After a free trial it’ll cost $150 to add on, or require a Meta One subscription.
Meta’s Muse AI agent is coming to its AI glasses
Have your virtual assistant book a flight while you’re jogging.
The purpose of the triangle symbol on your Samsung Galaxy phone
Samsung phones have a few different triangle symbols that can display in the status bar in different scenarios. This is how to tell what they mean.
RFK Jr.’s CDC isn’t letting states order COVID-19 shots for kids, blocking access
As respiratory virus season nears and fall vaccination drives get underway, more than half of US children are facing uncertainty over access to this year’s COVID-19 shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has unexpectedly delayed the distribution of the shots to a key federal program and some states.
Usually, the CDC would allow states to order the newly available seasonal COVID-19 vaccines through the federal Vaccine for Children (VFC) program, which provides vaccines at no cost to children who are uninsured, underinsured, Medicaid-eligible, or Indigenous people in the US. Approximately 52 percent of all US children are eligible for vaccines through the program.
Additionally, The Guardian reports that at least 11 states and one US territory are part of a universal vaccine purchase program, in which they buy all vaccines for children—regardless of their ability to pay or insurance status—through contracts otherwise for the VFC. The 11 states and one territory include: Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming, and American Samoa.
RFK Jr.’s CDC isn’t letting states order COVID-19 shots for kids, blocking access
As respiratory virus season nears and fall vaccination drives get underway, more than half of US children are facing uncertainty over access to this year’s COVID-19 shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has unexpectedly delayed the distribution of the shots to a key federal program and some states.
Usually, the CDC would allow states to order the newly available seasonal COVID-19 vaccines through the federal Vaccine for Children (VFC) program, which provides vaccines at no cost to children who are uninsured, underinsured, Medicaid-eligible, or Indigenous people in the US. Approximately 52 percent of all US children are eligible for vaccines through the program.
Additionally, The Guardian reports that at least 11 states and one US territory are part of a universal vaccine purchase program, in which they buy all vaccines for children—regardless of their ability to pay or insurance status—through contracts otherwise for the VFC. The 11 states and one territory include: Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming, and American Samoa.
Meta VR Glasses Hands-on: What Apple Vision Pro Probably Should Have Been
Meta has finally unveiled its next-gen mixed reality headset, Meta VR Glasses. While they could technically fit somewhere in its Quest lineup, Meta seems to be making a concerted effort to bridge the gap between its experimental augmented reality projects, like Orion, and its much bulkier Quest gaming platform.
Previously known as ‘Project Phoenix’, Meta VR Glasses are a compute puck-tethered device which are going on sale sometime in Spring 2027, priced at $1,300. You can check out the full specs and launch details here.
I got a hands-on preview of VR Glasses at Meta’s big annual Connect developer conference, giving me a chance to get to grips with the new gaze and hand gesture-based UI, get an early feel for ergonomics, and experience the most pixel-dense display Meta has ever sold.
Meta VR Glasses Visual Experience
After a long stint of LCDs from Meta, we’re finally getting proper micro-OLED panels. You’ll find the full specs here—but it bears mentioning that VR Glasses are visually impressive: 5.5MP (2,412 x 2,288) per-eye resolution at 37 pixels per degree (PPD), with a refresh rate up to 120Hz.
That class-leading pixel density comes at a tradeoff though: its 70-degree horizontal field-of-view (FOV) is noticeably smaller than Quest 3’s 110-degree FOV, which some may find frustrating on the face of things.
The display’s black are predictably deep, there’s no noticeable OLED smearing, and panels are sufficiently bright—maybe not as bright as I would have hoped, although I suspect that had more to do with the fact that I didn’t try it with the optional light blocker accessory Meta will ship when VR Glasses go on sale next year. Ambient reflections and lighting stole a little bit of the perceived brightness.
The color passthrough view on VR Glasses is the best I’ve seen on a standalone VR headset, as I saw no noticeable stitch lines, no appreciable latency, good color reproduction, acceptable brightness, and seemingly zero weird bendiness of the environment or near-field objects which is somewhat common of Quest headsets.
It’s really approaching the threshold of ‘passthrough as a genuine reproduction of the environment’. Combined with its sharp and much brighter displays, I’d consider Meta VR glasses streets ahead of the cadre of AR devices with birdbath optics that seek to achieve the same end with optical passthrough: using your world as a backdrop for content.
The impressively compact pancake optics of VR Glasses are also very clear, although the sweet spot isn’t as large as Quest 3, requiring you to find a good fit with the array of supplied nose pads and choose the actual Meta VR Glasses size that’s right for your head (between a ‘Standard’ and ‘Large’ variant of the device). No data yet on what that means substantively in real-world measurements. More on that below. IPD is easily adjustable by physically moving the lenses inwards or outwards independently, supporting 56-70 mm IPD in addition to prescription add-ons.
That makes VR Glasses the first Meta headset to support asymmetric IPD adjustment, though asymmetric adjustment can be difficult to calibrate correctly, compared to using an IPD dial on the outside of the headset.
Performance
That pocketable compute puck, which needs to breathe through a mesh grill at the top for active cooling, packs in a battery rated for up to three hours, powering a Qualcomm Snapdragon Reality Elite processor (XR2 Gen 3), which is up to 11% higher max GPU frequency vs Quest 3’s Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2.
When they offered me to play Beat Saber, I thought “ah ha, my perfect apples-to-apples comparison,” but alas, it was actually a new hand-tracked mode coming to the game called ‘Flux’. This mode completely reimagines the gameplay, making it all about punching and garrote-wiring flying bars in half with an energy beam connected to both hands (as opposed to slashing blocks).
VR Glasses won’t come with controllers in the box, but it is compatible with the same Touch Plus controllers that Quest 3 and 3S use today. With them, the headset can play all existing content from the Horizon store, including the traditional block-slashing Beat Saber mode.
Back to performance: there was one graphically demanding scene that showed off the new chipset likely working at full bore; select film content will include an immersive theater of sorts, which are actually fully rendered bespoke environments that change according to what’s happening in the film.
I was watching a clip from Avengers: Infinity War, as Peter Dinklage’s character is forging the all-mighty Stormbreaker axe. It’s admittedly a cool gimmick, because I don’t expect all films to get this sort of treatment, but I was watching Dinklage forge from inside his forge. Star power blasting away, steam rising from grates, particles flying everywhere in a fully-rendered environment as the film kept up at what I suspect was probably somewhere south of 4K native playback.
Comfort & Audio
A half-hour demo is a poor basis for understanding long-term comfort for any device, even for a 100g headset that does its level best to be the all-day productivity headset… er… glasses. In Meta’s own words: “the weight is over.”
That said, I tried on both the small and large versions, notably two different SKUs, and found the large to be very comfortable. Initially, I started with the small, but it clamped too hard on the sides of my head, and kept slipping from my nose as a result. Both small and large are shipping with multiple nose pads, although I’m hoping Meta shores up their messaging on actual sizing before launch, since I would be pretty miffed if I bought the small and I had no reasonable way of finding out before buying.
Another thing I didn’t count on was the real value add of the downward-facing sensors. Sitting down, I could put my hands in my lap and do all of the UI gestures without having to Wingardium Leviosa in front of my face constantly. That includes looking to highlight, pinching to select, and swiping your index finger with your thumb to scroll, all of which just felt right.
Eye-tracking appears to only be for UI stuff for now, although I’m betting we’ll hear more about what sort of streaming and rendering tech has gone into the compute puck, and how eye-tracking informs that.
Audio is the same (or maybe even slightly better) experience you’ll have with Meta Ray-Ban Display, which include off-ear speakers that comes with the usual trade-offs. Less bass, acceptable mids and treble, and the usual audio bleed. If I were on a plane (where this thing wants to be) I would most definitely opt for headphones and the optional light blocker, which clips in for a more immersive (and less light bleed-y) experience.
Value Proposition
Meta seems to be forging a new path with VR Glasses. While they could conceptually fit somewhere in its Quest lineup, they appear to represent a more concerted effort by Meta to bridge the chasm between its Display glasses, experimental augmented reality projects, like Orion, and its much bulkier Quest gaming platform.
Meta VR Glasses are an interesting mid point between the still elusive all-day AR glasses of the near future, and the much heavier, and less compact VR headsets of today. It’s attempting to bridge that gap by being slim and light (~100g on-head weight), and by offering some of the best color passthrough I’ve seen on VR device yet.
In the end, it feels like Meta purposefully reframed the device by not calling it something like, I don’t know, ‘Quest Air’.
And at $1,300, the appeal is pretty clear: Meta wants prosumers and productivity-minded people to look at VR Glasses not only as a jack of all trades, but one that doesn’t take up half of your carry-on, or weigh too terribly heavy on your head like its main competitors, Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR.
Disclosure: Meta provided lodging for one Road to VR reporter to attend Meta Connect 2026 where information for this article was gathered.
The post Meta VR Glasses Hands-on: What Apple Vision Pro Probably Should Have Been appeared first on Road to VR.
Meta Announces ‘VR Glasses’ Next-Gen XR Headset, Priced at $1,300
Meta today unveiled its long-awaited next-gen mixed reality headset: Meta VR Glasses.
Previously known under the codename ‘Project Phoenix’, Meta VR Glasses was announced today, but isn’t launching just yet; the compute puck-tethered device is slated to go one sale sometime in Spring 2027, priced at $1,300.
While we’re still waiting on a precise release date, Meta did reveal an avalanche of details on the hardware alongside a slate of new immersive and casual viewing content coming to the headset. You can catch Road to VR’s hands-on with Meta VR Glasses here.
Meta VR Glasses – Hardware
Meta VR Glasses feature what the company is calling its ‘5K Infinite Display’, which uses micro-OLED panels, offering a 5.5MP (2,412 x 2,288) per-eye resolution at 37 pixels per degree (PPD)—notably higher than Quest 3’s 25 PPD.
In fact, despite being significant lower resolution than Vison Pro’s 11.7MP per-eye resolution, Meta says VR Glasses has a higher PPD (34 vs 37) because VR Glasses spreads its pixels over a tighter field-of-view of about 88° diagonally (H70° × V66°).
That’s not the only thing that’s smaller. Meta VR Glasses weigh about 100g on the head, as the battery and compute have been moved to a separate puck connected to a proprietary port via an optical cable.
Inside that pocketable puck (~300g) is Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Reality Elite processor (XR2 Gen 3) and a battery with a claimed 3+ hours of mixed use. The puck can also be used charged while in use, when plugged into its included 45W USB-C power supply.
Lenses can be manually adjusted for a interpupillary distance (IPD) range between 56–70mm, and can also be fit with prescription inserts from Meta partner Zenni Optical.
As for sensors, VR Glasses comes with a wide array: eye-tracking cameras for UI selection and biometric unlock, front and downward-facing camera sensors for a wider hand-tracking range, and full color passthrough sensors offering 26 PPD. It of course also does the same capable 6DOF spatial tracking pioneered in the company’s Quest lineup.
Like its Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, Meta VR Glasses support a mix of gaze and hand gestures: look to highlight a button, pinch your fingers together to select, rub your thumb up or down, or side to side to scroll through content.
While that mix of eye and hand-tracking is its main input scheme (i.e., not shipping with physical controllers), Meta VR Glasses do support Quest’s Touch Plus controllers, which the company says you can either buy separately or actually use from your existing Meta Quest 3 or 3S.
Meta is also baking in Surface Keyboard—released earlier this year on Quest—to turn any flat surface into a keyboard and trackpad, which comes in addition to being able to pair Bluetooth peripherals like keyboards, gamepads, and more.
Meta VR Glasses are being offered in two sizes (for different head sizes), Standard and Large, which are notably two separate SKUs. Only one storage option has been announced thus far: 128GB internal storage with the option to expand up to 1TB via the puck’s microSD card slot.
When they do launch next spring, Meta VR Glasses are targeting broad international availability, with supported regions including: US, UK, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Poland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand.
Meta VR Glasses Specs
| VR Glasses Sizing | Small, Large |
| Display Type | 5K Infinite Display using micro-OLED panels |
| Resolution | 5.5MP (2,412 x 2,288) |
| Pixel Density | 37 PPD |
| Refresh Rate | Up to 120Hz |
| Lens Type | Pancake lenses with integrated eye tracking |
| Field-of-view | H70° × V66° (D88°) |
| IPD Range | 56–70mm (independently adjustable) |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon Reality Elite processor (XR2 Gen 3) |
| RAM | 12GB |
| Internal Storage | 128GB |
| Expandable Storage | microSD card slot (up to 1TB) |
| microSD Card | Not included with device |
| VR Glasses Weight | ~100g |
| Compute Puck Weight | 300g |
| Connection | Connected via optical tether |
| Media Playback | Up to 3 hours per charge |
| Power Supply | 45W USB-C power supply included |
| Charging | Fast charging (can charge during use) |
| USB-C Cable | USB 3.2 Gen 2 cable |
| DisplayPort Alt Mode | Full DP Alt Mode support |
| Video Streaming | Video streaming to Meta VR Glasses from DP USB video sources |
| Eye Tracking | 4 cameras, 2 per eye |
| Hand Gestures | Index tap, thumb swipe |
| Voice Control | Meta AI |
| Motion Controller Support | Touch Plus support |
| Wi-Fi | gen TBD |
| Bluetooth | gen TBD |
| Bluetooth peripheral support | keyboards, gamepads, etc |
| Virtual Display | Mac or PC |
| Phone Mirroring | Yes |
| Positional Tracking | 6DoF |
| Passthrough Cameras | 26 PPD RGB |
| Autofocus | Yes |
| Depth Sensing | Yes |
| Biometric Authentication | Iris detection |
Meta VR Glasses – Software & Games
Meta VR Glasses run the same OS and store as Quest, so the entire Quest catalog of VR games and apps are there.
At least in terms of gaming without Touch controllers, Meta has promised 75+ games and apps optimized for hand gesture input, with its headliners including a modified version of Beat Saber for hand-tracking, 3D puzzle game Dragon Grove, courtroom sim Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Dual Destinies, and a modified version of Tetris Effect for hand-tracking.
Meta says all of your usual streaming apps will be there at launch: Disney+ and Peacock, both with 3D, plus HBO, YouTube, Prime Video and more. Other streaming services can also be accessed via the built-in browser.
Meta VR Glasses is also technically an ‘IMAX Enhanced’ certified VR device supporting Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos immersive spatial audio, which means you’ll be able to watch select films in IMAX’s exclusive expanded aspect ratio.
Outside of casual gaming, video, and 180-degree immersive sports content, which you also find on Quest, Meta is leaning particularly hard into productivity.
The device supports wireless multi-screen virtual desktop streaming from Mac, PC or phone, opening it up to be more of a general computing device. Native DisplayPort-In also allows you to directly wire into laptops, consoles and handhelds.
Disclosure: Meta provided lodging for one Road to VR reporter to attend Meta Connect 2026 where information for this article was gathered.
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I Tried Siri AI on My New Apple Watch, and I’m Frustrated
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One of the big features Apple announced alongside the new Apple Watches is Siri AI—now available on your wrist! You need to join a waitlist to try Apple’s new and improved chatbot, and since my turn just came up, I put the new on-wrist Siri through its paces. Here’s how it went, and why I don’t think the experience lives up to Apple’s promises (yet, anyway).
What devices have Siri AI?
Since Siri AI requires Apple Intelligence, you’ll need a device that supports it. Those include iPhones 15 Pro and newer, and an Apple Watch that is Series 9 or newer. If you want to use Siri AI on the Apple Watch, you need both a supported watch and a supported phone—a new watch and old phone won’t do the trick. With my phone and watch both on iOS 27 (the iOS 27.2 developer beta on the phone; watchOS 27.0 on the Apple Watch Series 12), I enabled Siri AI in my phone’s Settings app, which put me on a waiting list. A few days later, I got a notification that I was in.
Siri AI on the Apple Watch is occasionally useful, but mostly disappointing
Once I’d upgraded to Siri AI on my watch, I went about asking it plenty of questions and watched it struggle to answer many of them. The first thing I tried was to ask where I could find the nearest yoga studio; it responded with a list of yoga studios, none of them particularly close to my home. After rewording my question a few times, it finally listed one about a mile away. This is one of those examples where using AI is less efficient than a Google search—or even plain old regular Siri: When I asked this same question of the old Siri model last week, it quickly found the closest studio.
With my phone in another room, I next decided to try some of the questions that Apple provides as examples on the WatchOS 27 page. Here’s how that went.
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“What’s a good warm-up for deadlifts?” Siri gave me paragraphs of text about the purpose of warmups in general. When I tapped “Show More,” I was sent to the bottom of a long bulleted list of exercises. I’m not reading all that.
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“Read my upcoming events.” Siri needed a good five seconds to think about this one, but then correctly rattled off my next few calendar appointments.
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“Set a new move ring goal.” Actually, I first started by asking what my Move ring goal was, and Siri could not tell me. So I blindly set a new goal, and later saw it updated to the new value in the Fitness app…sort of. When I asked for a goal of burning 350 calories, it gave me a goal of 350. When I asked for a goal of 325, Siri responded that it has changed my goal to 325, but when I checked the Fitness app, it showed that my goal had been set to 320 calories.
Siri AI sometimes performed well on the Apple Watch, but seemed to do better on my iPhone
I then put Siri AI to the test with a few requests that other Apple Watch users have reported give the chatbot some trouble. The first involved setting a timer; perhaps that function is buggy for some users, but it worked quickly for me. “Siri, set a timer for five minutes” did exactly that, with only a few seconds of waiting. Likewise, “Siri, what’s the weather for today?” brought up the weather forecast instantly.
One of the purported new features of Siri AI is its ability to search your emails and messages for information that is relavent to a conversation you’re having with it. On the Apple Watch, this doesn’t work for me as well as I would like. First, I asked Siri what my daughter had recently asked me to buy for her. (She is constantly texting me to ask for things.) Siri responded that my daughter had sent me a wish list of LEGO sets on Sept. 12. This is true. But it wasn’t until I specified, “wasn’t there a makeup kit?” that Siri was also able to find that request, which was from Sept. 13.
Meanwhile, the iPhone version of Siri AI was able to find the wishlist and makeup kit requests and tell me about them in the same initial response, without the additional prompting. In another test of its search capabilities, I asked who I had sent “Ramona’s dad’s phone number” to. The Watch version of Siri AI found that text message, but was only able to tell me the phone number of the person I had sent it to. Siri AI on the phone, on the other hand, was able to figure out that the person requesting the number had introduced themselves by name earlier in that conversation, and it told me exactly who that person was (even though I had not entered the name into my contacts).
Where Siri AI struggles on the Apple Watch
Still, plenty of requests don’t work even that well, or don’t work at all. The watch’s Siri app routinely crashes, taking me back to the home screen. Sometimes Siri’s voice breaks up, and it interrupts itself to start its message over again. Good save, but weird to listen to. Sometimes Siri “thinks” for a long time. Many requests take five to 10 seconds, during which time I certainly could grab my phone and look up the answer myself. Whenever Siri is stumped, it searches the web and gives me a sea of unhelpful text.
For example, I tried to see if Siri could explain a mysterious icon on my watch screen. I asked, “Why is this icon gray?” (in a variety of phrasings to clarify I meant one that I was looking at right now). Instead of telling me anything useful, or explaining that it can’t see my watch screen, it read me some text from the Internet about what gray icons mean, in general, as a concept. Another time, I asked it to resume playing my podcast. Instead of starting up my usual podcast app, it told me that Episode 550 of My Favorite Murder had just come out. I don’t like murder podcasts, have never listened to My Favorite Murder in my life, and episode 550 was—now that I check—the third-most-recent episode, not the one that just came out. (The iPhone’s version of Siri AI, on the other hand, happily started my podcast app.)
At least one thing worked better on the watch: Both versions of Siri AI said they had no information on my sleep data, but the version on the watch was at least able to tell me what time I had gone to bed and what time I had woken up. That’s something.
The promised Conversations app likewise did not work as expected. When you press the digital crown on the watch, a mini app picker pops up with Siri in the center, surrounded by a few of your most recent apps. If you scroll down, you get the full list (or grid) as before. Tapping that center button is supposed to show you a list of recent conversations, but mine kept showing me “No conversations.” Later, exactly one conversation showed up there: the one where I asked what a gray icon meant. That was the only question in that conversation, even though I had been conversing with Siri all day.
Still a work in progress
I like the idea of the new Siri AI, and being able to ask follow-up questions is nice, especially now that I can interrupt the chatbot to clarify my questions. (“Give me two specific warm-up exercises I can do before snatches” got it to stop lecturing me about warm-ups in general.) But the long waits for answers, the frequent crashes, and the bot’s inability to access data that is right there on the device are frustrating. Here’s hoping it gets better with the next update.
Meta Ray-Ban Display is Finally Rolling Out Internationally Starting Today
Meta Ray-Ban Display has been a US-only device since launch last year, but now the company announced at Connect 2026 that it’s coming to international markets starting today.
Meta Ray-Ban Display is a pair of $800 smart glasses that comes with a single waveguide display in the right eye and an EMG-powered ‘Neural’ wristband for some pretty amazing (and lowkey) UI control.
It’s only ever been available in the US, and only direct from brick-and-mortar retailers, as the company pushed users to go through a physical fitting process to determine which size-based SKU is right for your individual head.
Now, Meta says its finally expanding outside of the US for the first time, coming to Canada, the UK, France, Italy and Germany. Also for the first time, you’ll actually be able to buy online too.
Online ordering is coming to the US, Canada and the UK today, which start at £749 and CA$1,149, respectively. Meta is also launching online pre-orders today in France, Italy, and Germany, starting at €899, ahead of availability on October 13th. You can find out how to order on meta.com.
Prescription lenses will also be available through meta.com in the US and Canada, with select retail locations in the UK, France, and Italy supporting prescription add-ons.
What’s more, Meta says it’s expanding navigation and transit maps for Ray-Ban Display in addition to expanding dev support so users can try experiences developed by the community. There’s no specific timing on when that’s supposed to come.
Among the biggest updates though is its Hologram calling function, which uses a short self capture in the Meta AI mobile app to create a photorealistic digital avatar so you can do face-to-digital-face calls from Meta Ray-Ban Display.
Because Ray-Ban Display doesn’t include eye or facial tracking of any sort, Holograms are driven entirely by your voice, as Meta says the hologram model infers your expression from what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. Hologram are slated to start rolling out in Early Access on WhatsApp to Meta Ray-Ban Display users in the US later this fall. Check out our hands-on with Hologram avatars here.
The post Meta Ray-Ban Display is Finally Rolling Out Internationally Starting Today appeared first on Road to VR.
‘Beat Saber’ is Getting a Big Hand-tracking Update Next Year, Subbing Blocks for Orbs & Rods
Today at Meta’s annual Connect developer conference the company unveiled its next-gen mixed reality headset: Meta VR Glasses. Coming alongside it early next year is an update to everyone’s favorite block-slashing rhythm game that flips the script for hand-tracking-centric input.
Beat Saber (2019) is getting an update in Spring 2027 on Meta VR Glasses and Meta Quest that finally brings hands-tracking to the game, albeit in an slightly unexpected way.
Called ‘Flux’, the update essentially reimagines the block-slashing action in a new single-player experience that uses your hands as weapons.
Check in out in action in the video below:
I had an opportunity to go hands-on with Flux in my demo with Meta VR Glasses, letting me play a single song.
Instead of slicking with, well sabers, you wield what Meta calls ‘Flux Powers’, electricity-imbued moves like the ‘Flux Tether’, which channels power between your palms to slice through rod-style notes in time with the beat of its regular slate of pulse-pounding tracks.
You also get punch through note, colored blue, red, or a light purple, the latter of which indicates you need to put both hands together. Destroying notes builds Jolt energy, which essentially gives you an extra score boost. As an OG Beat Saber fan, I immediately clicked into the new control scheme, handily scoring an ‘S’ class on what was probably the easiest setting.
Notably, Flux will also support Touch controllers too when it arrives early next year on Meta VR Glasses and Quest, coming along with 35 songs from the Original Soundtracks, Extras, and Anniversary packs, including tracks from Lindsey Sterling, Teminite, DragonForce, Haywyre, Camellia, Boom Kitty, Jaroslav Beck and Zakka G. Meta says more Flux songs are planned post-launch.
When it arrives, ostensibly alongside Meta VR Glasses next year, there’s also set to be what the company is calling an “enhanced Campaign mode,” which is set to include a “light narrative element” into the experience. The update is also coming with new barriers, missions, in-game rewards, and a new menu system that’s said to more quickly get you into game modes and new content.
Disclosure: Meta provided lodging for one Road to VR reporter to attend Meta Connect 2026 where information for this article was gathered.
The post ‘Beat Saber’ is Getting a Big Hand-tracking Update Next Year, Subbing Blocks for Orbs & Rods appeared first on Road to VR.
FBI rushes to investigate if ShinyHunters hack of thousands of employees is real
The FBI is now investigating claims from a hacker group that thousands of current and former employees’ personal data was stolen after the group exploited a previously unknown bug found on an agency jobs website.
On Tuesday, 404 Media reported that ShinyHunters took down the agency site, FBIJobs.gov, then posted a banner on the homepage that said “THIS SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED BY SHINYHUNTERS.”
About two to three terabytes of data were taken, ShinyHunters told The New York Times. None of the data has been leaked yet, but it included “names of current and former agents as well as applicants and corresponding home addresses, phone numbers, names of spouses, certain medical information, and other data.” According to Bloomberg, the data could be used to potentially retaliate against agents, with one sample appearing to include “potentially sensitive professional information on the FBI employees’ work focus such as counter-intelligence work on China, Russia and Iran, as well as work against street gangs.”
FBI rushes to investigate if ShinyHunters hack of thousands of employees is real
The FBI is now investigating claims from a hacker group that thousands of current and former employees’ personal data was stolen after the group exploited a previously unknown bug found on an agency jobs website.
On Tuesday, 404 Media reported that ShinyHunters took down the agency site, FBIJobs.gov, then posted a banner on the homepage that said “THIS SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED BY SHINYHUNTERS.”
About two to three terabytes of data were taken, ShinyHunters told The New York Times. None of the data has been leaked yet, but it included “names of current and former agents as well as applicants and corresponding home addresses, phone numbers, names of spouses, certain medical information, and other data.” According to Bloomberg, the data could be used to potentially retaliate against agents, with one sample appearing to include “potentially sensitive professional information on the FBI employees’ work focus such as counter-intelligence work on China, Russia and Iran, as well as work against street gangs.”
How Garmin’s New ‘Epic’ Feature Helps Me See the Bigger Picture of My Training
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Garmin’s new logging feature, Garmin Epic, is getting buried in the launch of the latest Fenix 9 watch, but it deserves a headline of its own. It’s a shareable digital travel journal for your big trip, being pitched by Garmin as the kind of thing you post after a major hike or race. Personally, I think that framing undersells it. Epic is also a great training-analysis hack, and that’s how I plan on using it for my upcoming marathon this fall.
First things first: Garmin Epics are not to be confused with Garmin’s older watch line, epix, with an “x”. This feature is Epic, with a “c”. The names are close enough that searching for one turns up the other, so double-check the spelling.
What is a Garmin Epic?
A Garmin Epic is a digital travel journal that combines your activities, maps, photos, and key health and performance metrics into a single interactive timeline you can revisit and share. With the Fenix 9 smartwatch, you can create and start an Epic directly from your watch. For older watches, you can still create Epics in the Garmin Connect app.
Once you create an Epic, you can see all activities on one map, photos, an activity feed, daily notes, and selected performance and health reports across the whole span. It’s a free Garmin Connect feature, and Garmin’s launch demo showed a Reports tab with sleep score, resting heart rate, and HRV status for the same dates.
Credit: Meredith Dietz
How to use Garmin Epic as a training tool
Again, although the launch of Garmin Epic is wrapped up in the launch of the Fenix 9, you don’t need that smartwatch to use Epics in the Connect app: You can find it under the Activities menu. You can also group past activities into an Epic after the fact, and that ability is what makes the training-hack angle work.
An Epic can run up to 92 days and keeps cumulative distance and calories along with sleep, recovery, and HRV status. That’s about 13 weeks, which conveniently covers a typical training block for a half-marathon-level event. Here are some ways to use it:
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Wrap a whole training block. Make one Epic per build, such as “Fall Marathon Build” or “Base Phase.” You get total volume and the recovery trend in a single view, and you can compare it against your next block.
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Review a training camp or big week. Garmin lists training camps as a use case: Group the days, see total volume, and check how fitness and recovery responded over time.
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Look back at a build after the race. Backdate an Epic across the last 10 weeks and see whether your HRV status and sleep held up. Then you can decide what to repeat for next time.
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Track a return from injury or a taper. Sometimes these are periods where the trend matters more than any single run.
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Use daily notes as a subjective log. “Legs heavy,” “slept badly,” “felt great.” The metrics show what your body did, but your notes show how it felt, which is usually what explains a strange week.
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Plan ahead. You can schedule up to five future Epics, up to 366 days in advance. Set up your next block before it starts.
Garmin Epic wasn’t designed to be a comprehensive training-analysis feature, so it’s not a flawless system. Still, while Epic is marketed as the place to relive your adventures, I’d argue the more useful trick is using it to zoom out and look for patterns in your training for next time.
Disney+ and Hulu raise prices by up to 13 percent after doubling profits
Disney+ got its fourth price hike in four years today. Hulu prices also went up.
Disney+ and Hulu’s respective standalone, ad-free plans (which also support 4K and HDR) are each increasing 13 percent from $19 per month to $21.50/month.
Disney+ and Hulu’s respective standalone plans with ads increased from $12 to $12.50.
Disney+ and Hulu raise prices by up to 13 percent after doubling profits
Disney+ got its fourth price hike in four years today. Hulu prices also went up.
Disney+ and Hulu’s respective standalone, ad-free plans (which also support 4K and HDR) are each increasing 13 percent from $19 per month to $21.50/month.
Disney+ and Hulu’s respective standalone plans with ads increased from $12 to $12.50.
ShinyHunters hackers claim to have 2-3TB of sensitive information about FBI employees
Financial extortion doesn’t seem to be the group’s goal this time.
The First Ace Combat Game In Seven Years Is Playing For Keeps
The franchise’s ambitions are bigger than ever in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve
Here’s the Torcal, the first fully electric Bentley
A few weeks ago, Bentley gave Ars a ride in a new camouflaged electric vehicle. Named after a Spanish rock formation, the Torcal is the brand’s first battery EV, and today the production car had its formal unveiling. That camo was effective: The real car is less bulbous and more blocky than its disguise would suggest. And it’s fair to say it brings some of the ideas of the EXP 15 concept to the road—even if that didn’t include that show car’s elegant, stretched proportions. It’s smaller than the Bentayga, and it should slot beneath that model in pricing (or the PHEV version of it, at least), though Bentley has yet to reveal exactly how much US buyers can expect to pay.
Underneath the bodywork are some relatively familiar underpinnings; Bentley shares technology with Porsche as both are part of the greater Volkswagen Group empire. The power output might not be as prodigious as the electric Porsche Cayenne but should be sufficient nonetheless. The standard car will offer peak outputs of 810 hp (604 kW) and 880 lb-ft (1,194 Nm), enough for a 3.3-second 0–60 mph time (0–100 km/h takes 3.4 seconds).
The EXP 15’s influence is stronger at the rear.
Credit:
Bentley
The more powerful Torcal S boasts 875 hp (653 kW) and 995 lb-ft (1,350 Nm) at its most potent; this is capable of 60 mph from a standing start in a mere 2.8 seconds (2.9 to 100 km/h) and an increased top speed of 162 mph (260 km/h), up from 155 mph (250 km/h) for the standard version, either of which are academic outside certain stretches of German highway.
Here’s the Torcal, the first fully electric Bentley
A few weeks ago, Bentley gave Ars a ride in a new camouflaged electric vehicle. Named after a Spanish rock formation, the Torcal is the brand’s first battery EV, and today the production car had its formal unveiling. That camo was effective: The real car is less bulbous and more blocky than its disguise would suggest. And it’s fair to say it brings some of the ideas of the EXP 15 concept to the road—even if that didn’t include that show car’s elegant, stretched proportions. It’s smaller than the Bentayga, and it should slot beneath that model in pricing (or the PHEV version of it, at least), though Bentley has yet to reveal exactly how much US buyers can expect to pay.
Underneath the bodywork are some relatively familiar underpinnings; Bentley shares technology with Porsche as both are part of the greater Volkswagen Group empire. The power output might not be as prodigious as the electric Porsche Cayenne but should be sufficient nonetheless. The standard car will offer peak outputs of 810 hp (604 kW) and 880 lb-ft (1,194 Nm), enough for a 3.3-second 0–60 mph time (0–100 km/h takes 3.4 seconds).
The EXP 15’s influence is stronger at the rear.
Credit:
Bentley
The more powerful Torcal S boasts 875 hp (653 kW) and 995 lb-ft (1,350 Nm) at its most potent; this is capable of 60 mph from a standing start in a mere 2.8 seconds (2.9 to 100 km/h) and an increased top speed of 162 mph (260 km/h), up from 155 mph (250 km/h) for the standard version, either of which are academic outside certain stretches of German highway.
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 Launches On Quest 3 In November
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 launches on November 12 for Quest 3 with pre-orders now open at a ten percent discount. The PC VR version will follow in the second half of 2027.
Developer Anton Hand made the announcement in a new video on his YouTube channel with an updated trailer:
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We first heard about Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 (H3VR2), the sequel to the award-winning VR sandbox FPS, during the Creature Feature & Friends Showcase in May, with plans for a PC VR and Quest 3 launch. Per Hand’s video, the Quest version drops this November and the Steam version will follow in the second half of 2027 with enhanced graphics, ‘comprehensive’ hardware and a dedicated framework for modding. Rust Ltd. will be assembling a testing team from its community to ensure all PC VR-compatible devices are properly verified.
H3VR2 expands on its predecessor with multiple gameplay modes to be more accessible to a wider variety of players. Its primary mode, ‘Facility’, is an extraction-style campaign where you battle enemies and loot resources in a procedurally generated megastructure. Hand said the game will run as a “pseudo-live service” with biomes planned to be added at a rate of two new ones per year. New game modes, sandbox packs, and licensed content will be sold as paid DLC.
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 can be pre-ordered now for Quest 3 at a 10% discount. The Steam version can be wishlisted now ahead of its 2027 launch.