Oculus nooooooooooooo!

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/fa...rift-headset-for-around-2b-in-cash-and-stock/

When you see Oculus staff abandoning ship, then panic. Until then, I'll be content that everything is continuing as it should.

We still have the PS4 VR headset.

Not panicking yet, but it makes me wary at the very least.

Holy Molly.
First What'sApp for 16(19?)Billions, now Oculus for 4Billions...
Facebook sure have a lot of money !

But i never understood the hype around Oculus.
Expensive, not yet very efficient, higly subject to motion sickness...
And what is the point of beeing able to look around me in a game, when i don't have the rest of the interface to interact with ?

Honestly, I think Oculus could have got a lot more than $2bn. Compare the potential profit they can generate with that of WhatsApp or Instagram.

From a Facebook point of view, they can generate WAY more benefits from WhatsApp or Instagram : these tools have a huge user base compared to Oculus, so more audience, so more advert, info sucked out of it...

Curious if Oculus will completly keep it's freedom and/or if they will have to implement some specific things inside.

Image : Shoot, frag.
*Facebook pop-up*
Well done ! Publish ?
(reminds me this comic).

Brrrr. This is scary...

No, first Instagram.

Uhh... It's ridiculously cheap and efficient compared to the alternatives. It was a brilliant idea to use a phone/tablet sized LCD.

As someone who does get travel sickness (I can't read while travelling, lest my book becomes vomit scented), I never experienced any motion sickness with it. At this point, I'm doubting you know anything about the Rift.

@Neumeusis , with a gamepad or if you're any sort of touchtyper, not being able to see controls should be fine on the most part.

I'm sceptical of the FB takeover in case they get any creative control. Hopefully they don't, but I'd never heard Oculus talk about "social features" until this, so... ugh.

Good to see more kneejerk. Everyone knows kneejerk reactions are the best.

Efficiency? Screw efficiency it's awesome (and also a work in progress it will improve).

Think of the rift as a really immersive monitor, you don't buy a monitor buy itself, do you? You have a computer to generate images and inputs to interact with said images. For the Rift, things like the Myo would be fantastic.

Not everyone gets motion sickness, that's entirely subjective. It may take some getting used to but as long as there isn't any lag it shouldn't be any more vomit-inducing than the horror that is reality.

As for the price I've heard it will be around the same price as a smartphone, which I think is completely reasonable.

I have absolute faith that John Carmack will address all those problems and more. The guy made 3d games that could run on pentiums from scratch and ported quake 1 to iPhone as a side project during his honeymoon. If anybody can make the Oculus work, it's him.

Speaking of motion sickness - in the Oculus Dev Kit 2, (Crystal Cove prototype) which is shipping later this year they have used a technique to fight this. The original dev kit did not do this so a lot of people became very disoriented and sick. What they have done now is turn the screen "off" when the scene is changing, and only updating and turning off when the scene is right.

Apparently it has addressed all motion sickness claims. Look up Oculus Crystal Cove for more info.

My problem with this is if Facebook get to change the eventual product. If they are left alone and be able to act independently then I have no issues regarding this sale.

I do think that Facebook is becoming the big evil corporate though.

What was your first clue?

But on the plus side at least they're not buying killer robots like Google.

Any corporation is, by definition, big.

Any corporation, for a specific standard of "evil", is "evil". You have to understand, to manage a company of that size a lack of empathy is required on a number of levels.

Of course, some corporations do (far) worse than others. I don't see Facebook as any worse than Google in this regard (whee, can of worms).

I can't wait to be driven home in my google car, powered by google maps, to be greeted by my google robo-butler, so that I can google search the internet on google chrome, provided by google fiber.

on topic: I always thought the reason to kickstart the oculus rift was to keep it private

Fixed that for you.

WOO ONE THOUSAND POSTS!

Facebook has, and continues, to look for disruptive businesses. This is one of them. I think it's a wise move for Facebook to broaden their underlying competencies, and it's an amazing cash out for the folks at Oculus.

Eventually, this will be awesome for gaming too, but for me? Being able to watch a movie in privacy while on a 12 hour international flight? Yes please. Being able to work on a prototype game in unity on my laptop because I have a "screen" big enough to actually work on? Awesome. Especially if you throw in some tools that allow you to more immersively work in a 3d environment like Unity 3d or Unreal 4.

This stuff is the future. May just be the first step, but it's where it's headed, and Facebook knows that.

I still standby that the Oculus Rift was pretty much bound for failure on day one.

I don't know, it just seems like VR isn't quite ready to start taking its baby steps yet, hell, AR is still barely ready to fully realize its potential [insert extremely subtle Google Glass joke here]

Oh, and all these people, especially on /v/, that are saying "OMG END OF DA VIDYER!" really need to stop it.

Bound for failure? Hardly.
Revolutionize the industry and kill off traditional displays? Never.

Also Google Glass is augmented reality, not virtual reality.