Posted by FaceBook at Oculus Connect 6 announced that along with Quest Hand tracking, Oculus would have social VR features. These extended social VR features will roll out under the head of FaceBook Horizon. It was available on VR platforms, namely, Oculus Quest and Rift Platform, in 2020. You can put your hands on these features in a few days, as Oculus has started rolling these features out.
Oculus Rolls Out Social VR Features
These include many features as texting, sharing your pictures and video. You can also go live on FaceBook with the new upgrade. You can create events to schedule time to play with your friends, create parties that all you pals can join. Till now, only those who invited, they alone could join the party. But with the new upgrade, all your friends can join the party.
As told by Oculus, to use these features and the existing ones, the VR device would require you to log in to Facebook as FaceBook powers these features. Though, to use the VR platform, you don’t need to login to FaceBook. Facebook will automatically sync all your data related to social interactions along with recommendations and ads to your VR device.
The data used by Facebook when you log in to FaceBook on your VR device are:
- VR apps used by you to suggest new VR apps or the similar ones you are missing on.
- Your Facebook friend list. So that if you want, you can join your friends who are also on Oculus.
- Your invitations of the events and their acceptances by you
- Your name, so that you can use services like messaging
- If you share photos from your VR device, information like your photos, their caption, likes, comments will share with Facebook.
If you do not want Facebook to share your Oculus information, you can do o by preventing logging into FaceBook. Though, if you have logged into FaceBook, but you want to stop the data shared, log out from your Facebook on your Oculus. After you have logged into Facebook from your VR device, you can any time choose to log out from Facebook on your Oculus device, when you decide not to share your Oculus data with FaceBook. The data only shared for the time you logged into FaceBook. The features provided by Facebook for social interaction on Oculus VR are:
- Messaging, this included so that you can connect and talk to your friends when you are using Oculus VR.
- Create and manage events, and this has included so that you can create events and invite them to such events. You can ask them to play with you on Oculus VR.
- Livestreaming, this facility lets you go live on Facebook when you are using Oculus. You can go live and share your gaming experience with your friends.
- Share photos, you can share pictures while you are using Oculus. The information like the photo you shared, likes, comments, and the caption of the photograph will be shared.
- Create open parties, and you can create free parties and invite your friends to join in.
- Add Facebook friends, and this feature lets you add your FaceBook friends and play with them on VR devices. Only those friends who are using Oculus platforms will be able to accept the invitation and play with you.
Conclusion
If anyone who is not having a FaceBook account, they won’t have access to social VR features, but you can access other interactions. Also, Oculus, while posting something on your FaceBook wall, will always ask for your permission.