META is testing a new feature for its Quest 3 headset that allows users to drag levitating screens across their field of vision.
The experimental feature lets users move windows like their browser or other apps around the screen.
Quest 3, released in October 2023, is a virtual reality headset – a pair of goggles with a screen that projects 3D digital images across a user’s field of view.
The headset currently only supports three virtual windows docked side by side.
However, a data miner stumbled across the new feature in version 67 of the Meta Quest Public Test Channel, where users can test out software updates before their full release.
It seems everyone soon may be able to move up to three two-dimensional windows – like your browser, settings, and library – while another three remain docked.
The feature is reminiscent of technology showcased in the 2002 film Minority Report, based on the 1956 short story of the same name.
Director Steven Spielberg recruited 15 experts to think up examples of technology that could exist in 2054.
In the film, Tom Cruise’s character can be seen manipulating a holographic wall of images and data as they float in front of him.
Based on the Quest 3 footage, the tech might have arrived decades earlier than anticipated.
The feature is also drawing comparisons to Apple’s Vision Pro, which offers users the same ability to move windows freely. You can pinch and drag the window bar side-to-side, closer, or farther away.
Both Quest 3 and Vision Pro are examples of mixed-reality headsets.
AR vs. VR
You may have heard of augmented reality and virtual reality, commonly referred to as AR and VR.
AR devices like the Microsoft HoloLens and the original Google Glass are transparent.
This means you see everything in front of you, with images or text projected over whatever you’re looking at.
VR, meanwhile, gives the impression you are somewhere else by immersing you in a digital world.
Quest 3’s predecessor, Quest 2, is an example of a VR headset. It is opaque rather than clear, meaning users cannot see their real-world surroundings.
Quest 3 falls into an intermediate category known as mixed reality that seamlessly blends the lines between physical and digital.
It often adds overlays and actual objects into a virtually rendered world.
Examples Meta provides are “playing a virtual piano on your coffee table” and “opening a portal in your living room”.
What is VR? Virtual reality explained
Here’s what you need to know about the revolutionary tech…
- Virtual reality allows you to experience and interact with a 3D world that isn’t real.
- To enter this virtual world you must don a VR helmet – a headset with a screen inside that makes you feel like you’re somewhere else.
- This mounted display strapped to your eyes mixed with stereo sound and movement tracking lets you explore this immersive virtual world.
- You turn your head and the environemnt turns with you, making the illusion feel even more “real”.
- Modern VR headsets began as expensive PC-linked helmets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, but cheaper options quickly emerged, including affordable goggles like the Samsung Gear VR that work by slotting a smartphone in the headset.
- The downloadable apps range from VR games to 360-degree videos created by publishers like the BBC and The Discovery Channel.
- They can transport you to 3D worlds that aren’t accessible in real life, like a trip to Mars or a spin behind the wheel of a futuristic sports car.
- Until recently, these experiences relied on a PC or smartphone to generate this virtual world.
- But now headsets like the Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, and Apple Vision Pro run using their own built-in computing systems