Mark Zuckerberg Shows Off Oculus Gloves for Typing in VR

Oculus wants to one day let you fingerpaint, act like a super hero, and even type in virtual reality. Oculus already has its Touch controllers that are great for wielding virtual guns or picking up digital objects. But today Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed a new prototype for VR gloves in photos from his tour of the Redmond, Washington Oculus Research.

Zuckerberg writes, “We’re working on new ways to bring your hands in virtual and augmented reality. Wearing these gloves, you can draw, type on a virtual keyboard, and even shoot webs like Spider Man. That’s what I’m doing here.”

Plenty of other VR hardware companies have worked on haptic and trackable gloves. Dexmo recently showed off ones that look like mechanical exoskeletons that fit over your hands. Manus is building a sleeker, bike-glove style accessory, though demos last year required HTV Vive controllers to be strapped to your arms above them. Neurodigital’s Gloveone and Noitom’s Hi5 and are two other versions in development.

But with today’s news, it’s Oculus seems interested in breaking into the nascent market, or at the very least learning how to develop VR software that takes advantage of your unencumbered hands.

Credit: TechCrunch