Andy Biar
andybiar.bsky.social
Andy Biar
@andybiar.bsky.social
Senior Software Engineer, XR at Unity
Pinned
If you aren't familiar with me, hi! I'm a senior engineer on Unity's XR team, and the technical lead for AR Foundation and its ARCore, ARKit, and Meta Quest implementations.

Here's our team's latest info from Unite 2024. (Pardon my nerves in the beginning hehe)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW27...
Immersive experiences: Building cross-platform mixed reality | Unite 2024
YouTube video by Unity
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Andy Biar
🔥Unity just announced XR Hands Package 1.7.0 that enables devs to create custom gestures even easier!

The steps in Unity:
1️⃣ Connect your headset
2️⃣ Record the gesture on your device
3️⃣ Import the recordings into Unity
October 28, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Andy Biar
We made (a lot) of things! Come check out what we did for Android XR on the Galaxy XR Headset!
Owlchemy Labs is excited to bring its signature titles, Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator, to Galaxy XR on day one, along with our newest mixed reality experience, Inside[JOB], available exclusively on Android XR. 🎉

Learn more: ow.ly/unzM50XgtWr
October 22, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted by Andy Biar
Mabel & I hope all our fellow Californians vote YES on Prop. 50!

#FightFireWithFire
October 9, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Selfishly, my favorite thing about the rise of AI is that traffic on the Unity forums that I monitor has noticeably declined. I hope you all are getting good answers to your questions out there!
October 2, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Unity just released a really nice guide for landing your first role as a junior game programmer: cdn.bfldr.com/s5bc9y64/at/...

A commendable effort I definitely thought was worth sharing.
cdn.bfldr.com
September 30, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Unity's accessibility team quietly doing great work. Native screen reader support for Windows and Mac just dropped. discussions.unity.com/t/native-des...
Native desktop screen reader support now available in Unity 6.3!
Hi everyone, We’re excited to announce that Unity 6000.3.0a5 brings native screen reader support to Windows and macOS. This extends the platform coverage of Unity’s screen reader support APIs beyond ...
discussions.unity.com
September 8, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Andy Biar
It's been a while.

Glad to be announcing a new game, and happy that it is something experimental and weird: a tiny, tense, turn-based strategy game about merging units into spectacular combinations, and then watching them evaporate thousands of bugs.

store.steampowered.com/app/2396130/...
Australia Did It - Reveal Trailer
YouTube video by MysticForge
www.youtube.com
September 3, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Announcement! I've been working on Unity support for the new OpenXR Spatial Entities extensions, and today we shipped a public native API in OpenXR Plug-in 1.16.0-pre.1: docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com...

This API is a pure C# port of the OpenXR spec, currently limited to spatial entities.
OpenXR native API | OpenXR Plugin | 1.16.0-pre.1
docs.unity3d.com
August 18, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Andy Biar
This decision sets our country back decades. Donald Trump is intentionally pushing unconstitutional policies and this Supreme Court is giving him the green light to do so. It must be condemned and Congress must act to stop him. www.npr.org/2025/06/27/n...
Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions in birthright citizenship order
The decision issues some limits on the power of federal judges to universally block President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship, asking lower courts to reconsider their rulings.
www.npr.org
June 27, 2025 at 5:17 PM
This week Khronos released the OpenXR Spatial Entities extensions, a new cross-vendor standard for mixed reality app development. www.khronos.org/blog/openxr-...

The implications for AR Foundation are massive, and I'm excited to lead Unity's integration of the new standard.
OpenXR Spatial Entities Extensions Released for Developer Feedback
The Khronos® OpenXR™ Working Group has released a groundbreaking set of OpenXR extensions that establish the first open standard for spatial computing, enabling consistent cross-platform support for p...
www.khronos.org
June 13, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Andy Biar
BREAKING: A voting rights group is suing Montana over a new voter suppression law targeting college students

Under HB 413, students must say they’ll stay in the state after graduation in order to register to vote.

From: @yuniorarivas.bsky.social

www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
Montana Students Must Predict Their Future If They Want to Vote, Lawsuit Charges
Read more.
www.democracydocket.com
May 7, 2025 at 9:07 PM
My favorite Canadian clothing brand has discontinued shipping to the US altogether :/. The tariffs are a real shame.
April 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Maybe all my mutuals already know of Marc. But in case you don't, you should!
The fight for democracy is the cause of our time. I created Democracy Docket to be fearlessly pro-democracy. No corporate overlords, no compromises, it will never obey.

Sign-up now. newsletters.democracydocket.com/all-newsletters
April 9, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Three weeks ago Hamdan Ballal accepted the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature alongside his Palestinian and Israeli creative team.

Today he is detained by the Israeli military after settlers violently attacked him at his home. This is horrible.

apnews.com/article/no-o...
Oscar-winning Palestinian director is attacked by Israeli settlers and detained by the army
Israeli settlers have beaten up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land."
apnews.com
March 25, 2025 at 1:37 AM
PSA for Meta Quest users, please be aware that there is a regression in the v74 PC runtime that causes the environment depth provider (occlusion) to hang forever on Quest Link.

This regression affects users of Unity OpenXR: Meta 2.1.0, and we have notified Meta. In the meantime, build to device!
March 13, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Last plug for the Unity XR GDC talk! Because Unity is sponsoring the talk, anyone with an Expo pass can attend, which is rad!

Tuesday 1:20pm

schedule.gdconf.com/session/unit...
Unity Developer Summit: Immersive Experiences: Building Cross-Platform Mixed Reality (Presented by Unity)
18th March, 2025 01:20pm - 02:20pm - 2025 promises exciting advancements in XR with new devices and enhanced spatial capabilities. Discov...
schedule.gdconf.com
March 12, 2025 at 10:30 PM
My favorite part about Meta's blog post:

"As of Unity's OpenXR Plugin 1.14, the OpenXR Meta package has achieved feature and performance parity with the Oculus XR plugin,"

That's my team! :D We've been working on this for a while!

developers.meta.com/horizon/blog...
Meta and OpenXR
Learn how Meta is supporting OpenXR and developers through its game engine integrations and contributions to OpenXR standards.
developers.meta.com
March 9, 2025 at 12:38 AM
www.erininthemorning.com/p/powerful-s...

Rep Howell's speech joins the opening montage from Pixar's Up on my list of 5-minute videos that brought me to tears.
Powerful Speeches From Trans Dems Flip 29 Republicans, Anti-Trans Bills Die In Montana
Transgender Reps Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell delivered powerful speeches on the Montana House floor on Thursday. Republicans defected en masse to join them in voting against anti-trans bills.
www.erininthemorning.com
March 7, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Reposted by Andy Biar
I'm excited to share I'll be giving a talk at #GDC2025 this year with @andybiar.bsky.social on cross-platform Mixed Reality!

Going to be a bit more technical, talking about OpenXR, Meta Quest, AndroidXR and Apple Vision Pro

More info on @unity.com #GDC stuff here: unity.com/events/gdc
Unity at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025 | Unity
Join Unity at GDC 2025, where we celebrate the Unity developer community and showcase the latest features for game developers, creator stories, and more.
unity.com
March 4, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Congrats to the Flow team for their Best Animated Feature win! I believe this is the first animated feature made in Blender to win an Oscar?

A great day for free open source software!
March 3, 2025 at 2:53 AM
The most important thing I read today: www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
The Path to American Authoritarianism
What comes after democratic breakdown.
www.foreignaffairs.com
February 12, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Unity has asked me to co-present a refreshed "Immersive Experiences" talk at GDC!

This is my first time speaking at GDC, any advice? Also if you are in the XR space and attending, let's meet up!
January 23, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Applications are Open for the 2025 Unity for Humanity grant. This is still one of my favorite things that Unity does. unity.com/humanity
The Unity for Humanity creator program | Unity
We empower creators by offering funding, mentorship, and technical support for their RT3D social impact projects through Unity for Humanity grants and events.
unity.com
January 12, 2025 at 11:36 PM
So this is later than expected, but we shipped a pre-release of Unity OpenXR: Meta that includes support for Meta Quest Link: docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com...

If you are an AR Foundation dev on Unity 6, huge news! We're finalizing some occlusion work before we ship the final 2.1.0.
Meta Quest Link | Unity OpenXR Meta | 2.1.0-pre.1
docs.unity3d.com
January 8, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Senior Program Manager role is open on the Unity XR team: unity.com/careers/posi...
Unity Careers
Unity Careers
unity.com
December 26, 2024 at 5:11 PM