Oculus Quest will get hand-tracking, Oculus Link to play Rift PC games

Just before the annual VR/AR conference Oculus Connect 6, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a teaser video hinting at a software-based hand and finger recognition system. Today, the company revealed that the feature will indeed come to Oculus Quest in a software update next year, following another major development: Oculus Link, a hardware/software solution that will enable the Quest to display Rift games from a PC.

Hand-tracking uses sophisticated AI to help a computer (such as a VR or AR system) recognize the shapes of hands and individual fingers, interpreting gestures as input commands. A wave of the hand left or right may switch pages; pointing at an object might select it; grasping the object could allow you to manipulate it in 3D space. Microsoft’s HoloLens has used a similar system for input since its release, rather than requiring hand-held controllers.