The update also includes Oculus Voice speech recognition for Rift and Gear VR.
Oculus got an update on Gear VR that will let you livestream VR gaming sessions straight to your Facebook profile. The idea according to Oculus is to make it easier “to share memorable virtual moments with your friends and family on Facebook.”
So for all those times you wanted to share your Gear VR sessions with mom, now you’re only a few clicks away. Just select the “Livestream to Facebook” button from the Universal Menu when you’re in VR, and the livestream of what you see in headset will be posted on Facebook. The catch—its only available to those with a Gear VR outside the US for now, but should be coming soon to Samsung phones in the next weeks.
Voice Recognition and Events
On top of the new livestreaming update, Oculus announced Oculus Voice that is rolling out to English speakers on both Rift and Gear VR. This feature lets you perform voice searches from Oculus Home to intuitively navigate games, apps, and experiences.
In addition to the livestreaming and Voice Speech update, Oculus threw in a few more updates to the platform. Continuing to focus on paving the way for more social VR experiences, new features have been added that let watch 360 videos in Oculus Rooms and create Oculus Events that let you find friends and jump into experiences together in VR.
The idea of Oculus Events is similar to Events on Facebook, but instead are all virtual. You can set reminders for future events or just jump straight into one that’s live at that moment. Events run the gamut from multiplayer games and tournaments to tech talks and trivia, adding an entirely new level to social interaction in VR while also surfacing public events in a powerful way.
If there is one company we expect to focus heavily on making VR more social for us all, it would likely be Facebook. And for good reason, because we all know VR is better with friends—or mom.
