The Oculus Core 2.0 beta brings a fresh new experience to the Rift

If you happen to be an Oculus Rift owner, then you've likely gotten used to UI at this point. Previously when putting on a Rift headset, you'd find yourself staring at a floating screen, with quick access to the store, your list of installed games/apps and your friends list. Now, the core Rift experience is changing with the new Core 2.0 beta, which completely revamps the user interface and brings in new features.

The Core 2.0 beta has two main parts, the first of which is ‘Oculus Dash' which brings ‘the power of your PC' to VR. It is designed completely around the Touch controllers to give you more intuitive interaction with the Windows desktop and various programs installed on your system. Dash forces Windows to treat each individual application as its own monitor too, so programs are no longer tied to your desktop's resolution, meaning each program can be optimized to actually look good inside of the Rift. This is something that has been missing from programs like ‘Bigscreen' and ‘Virtual Desktop'.

Oculus Home is the second key feature in the Core 2.0 update. Oculus has rebuilt ‘Home' from the ground up, giving users their own space that can be customized to their liking. For now, there is a single room in Oculus Home that you can decorate and fill with interactive objects.

Oculus Home also doubles as a social space, which isn't surprising given that Facebook owns the company. You can invite friends to hang out in your room and over time, you'll be able to add more rooms to your home.

Anyone with a Rift headset and the Touch controllers can install the Core 2.0 beta right now. To do so, you'll need to opt into the Public Test Channel on the Oculus Desktop app. You can find all of the details on that, HERE.

KitGuru Says: I'm quite excited about this update, particularly the upgrades it brings to the Windows desktop experience. Do many of you currently have a Rift set up? Have you tried the new Core 2.0 beta update at all?

 

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