Quest Developers Can Now Release Apps Utilizing Headset Cameras for World Scanning

You know, I’ve been thinking about this whole Meta Quest thing. It’s kinda wild, right? I mean, for ages, these headsets did their thing, keeping track of everything around with cameras, but the developers? Nah, they were like, “Please sir, can I have some more?” access to the cameras. And this year, boom, Meta finally decided to throw them a bone, like a secret club finally letting you peek at their treasure. Fascinating stuff.

So, just the other day, Meta rolled out an update that lets developers take these apps and slap ’em right up on the Horizon store. So now, anyone can have apps that eyeball the world through the Quest 3 and 3S cameras. Weird to think, but imagine apps now scoping out everything around you, figuring stuff out. Like, what even? Maybe the apps can track your cat as it sits on your head or something. Possibilities are endless and mad, you know?

For the longest time, Meta played it close to the vest, not letting anyone monkey around with hardware too much. Although, phones have been letting us do this sort of thing forever. Privacy must have been a big flashing red light for Meta, given their history. Yeah, their track record isn’t exactly squeaky clean.

Anyhow, before all this, apps got to know the familiar dance floor—room shapes, things lying around. But it was all behind a curtain, you know? Like getting a spoon of soup without seeing the pot. It made mixed reality apps somewhat savvy about space, but not like, “Hey, I see you holding that pen,” kind of savvy.

Last year, Meta finally—like finally-finally—teased the world with news that maybe, just maybe, developers could get direct camera access. In March, they let developers play around behind closed doors, no public peeks allowed. But now, doors wide open. Go forth and create, or whatever.

They also gave some nerdy numbers about how these cameras perform on Quest 3 and 3S. Stuff like image latency, GPU stars and stripes, memory this and that. Oh, and something about data rates and resolution. It probably matters to someone, just not me.

Meta’s got rules though—big ones—under their Developer Data Use Policy. It’s like a digital Ten Commandments or something. Watch how you use that camera data or feel Meta’s wrath. No peeping Tom activities, and definitely don’t turn the headset into some surveillance super sleuth. Keep it chill, basically.

And that’s the scoop. Or at least my scoop. Who even knows what’s next in tech these days?