‘Blade Runner 2049’ and Disney will come to VR via Oculus

Oculus is working on a handful of new VR content projects, but the biggest names dropped at its Oculus Connect 3 conference this afternoon were Blade Runner and Disney. The coming film Blade Runner 2049 and a series of experiences about classic Disney characters are heading to Oculus platforms. Blade Runner 2049 is the sequel to 1982’s cult sci-fi hit and it was just announced today; it’s due in theaters on October 6th, 2017. Oculus didn’t delve into details about either project.

In other big Oculus Connect 3 news: The company is working on a standalone VR headset and it showed off how Facebook-enabled social spaces will work in VR. Plus, Oculus is building a VR web browser codenamed Carmel, it’s enabling Facebook streaming in VR, and it’s offering a third, $80 sensor that turns the Rift into a room-scale VR system.

Palmer Luckey skipped the Oculus event to avoid being a ‘distraction’

Palmer Luckey may have founded Oculus, but he stayed away from today’s big Oculus Connect event after stirring up some trouble recently. Late last month, it was discovered that Luckey donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group that wanted to take some garbage Reddit-style harassment memes and get them into the mainstream via billboards and other prominent messages (something it has failed to do thus far). He apologized, but plenty of developers and Oculus supporters took exception to his actions. Oculus confirmed today that he “chose note to attend” the event to avoid being a “distraction.”

Instead, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg led a rotating cast of speakers through the two-plus hour conference, which offered a release date and pricing for the Oculus Touch controllers and a host of software demos. It’s not surprising to see Zuckerberg leading such a big event — and it makes a lot of sense to keep the focus on the Oculus announcements and avoid any potential distraction that could come from putting Luckey on stage at this point. Our memories are short, though, and we’d imagine he’ll be back at events in the future before long — just not until this election cycle is over, though.

Customize your appearance in VR with Oculus avatars

Oculus avatars allow anyone using the Rift to create a customized version of themselves, complete with more than 1 billion permutations of clothing, accessories, hair, face and color choices. Oculus VP of Product Nate Mitchell introduced the new avatar system, personalizing a character live on stage during today’s Oculus Connect 3 event. The avatars will be used in various games and social experiences on the Rift, including Sports Bar VR, and the whole system goes live when the Touch controllers come out before the end of the year.

The avatars are more like busts and they come in a range of colors, from Academy Award gold to bright pink. The digital representations move as you do in real life, using the Touch controllers to gesture and wave.

“I’m excited to introduce Oculus avatars!” @natemitchell at the #OC3 keynote. Tune in: https://t.co/coMFPh8Bms pic.twitter.com/vehxT5GmZA

— Oculus (@oculus) October 6, 2016

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You can now shop entirely in Facebook Messenger

You’ve had the option of chatting with stores in Facebook Messenger for a while. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could complete the entire sale without leaving chat? Shopify thinks it can help on that front: it’s trotting out a feature that lets you browse and buy from just about any store using its platform while remaining strictly in Messenger. You don’t have to visit a website just to pick an item or check out. You’ll likely have to start the conversation from a company’s Facebook page, but it’s entirely possible that you could stick to chat from then onward.

The move helps stores, of course, since it may simply be more convenient to shop from an outlet where you already have a chat thread going. However, it could be particularly convenient to you if you regularly purchase through your phone. You don’t have to navigate a cut-down website or download a store-specific app — you’re using the same interface you use to talk to your friends. While there are certainly things a website or app can do that Messenger can’t (you won’t get elaborate product tours), it’s good to have options.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Shopify

Facebook didn’t mean to let you sell guns and hedgehogs

Facebook’s newly launched Marketplace is meant to help you sell all kinds of goods, but it turns out the service has been a little too permissive in its early days. The company has apologized after a “technical issue” with its screening system let Marketplace users sell items that either violate its policies or are downright illegal, including babies, drugs, guns and… baby hedgehogs. Really. It’s promising to “fix the problem” and will make sure that it’s correctly removing forbidden listings before expanding access.

As the New York Times observes, this isn’t the first time Facebook has had trouble with contraband. There has been a rash of Facebook groups dedicated to gun sales, and the social network’s community-based approach to group screening has limited effectiveness in private selling groups where members are unlikely to report violations. Marketplace isn’t supposed to have that issue, but it’s evident that Facebook is still relatively new to reviewing sales itself — the months-long rollout for Marketplace may be necessary to ensure that violations are few and far between.

Source: New York Times, BBC

Facebook Messenger now lets you toggle end-to-end encryption

With the flick of a switch back in April, the popular international messaging service WhatsApp turned on end-to-end encryption for every conversation in its system, dramatically boosting security for its 1 billion-person userbase. At long last, parent company Facebook has finally rolled out the same protections for users of its standard Messenger service. Today, users can toggle the “Secret Conversations” feature on in settings to enable end-to-end encryption, ensuring that nobody can pry into chat content but the participants.

Unfortunately, users have to activate the encryption for each and every new message. It doesn’t appear to allow encryption old message chains, either. Facebook didn’t list the feature in its update notes, but once folks download the new version, they’ll see the option to tap “secret” in the top right corner of the “new message” screen. Both sender and receiver need the latest edition of the app to enable the encryption.

As WIRED points out, manually toggling it might be a legal compromise for Facebook. The company has already gotten into several spats over WhatsApp’s universal encryption, frustrating locked-out Brazilian authorities so much they regularly ban the app, temporarily froze Facebook’s funding and even arrested a company executive. At least Facebook has precedent for refusing to help decrypt messages for authorities, as much as they could with end-to-end encryption.

Obviously, encryption that only activates when you remember to turn it on isn’t a perfect solution. The conspicuous absence of any in-app announcements or instructions means some among the platform’s 900 million users will likely remain ignorant. But it’s available and easy to use, an empowering step for anyone who wants to keep authorities, their governments or Facebook itself out of their conversations.

Source: WIRED