Meta has rolled out a new update to Quest that aims to drastically improve hand-tracking performance and reliability.
The v83 update, which is rolling out now to Horizon OS, is said to increase reliability of hand-tracking in a number of cases, including during fast movements, when used for locomotion, and throwing virtual objects.
In the so-called ‘Hands 2.4’ implementation, the update makes high-speed interactions feel “more responsive and believable,” Meta says in a recent developer blog post, noting that fast twitch movements have historically challenged hand-tracking, especially in rhythm and fitness apps.
The Interaction SDK also sees major enhancements, Meta says. New hand-first locomotion samples, such as improved teleportation gestures, natural climbing, and physics-based movement, are also included so developers can use them without having to build their own systems from scratch.
Notably, developers now have more customizable throwing interactions, also including new sample scenes demonstrating styles like darts, bowling, frisbee throws, and ball sports.
Developers looking for more information can check out the documentation for both the Unity and Unreal game engines.
True to Meta’s word, v83 seems to be a big improvement to hand-tracking on Quest. I kind of wonder why it all matters though. To me, the supposition largely seems to be this: we know how to use our hands, so logically the most immersive way of interacting in VR should be the same. Right?
I honestly don’t think so, at least not for now. While I’d agree there is no perfect input scheme in VR (short of a direct neural link), controllers still offer the best input experience in a majority of cases.
Granted, I admire Meta for ratcheting down yet further on its optical hand-tracking tech, which is streets ahead of what we saw when the company rolled out hand-tracking on Quest in 2019. But even now in v83, it can only approximate some of the controller’s functionality.
Yes, I can pinch and grab, or hold my thumb and index finger to open a system menu, and also twiddle my virtual fingers about—the last of which promises a level of input granularity that not many XR games can really make use of. Maybe now I can punch a little more accurately, and teleport around a little more reliably. Still, I’d much rather just grab a controller and get the job done 100 percent of the time.
The post New Quest Update Brings Big Upgrades to Hand-tracking appeared first on Road to VR.
The planet, designated PSR J2322-2650b, has simply been described by astronomers to look like a lemon. This bizarre world, located 750 light years from us, is not only
Give your workstation an upgrade without spending a ton.
The post Apple Goes All-In on the M4 Mac Mini, Sacrificing Margins to Compete With Windows Mini PC Holiday Deals appeared first on Kotaku.
Browser extensions with more than 8 million installs are harvesting complete and extended conversations from users’ AI conversations and selling them for marketing purposes, according to data collected from the Google and Microsoft pages hosting them.
Security firm Koi discovered the eight extensions, which as of late Tuesday night remained available in both Google’s and Microsoft’s extension stores. Seven of them carry “Featured” badges, which are endorsements meant to signal that the companies have determined the extensions meet their quality standards. The free extensions provide functions such as VPN routing to safeguard online privacy and ad blocking for ad-free browsing. All provide assurances that user data remains anonymous and isn’t shared for purposes other than their described use.
An examination of the extensions’ underlying code tells a much more complicated story. Each contains eight of what Koi calls “executor” scripts, with each being unique for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and five other leading AI chat platforms. The scripts are injected into webpages anytime the user visits one of these platforms. From there, the scripts override browsers’ built-in functions for making network requests and receiving responses.
Rad Power Bikes, which once claimed to be the most funded electric bike company in the world, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday as it seeks to sell off the company.
The bankruptcy, first reported by Bicycle Retailer, was filed in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Washington, and lists estimated assets at $32.1m and estimated liabilities at $72.8m. The inventory of electric bike spares, parts and accessories is listed at $14,226,874.73, according to Bicycle Retailer.
It’s been a dramatic few years for the electric bike brand. Founded by Mike Radenbaugh in 2007, Rad Power raised $154m through a financing round in 2021 that brought the total investment amount to $329m.
But in 2023, it pulled out of the European market in order to try to sustain its business and success in the USA, where the company began. The company has also dealt with personal liability lawsuits, layoffs and management changes.
The filing comes less than a month after Rad Power said it could not afford to recall its older ebike batteries, deemed a fire risk by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Rad Power disputed the CPSC’s warning, stating its batteries are safe.
In early November, Rad Power told Washington state officials that it would possibly lay off 64 employees in January and could shut down if additional funding is not secured.
A Rad Power spokesperson told Bicycle Retailer: “Rad Power Bikes has navigated an extraordinary period of challenge and change, even as our riders and community have continued to show up for us in powerful ways.
“As we work to secure a sustainable future for the Rad brand, Rad has filed for Chapter 11 protection as part of a process to complete a sale of the company within the next 45-60 days.
“This step allows us to keep operating in the ordinary course of business while we pursue the best possible outcome for the people who rely on Rad every day. Our goal is to keep the company intact and preserve the relationships we have built with riders, vendors, suppliers, and partners.
“We are not giving up. We remain deeply committed to our customers and community, and we are focused on doing everything we can to strengthen the future of the Rad brand. We are grateful for the continued support of our riders, vendors, and retail partners as we work through this moment and toward what comes next.”
Meta is informing some users that they will soon be restricted in how many link posts they can share each month, unless they pay for its Meta Verified subscription service. As per the notification message: “Starting December 16, certain Facebook profiles without Meta Verified, including yours, will be limited to sharing links in 2 organic posts per month. Subscribe to Meta Verified to share more links on Facebook, plus get a verified badge and additional benefits to help protect your brand.”
To be clear, right now this is a limited test, so relatively few Pages are impacted. But understandably, a lot of users are also seeking more information on the change, and whether it could be expanded to all Pages. So, Meta’s seeking to boost take-up of Meta Verified, in order to make more money out of its subscription option, which, for business users, costs between $14.99 and $499 per month, depending on which package you choose.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
After federal clean vehicle tax credits ended in September, the electric vehicle industry reached a crossroads. Well, technically, it has been there since Trump took office. This is a weird period in automotive history; A chunk of the industry is full-steam ahead with EV development, another is cutting back, and the consumer is left wondering what the electrification landscape will look like next year, let alone in three, during the next administration.
But what about the automotive aftermarket? Typically, this corner benefits from whatever progress is made on the OEM front—have Trump’s policies expanded or contracted its EV technological development? I recently spent some time chatting with personnel of the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) at its yearly tradeshow in Las Vegas to find out. I also hit the bricks (or, rather, bright carpeting) of the massive show itself, seeking out some new, unique developments in the space that behoove EV tech’s inherent benefits.
Above one of the show’s several sprawling halls, I met with Mike Spagnola, SEMA’s CEO, and Karen Bailey-Chapman, senior vice president, public and government affairs, to learn what the organization’s official stance is. First and foremost: It doesn’t want to be told what to do.
Nothing
Save 60% on the Dell 15 DC15250 touchscreen laptop over at Amazon, bundled with a number of useful accessories.
The post Dell Pushes a 60% Clearance on Its Laptop (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) to Empty Shelves Before Christmas appeared first on Kotaku.
As such, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton initiated a series of lawsuits against five of the world’s most prominent
DrakkenRidge gets a free expansion tomorrow on Quest 3 and 3S, adding a new island, new enemies, and more.
Launched in September, DrakkenRidge is a retro-themed VR fantasy adventure that we favorably compared to old-school RuneScape in our impressions. As a Novice of the Mage Order, you’re tasked with policing magic use across this land while exploring dungeons and solving puzzles. Now, it’s receiving the Maruk’s Hammer expansion as a free update.
0:00
While the main game sees you exploring five unique islands across the DrakkenRidge archipelago, Maruk’s Hammer introduces a distant Dwarven Island that’s home to a mythical Forge. With the island under siege from mysterious invaders and an ancient threat, you must fend off this threat to help the Dwarves defend their home and save the Forge.
This occurs over a multistep main quest, with four new side quests also available. You can find two new weapons, such as the talking ‘Void Whisper’ sword that’s possessed by an ancient evil. New elemental arrows can also be crafted, while new enemies in this expansion include a new Dragon, a Frost Howl, Battlemages, and Corrupted Paladins.
It’s the biggest update DrakkenRidge has received since its September launch, and Garage Collective previously released four separate updates. Patch 1.3 added a new distance grab ability and the option to summon weapons by grabbing from over your shoulder, while last month’s Inventory Update delivered a new inventory layout and auto-sorting ability.
DrakkenRidge is out now on Quest 3/3S, while the Maruk’s Hammer expansion goes live tomorrow at 10am PT.
I know what you’re thinking, didn’t OnePlus release a new phone just last month? It did. A little over five weeks after the announcement of the OP15, the company is back with the OnePlus 15R, a more affordable version of its new flagship that starts at $700 (or $200 less than its sibling). Off the top, this will be a shorter review because most of what I said about the OnePlus 15 also applies to the OP15R. It’s a great phone that asks you to make one pretty significant compromise.
Like the OnePlus 15, the 15R looks like the OnePlus 13s and 13T, a pair of smaller, 6.32-inch phones the company released in India and China this past spring. I said the design of the OP15 was boring and derivative of the iPhone 16 Pro. The 15R has done nothing to change that opinion. With one fewer camera, the OP15R doesn’t look much different from the iPhone 12 I’ve been hanging on to since 2020.
That said, I’m more fond of the 15R’s mint breeze color (the phone is also available in charcoal black) than the sand storm shade of my OP15. We’re big fans of minty phones here at Engadget, and OnePlus has gone with a particularly pleasing hue of the color with its new phone. With the redesign, OnePlus has also improved the phone’s waterproofing, bringing it in line with the OP15. The new handset is IP69K-certified against moisture and dust, meaning it can withstand heated water shot at it at pressure. Like the OP15, the 15R trades OnePlus’ old Alert Slider for a new Plus Key. It functions like the iPhone’s Action button, allowing you to add a shortcut for a favorite feature. For example, you can configure it to open the camera app or act as a do not disturb toggle, among a few other options.
One departure from the OP15 is that the 15R has a larger 6.83-inch display, making it slightly taller than its sibling. OnePlus is marketing this as one reason buyers might pick the 15R over the OP15, but holding the phones side by side, there’s not much difference between the two. They’re both big, and you’ll either like that or won’t.
On top of being big, the 15R’s screen can refresh at a fast 165Hz in games. The two displays are also comparable in terms of resolution and brightness; both can push 1,800 nits of brightness. One difference I noticed is the OnePlus 15 has a warmer panel, even when the two phones are set to the same colorspace. I’ve reached out to OnePlus to find what might be causing the disparity, but for now it may be due to a quality control issue or oversight in the company’s software.
One last thing, OnePlus has upgraded the 15R to add an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor beneath the screen. This is placed in a nice spot toward the bottom third of the display, and it’s fast and accurate.
The OnePlus 15R is the first phone in North America to arrive with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset. Not to be confused with the Snapdragon Gen 5 Elite in the OP15, this new chipset is similar to Qualcomm’s flagship system-on-a-chip but has a weaker CPU and GPU. This is reflected in benchmarks like Geekbench 6 where the OP15 handily outperforms the OP15R. It’s not even close, either, with the OP15 delivering standout single- and multi-core scores of 3,773 and 11,293, while the 15R put up more modest results of 2,857 and 9,512.
From that perspective, you’re losing a fair amount of performance, but real-world use tells a different story. Outside of the handful of games such as Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG that support the OP15 and 15R’s 165Hz displays, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 offers more than enough muscle for the majority of applications. Even for most games (like the ones I like to play, including Diablo Immortal and League of Legends: Wild Rift), the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is a great match.
OnePlus also hasn’t skimped on the 15R’s other internal components. You’re still getting 12GB of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.1 storage. That’s the same configuration as the base model of the OP15. This translates to a phone that doesn’t miss a beat when switching between apps and loading files like images and videos.
The 15R has a slightly bigger battery, coming in at 7,400mAh, up from 7,300mAh on the OP15. In practice, the two phones offer the same amount of battery life. Putting them through both Engadget’s video rundown test, they both ran for 38 hours before their batteries died (which makes sense given the OP15R has a bigger screen). Like the OP15, the 15R comes with the OnePlus 55W SUPERVOOC charger in the box. The adapter can get the 15R from dead to 100 percent in less than an hour. If you hate charging your phone, the 15R makes that process as painless as possible, with a battery that both lasts long and won’t be at the outlet for hours.
By this point you’re probably wondering what OnePlus cut from the OP15 to make the 15R more affordable. The answer — quite literally — is an entire camera. The new phone is missing a telephoto camera, something you could find on its predecessor, the OnePlus 13R. And as far as I can tell, the two remaining cameras use the same 50-megapixel and 8MP sensors OnePlus shipped on last year’s model. The company also hasn’t upgraded the glass on either camera. That leaves the selfie camera as the only area to see some change in the form of a sharper 32MP sensor and the addition of autofocus.
Unfortunately, none of the 15R’s cameras stand out. As a whole, they suffer from the same set of problems that plague the OnePlus 15’s cameras. They’re fine out on a sunny day, but as soon as the light becomes a bit challenging, the 15R struggles with shadow details, resulting in muddy pictures. The more I’ve used both the OP15 and 15R, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that OnePlus needs to go back to the drawing board with its new Detail Max Engine. It feels like it’s holding back what should, at least on paper, be solid hardware.
There’s not much to say here other than the 15R ships with OxygenOS 16, just like the OP15. OnePlus has also promised to support the 15R for the same amount of time as the OP15: four years with software updates and six years with security patches. That’s a shorter window than Google and Samsung, both of which promise seven years on all their latest phones. It’s hopefully something that OnePlus decides to change starting with the OnePlus 16. The reason I bring that up is that the company’s version of Android is one I like a lot. OxygenOS is slick, with animations that highlight the speed of the 15R’s processor and display. The fact the phone comes with the latest version of OxygenOS means you also get access to all of the company’s newest AI features, including its Mind Space hub where you can save screenshots and notes for an on-device model to transcribe and summarize.
In short, the OnePlus 15R is the phone for people who don’t care about photos and videos. That’s the same conclusion I came to with the OP15. If you’re a OnePlus fan, the 15R excels in all the areas you would expect the company’s devices to make a good showing: performance, battery life and display responsiveness. Given I wasn’t too impressed with the OP15’s camera, I would actually recommend the 15R over that model. For $200 off the starting price of the OP15, you’re getting a device that has almost all of the same strengths of its more expensive sibling.
Compared to other phones in its price range, such as the Pixel 10 and Galaxy S25 FE, the 15R is not as well-rounded, and can’t compete with those devices in camera quality, but you’re getting much better performance, battery life and a display they can’t match.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/oneplus-15r-review-a-165hz-display-and-big-battery-for-700-150000340.html?src=rss
The Civil Infrastructure Platform
(CIP) first launched in that form in April 2016, so it has a
tenth-anniversary celebration in its near future. At the 2025 Open
Source Summit Japan, Yoshitake Kobayashi talked about the goals of this
project and where it is headed in the future. Supporting a Linux system
for even one year is a challenging task; maintaining that support for a
decade or more is rather more so, and a changing regulatory environment
complicates the task further.
2660 pieces recreate Hogwarts architecture from towers down to secret chambers.
The post LEGO Rescues Your Christmas Gifts, Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle at Price That Crushes All Other Sets appeared first on Kotaku.
84 percent of the time spent playing on Steam this year was with games released before 2025
The post It’s Horrifying Just How Little Time Steam Users Spend Playing New Games appeared first on Kotaku.
New research shows that tropical cyclones leave behind more than death and destruction.
Warner Bros Discovery’s board spurned Paramount Skydance’s $108.4 billion hostile takeover bid on Wednesday, calling the offer “illusory” as it accused the studio giant of misleading shareholders about its financing. From a report: Paramount has been in a race with Netflix to win control of Warner Bros, and with it, its prized film and television studios, HBO Max streaming service and franchises like “Harry Potter.” After Warner Bros accepted the streaming giant’s offer, Paramount launched a hostile offer to outdo that bid.
In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, the Warner Bros board wrote that Paramount had “consistently misled” Warner Bros shareholders that its $30-per-share cash offer was fully guaranteed, or “backstopped,” by the Ellison family, led by billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
On Tuesday, X Corporation, formerly known as Twitter, sued “Operation Bluebird,” the new startup that is seeking to reclaim the allegedly abandoned Twitter trademark and relaunch a new social media network under that name.
In its 43-page lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Delaware, X Corporation alleges trademark infringement, adding that despite Bluebird’s “purported plan, it cannot bring Twitter ‘back’—Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp.”
One of Bluebird’s leaders, Michael Peroff, told Ars in an email that Operation Bluebird was “fully expecting” a lawsuit from X Corporation and that “we planned for it.”