Oculus rift

[SiberianExpress]

Facebook just bought Oculus for 2 billion!

 

What a weird thing. I don't really know what to think, but my gut reaction is that this is "not great." It's pretty strange to think that John Carmack is now an employee of Facebook. 

 

More realistic way to stalk people!

[JonCole]

FB is literally buying every company that's hip and relevant hoping that the relevance rubs off on them. Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus, it's all the same to them. Which is exactly why 99% of the interest I had in Oculus has just flushed down the drain.

 

The only upside I can think of is that now I can go back to trajectory of becoming a Sony fanboy and suddenly become interested in their supposedly better-than-Oculus VR tech.

[RubixsQube]

 Mark Zuckerberg writes:

 

 

I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology.

 

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences.

 

This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you're actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it's different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives.

 

Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences.

 

Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.

 

But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.

 

This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.

 

These are just some of the potential uses. By working with developers and partners across the industry, together we can build many more. One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people.

 

Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming and we have a chance to build it together. I can't wait to start working with the whole team at Oculus to bring this future to the world, and to unlock new worlds for all of us.

 

 

Mostly, I read it thusly:

 

After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine feeling sad and gross while you float in the same Cancun waters as your ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend on their spring break vacation. Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But now virtual reality will intersect with your own, weird, boring version of reality that you choose to present to the world. If you thought you couldn't feel any more resentment over how happy everyone in your life seemed to be (except you), now you'll be able to live their lives, and truly find out that they're doing so many better things than you will ever do. I can't wait to figure out some way to make a shit ton of money selling 3D advertising space. 

[SecretAsianMan]

All I can think is that John Carmack now works for Facebook.

[JonCole]

[sclpls]

My interest in Oculus Rift just took a dive.

[JonCole]

Devs found out that they were making games for FB, and the first domino has fallen -

 

[clyde]

I think that virtual tourism just became far more likely. The shitty Biff-future has its advantages.

 

[Dewar]

I was so excited for the Rift too.

[coaxmetal]

My favorite response thusfar is

 

[singlespace]

Palmer Luckey on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/

 

I’ve always loved games. They’re windows into worlds that let us travel somewhere fantastic. My foray into virtual reality was driven by a desire to enhance my gaming experience; to make my rig more than just a window to these worlds, to actually let me step inside them. As time went on, I realized that VR technology wasn’t just possible, it was almost ready to move into the mainstream. All it needed was the right push.

 

We started Oculus VR with the vision of making virtual reality affordable and accessible, to allow everyone to experience the impossible. With the help of an incredible community, we’ve received orders for over 75,000 development kits from game developers, content creators, and artists around the world. When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible.

 

Facebook is run in an open way that’s aligned with Oculus’ culture. Over the last decade, Mark and Facebook have been champions of open software and hardware, pushing the envelope of innovation for the entire tech industry. As Facebook has grown, they’ve continued to invest in efforts like with the Open Compute Project, their initiative that aims to drive innovation and reduce the cost of computing infrastructure across the industry. This is a team that’s used to making bold bets on the future.

 

In the end, I kept coming back to a question we always ask ourselves every day at Oculus: what’s best for the future of virtual reality? Partnering with Mark and the Facebook team is a unique and powerful opportunity. The partnership accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas and take risks that were otherwise impossible. Most importantly, it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.

 

Very little changes day-to-day at Oculus, although we’ll have substantially more resources to build the right team. If you want to come work on these hard problems in computer vision, graphics, input, and audio, please apply!

 

This is a special moment for the gaming industry — Oculus’ somewhat unpredictable future just became crystal clear: virtual reality is coming, and it’s going to change the way we play games forever.

 

I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast.

 

I’m proud to be a member of this community — thank you all for carrying virtual reality and gaming forward and trusting in us to deliver. We won’t let you down.

[Nachimir]

I'm probably less cynical than below, but this news has made me sad today. I dread the integration of "social features" with the Oculus SDK/Unity/Unreal/etc. I was ready to pre-order DK2 yesterday, now I'm reconsidering.

 

Mostly, I read it thusly:

 

After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine feeling sad and gross while you float in the same Cancun waters as your ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend on their spring break vacation. Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But now virtual reality will intersect with your own, weird, boring version of reality that you choose to present to the world. If you thought you couldn't feel any more resentment over how happy everyone in your life seemed to be (except you), now you'll be able to live their lives, and truly find out that they're doing so many better things than you will ever do. I can't wait to figure out some way to make a shit ton of money selling 3D advertising space. 

[Dosed]

Knee jerk reaction = "Ew, gross." Not sure how long that'll last. 

[sclpls]

I don't think you need to be cynical about this to be skeptical about how this plays out. Even if Facebook has a hand's off approach to Oculus (and as far as we know that is the case, and that's pretty much how their other acquisitions have played out), this still is a pretty strong signal that games are no longer going to be the focus here, and so that's just a very different vision about what was exciting about this technology.

[JonCole]

I think it's fairly naive to think that this just means Oculus Rift + WAY MORE MONEY = SWEET VR. I've seen apologetic/optimistic reactions reflecting this and that's obviously the best case scenario. But the truth behind Facebook is that they don't make nearly the amount of profit that the size of their business would make you hope for; every new feature is creeping along their long march towards "Facebook making money". So it's hard for me to think of this being anything but an attempt to wring VR of whatever money it has because social on its own isn't enough.

 

Edit: had one more thought. All of Facebook's purchases lately seem to be an attempt to stem the tide that FB has been facing for the past few year - a massive movement away from FB by young users (teenage - twenties) who prefer stuff like Snapchat or Twitter. This just seems like another attempt to grab the coattails of that fleeing audience, because Oculus sure as shit isn't going to appeal to dads and moms who are dominating FB. I just fear that FB's relatively toxic perception among a younger audience is going to make Oculus limited in reach by association, rather than make Facebook more popular by association. It just seems to be the natural outcome when FB is the monolith and Oculus is being pulled up by the bootstraps.

[Nachimir]

Actually, having a DK1 and lending it out to various people for about a month each, and trying it on non-games people, the non-gamey experiential stuff is just as exciting for me. The Rift is really fucking good at that due to a bigger FOV than any other goggles that are around, and even in it's current quite basic form, people feel a real sense of immersion from it.

 

I just don't trust Facebook to not fuck it up, is all. I wasn't surprised at the price. They seem to value users over tech.

[Patrick R]

The only bright side is that at least part of Idle Thumbs 150 will be spent on this. This feels like the same ballpark as a lot of robot news.

[Architecture]

I suppose it's time for me to hang up this avatar. Any suggestions for its replacement?

[clyde]

I'm optimistic. I think the reason Facebook invested is because they believe that the value of Oculus will increase greatly. If you just keep money sitting in a vault, it loses value. They are betting on a winning horse. Oculus will have far more resources, have broader appeal and VR as a whole just got a huge reputation boost from capital. VR has a chance of being much more influential, much faster.

Anyone seen Sleep Dealer?

[Patrick R]

I suppose it's time for me to hang up this avatar. Any suggestions for its replacement?

 

Can this forum do gifs as avatars?

 

[Reyturner]

There's a joke in all this about a social media juggernaut buying the least social development in entertainment technology since the flesh light.

I suppose it's time for me to hang up this avatar. Any suggestions for its replacement?

Keep the pic and replace the Rift with money?

[Nachimir]

Palmer Luckey* is saying a bunch of reassuring stuff on Reddit right now.
 
*Possibly a PR team?
 

is that 75-100 million dollars of VC not enough to bring the CV1 to market?[/size]
It it enough to bring a consumer product to market, but not the consumer product we really wish we could ship. This deal is going to immediately accelerate a lot of plans that were languishing on our wishlist, and the resulting hardware will be better AND cheaper. We have the resources to create custom hardware now, not just rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. There is a lot of good news on the way that is not yet public, so believe me, things will become a lot more clear over time.

 

I would guess: curved screen, better optics.

[Stuart]

[clyde]

I really am not looking forward to the internet demonizing Palmer Luckey.

[jeremywc]

I really am not looking forward to the internet demonizing Palmer Luckey.

 

I think with the giant pile of money he just made, he'll be juuuuuuuust fine.