Facebook mocks privacy concerns with messages hidden in Oculus controllers
- by Pat Wise
- in Hi-Tech
- — Apr 14, 2019
Facebook accidentally shipped "tens of thousands" of virtual reality (VR) controllers with freaky hidden messages, including "Big Brother is Watching" and "The Masons Were Here".
"This Space For Rent" and "The Masons Were Here" were printed on the innards of the controllers" final production hardware. Worse yet, "a few dev kits" shipped with the messages: "Big Brother is Watching" and "Hi iFixit!"
" - a reference to a company known for dismantling tech products online - to "This Space For Rent".
These "easter eggs" were only meant to be on prototypes for the company's upcoming Quest and Rift S controllers, yet somehow found their way into consumer devices. Mitchell apologized for the Easter Eggs inside the hardware and says the fact that they made it into production hardware is "inappropriate". Mitchell confirmed via Twitter that this was meant to be a joke included only in the prototypes. [3/3] - Nate Mitchell (@natemitchell) April 12, 2019 To be clear, most Oculus users who have a device that includes any of these hidden messages will never actually see them. Supposedly, these won't appear in any consumer devices.
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The messages can be found on the "flex", an internal component of the controllers. The controllers haven't yet made it to customers, as they are for the new Oculus Quest and Rift S VR headsets. "That said, as mentioned in Nate's tweet, the messages will be inside tens of thousands of controller pairs that will ship to consumers when Quest and Rift S ship". If you have one of the newer editions of the Oculus Touch, it might be worth checking to see if there is a message waiting for you.
Oculus also recently announced its next-gen VR headset called the Oculus Rift S. Business Insider previously reported that the company restructured its AR-glasses division late previous year as it inches closer to launching a commercial product.
Peace added: "We think it's important to be transparent with our community and take responsibility when there's an error".
