s called Oculus Parties Instead of just a color outline of your face, you can design animated cartoon-like avatars, complete with facial expressions. You can even create draw-in-the-air swords and lightsabers, and then play around with them in VR. To do this, you

One of the big announcements here though, is Oculus Avatars, which is a way for you to design your very own virtual reality you. Avatars will form the foundation of your identity in VR. From there, you can travel from destination to destination with your friends, even if they’re thousands of miles away. In a demo given at Oculus Connect keynote, Zuckerberg hung out with his virtual buds at a variety of locations around the globe. They could manipulate objects around them, like enlarging videos and playing virtual chess. And yes, even take selfies with virtual selfie sticks.

As part of Oculus’ new social push, the company is announcing Oculus Parties, a chat app to let you hang with friends, plus Oculus Rooms, which lets you create virtual hangout spaces.

Developing…