Two new must-have Android apps

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 46, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you like silly gadgets, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been ... more - theverge

We now have dates for Meta’s forthcoming Quest headsets

The report didn’t mention Ventura, which is rumored to be a more affordable headset slated for 2024. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Despite recent layoffs in its Reality Labs division, Meta is still barreling ahead with plans for a Quest 4 in 2026 ... more - theverge

The Netflix app for Quest headsets is no more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix has discontinued its streaming app for Quest headsets, Upload VR reports. The good news for Quest owners is that Meta recently added support for Netflix in the Quest browser, complete with 1080p streaming. ... more - theverge

The Xreal Beam Pro has good ideas about AR — but not enough juice

Image: Xreal There are two possible paths for augmented reality devices. One path is the all-in-one approach, which you might call the smartphone path or the Vision Pro Path: you buy a full-fledged single device with everything you need, and when you ... more - theverge

Meta will now let young kids chat in VR — but only with their parents’ approval

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta will now let kids interact with other users in virtual reality, but only if they get parental approval. An upcoming change will let parents individually approve each user their 10- to 12-year-old can call, ... more - theverge

There’s an AMD Ryzen 7 PC hiding inside this folding keyboard

You can fit this PC in your pocket. | Image: Linglong Headless portable PCs packing everything except a display are growing in popularity among enthusiasts who don’t want to settle for a laptop they can’t easily upgrade — and now Chinese manufacturer ... more - theverge

Meta’s $24.99 monthly pay later plan covers the Quest 3 and Quest Plus

Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Meta is now offering an interest-free $24.99 monthly payment plan to get its Quest 3 VR headset, along with two years’ worth of a Meta Quest Plus gaming subscription and its extended warranty. That starting price is for ... more - theverge

At just over $20, Half-Life: Alyx is essential playing for VR headset owners

I can hear the eerie, garbled radio chatter of the Combine soldiers just by looking at this. | Image: Valve The Steam Summer Sale is raging on, offering significant discounts on the Steam Deck and hundreds of PC games. While we rounded up a bunch of ... more - theverge

Mark Zuckerberg experiments with six-window Quest VR multitasking

The update brings mixed reality spatial computing to the mainstream on the Meta Quest 3. | Image: Meta Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that version 67 of Horizon OS is rolling out with an experimental feature allowing Quest owners to multitask ... more - theverge

You can pay to put a virtual house on Snapchat’s map

I can’t afford an actual house in this hellish economy, so a virtual one will have to do. | Image: Snap Snapchat Plus subscribers are getting a new feature that allows you to design your own virtual house to show off on the Snap Map. You can view your ... more - theverge

The Vision Pro will get Apple Intelligence and “Go Deeper” in-store demos

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge For all its impressive technical chops, Apple’s all-singing, all-dancing Vision Pro hasn’t set the world on fire, but it’s early yet, and the company continues throwing its weight behind the headset. It reportedly has ... more - theverge

These smart binoculars can identify thousands of stars and over a million landmarks

When connected to a smartphone, the Unistellar Envision binoculars can identify over a million landmarks on Earth and in space. | Image: Unistellar Unistellar’s new Envision binoculars bring smart functionality similar to Swarovski’s Optik AX Visio binoculars ... more - theverge

Meta tests Vision Pro-like freeform virtual screen placement for Quest headsets

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Meta is testing a feature for its Quest headsets that allows you to place windows freely, similar to the Apple Vision Pro. Multitasking with multiple windows has been part of Meta Horizon OS (formerly Meta Quest OS) ... more - theverge

This tiny tablet is a smart upgrade for AR glasses

An Android phone minus the phone plus two giant cameras. | Image: Adi Robertson / The Verge Xreal is one of the few companies trying to sell mass-market augmented reality headsets without an existing big tech empire. But its latest product isn’t a pair ... more - theverge

This prototype turns your car’s windshield into a giant AR display

A huge panel becomes an AR projector powered by data from eye tracking sensors in this prototype. | Image: Adi Robertson / The Verge Car infotainment systems are getting ever bigger, but a startup’s new prototype takes things further than even something ... more - theverge

I regret buying the PSVR 2

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge For months, I’ve been thinking about selling my PlayStation VR2. After a damning scoop, I’m finally ready to let it go. Months ago, I stashed the PSVR 2 away in a closet. I hadn’t played it for a very long time, ... more - theverge

The next next thing in AI and AR

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Meta is apparently deprioritizing VR and its Oculus business to focus on reproducing the surprising success of its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. And it makes sense — VR is out, AI is in, and Meta’s smart glasses are the absolute ... more - theverge

Snapchat AI turns prompts into new lens

Image: Snapchat Snapchat offered an early look at its upcoming on-device AI model capable of transforming a user’s surroundings with augmented reality (AR). The new model will eventually let creators turn a text prompt into a custom lens — potentially ... more - theverge

Apple’s Vision Pro team is reportedly focused on building a cheaper headset

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple may no longer be working on a new high-end Vision headset amid slowing sales of the Vision Pro, according to a new report from The Information . Instead, Apple has apparently been finding ways to reduce ... more - theverge

Xreal’s new gadget is a phone-sized Android tablet just for your AR glasses

The Xreal Beam Pro looks like a smartphone — but it’s not. | Image: Xreal Xreal has made a name for itself with some surprisingly nice-looking augmented reality glasses, which put a display in front of your eyes so you can do things like watch TV or ... more - theverge

Logitech’s first Meta Quest stylus helps artists work in 3D

The $130 Logitech MX Ink is compatible with both the Meta Quest 2 and 3, as well as “future” headsets. | Image: Logitech Today, Logitech officially announced its MX Ink stylus, the company’s first mixed reality accessory for the Meta Quest 2 and Quest ... more - theverge

Canon made a special lens for the Apple Vision Pro’s spatial videos

Apple announced at WWDC 2024 that Canon is making a funky-looking new lens for its EOS R7 camera, tailor-made for creating spatial video content for the Vision Pro headset. This comes alongside the new visionOS 2 update, which brings more emphasis on ... more - theverge

Ikea will pay 10 Roblox players to roleplay as employees in its virtual store

This could be you. | Image: Ikea Corporate publicity stunts involving virtual reality are almost always bad, but Ikea’s new Roblox store feels especially silly. The company announced last week that it plans to pay 10 people £13.15 or €14.80 per hour ... more - theverge

Meta is fixing three of the Quest 3’s biggest lingering annoyances

Photo: David Pierce The single biggest reason to buy a Meta Quest 3 over its predecessors is how it lets you bring the real world into view — but the VR headset’s still weird about your real-life hands, distorting the world around them. I always mess ... more - theverge

Palmer Luckey is now selling pixel-perfect ultrabright magnesium Game Boys for $199

The ModRetro Chromatic | Image: ModRetro Before he brought VR headsets out of the dark ages with Oculus, before he founded defense contractor Anduril, Palmer Luckey was a Nintendo Game Boy modder. It’s true. There’s photo evidence — and today, he’s revealing ... more - theverge

Sony’s PSVR 2 PC adapter launches in August

Image: Sony The PlayStation VR2’s PC adapter is now official. Just a few days after a certification revealed that Sony was working on the adapter, which would add PC support to the PS5-exclusive headset, the company officially unveiled the connector. ... more - theverge

Here are a few of our favorite deals from Sony’s latest Days of Play sale

The new PlayStation 5 “slim” is matching its all-time low of $449 ($50 off) for a limited time. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Sony’s recent State of Play showcase may have given us a brief glimpse into the company’s plans for 2024 and ... more - theverge

‘Quest 3S’ could be the name of Meta’s more affordable VR headset

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Meta appears to have confirmed the name of its next virtual reality headset: the Quest 3S. In a Quest Store listing spotted by UploadVR , Meta lists the Quest 3S as a supported device. At this time of writing, you can ... more - theverge

Magic Leap is Google’s new mystery partner for XR headsets

Image: Magic Leap Google Glass and Magic Leap were both among the biggest technology flops of the past decade — but could their underlying ideas power something worthy and new? We may find out because Google and Magic Leap now have a “multi-faceted strategic ... more - theverge

All the news from PlayStation’s summer State of Play

Image: Sony Santa Monica Studio Sony is kicking off this year’s summer gaming events with a 30-minute showcase highlighting all the games coming to PlayStation this year and beyond. Continue reading… ... more - theverge