There's more to virtual reality than games and legs.
The deafness community is using virtual reality headsets to use sign language.
Those who grew up with sign language as their first language, those who developed hearing problems later in life, and anyone else who speaks using gestures in virtual worlds are all possibilities for the technology.
Users can use Meta's hand tracking to recreate sign language in a realistic way. A new layer of accessibility allowing users to use sign language inside the app was added by using that tech.
Jenny showed off the feature in a video
Jenny is part of Helping Hands, a community of 5000 volunteers who teach others how to use virtual reality to stay in touch with their friends and family.
The Quest 2's hand tracking is a big upgrade over Valve's index virtual reality headset which previously forced users to come up with alternatives to common sign language signs. Jenny demonstrated in the video that people used to have to turn their entire wrists around to mimic the crossing of two fingers.
The Quest 2 uses a suite of cameras, not sensors, to keep track of finger movements.
She said that it might look a little bit more fluid and flowy. "That's because it's cameras just looking at my real hands instead of a controller guessing and filling in the blanks."
After so many years of all of the controllers' movements being quite rigid, it was a little strange to experience it.
There are a lot of limitations to the technology. Users can't touch their virtual hands to their bodies because they have to sign a lot of words.
It's a step forward, however, demonstrating that there are plenty of other use cases for virtual reality outside of boring meetings.
Jenny said in the video that one of the most important advantages of virtual reality is its ability to connect with anyone around the globe. It's especially important for people with deafness, because they are more likely to be isolated.
The founder of a virtual reality company was bought by Facebook.
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