The Oculus Go operating system is being unlocked, announces John Carmack

Facebook is unlock the bootloader from his discontinued Oculus Go headset and giving users full root access. This means the headset will be useful long after official support ends. The movement was announced by Oculus Consulting CTO John Carmack, who left his full-time CTO position in 2019 to focus on his work as an independent AI researcher.

Root access will be gained by loading a future software update, opening the door for anyone to modify and improve Oculus’ original standalone all-in-one VR headset. Facebook initially released the Oculus Go in 2018 before supplanting it with the Oculus Quest the following year. The Go was officially discontinued in 2020.

“We will be making available an unlocked OS version for the Oculus Go headset that can be side-loaded to gain full root access,” Carmack wrote on Twitter. “This opens up the possibility of reusing hardware for more things today, and means that a shrink-wrapped headset that is randomly discovered twenty years from now will be able to update to the final version of the software, long after the servers of wireless update have been updated. to close.”

Responding to questions from his followers, Carmack said the initiative only covers the Oculus Go, but that it “hope this will set a precedent“for other devices. Unlocked operating system may be released via the Oculus siteCarmack says, but an official release plan has yet to be finalized. This will be the last Go update but with root access.

“I’ve still heard a lot of arguments about the bad things that could happen if users had full control over their obsolete devices, but I’m clearly in favor of empowering users,” Carmack explained. The developer has long been a fan of opening his work on titles like Loss and earthquake for amateur tinkering. These include the release of Lossin the late 90s that allowed the classic shooter to be hacked into dozens of unusual devices, from ATMs to digital cameras. This tradition of open-sourcing continued until Doom 3 engine, the source code of which was released in 2011.

It should be noted that Carmack previously said that Oculus intended to offer USB storage support on the Oculus Go with an upcoming update that never materialized, as reported. DownloadVR. Ahead of the headset’s release, the developer said support would arrive “relatively soon”, but a year later he was forced to admit that a “hardware problem”Prevented the arrival of the feature film.