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  • John Carmack Pens Damning Memo Announcing His Departure From Meta

    John Carmack Pens Damning Memo Announcing His Departure From Meta

    Game developer legend John Carmack is leaving Meta, slamming the company in a damning memo that is sure to make waves.

    John Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 and served as CTO until 2019 when he stepped down to focus on research and development. He joined Meta when it purchased Oculus but is now departing that company with harsh words regarding its management.

    According to Business Insider, Carmack posted a memo to the company’s internal Workplace forum, castigating Meta for its mismanagement.

    “We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort,” Carmack wrote. “There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.”

    “I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it,” he added.

    Meta, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has already been facing growing criticism over its heavy focus on the metaverse. One major Meta investor has publicly called on the company to scale back its metaverse investment, saying it has lost its focus and “has drifted into the land of excess.”

    Similarly, the Oculus founder likened Zuckerberg’s metaverse obsession to a “project car,” one’s that’s “not good” at this stage.

    Even Meta’s own employees are saying that “the Metaverse will be our slow death,” and that “Mark Zuckerberg will single-handedly kill a company with the meta-verse.”

    Carmack’s departure and scathing condemnation of the company could well serve as a rallying cry for more critics and put increased pressure on Zuckerberg and company to deliver the goods or move on.

    Here’s Carmack’s memo in its entirety, courtesy of Insider:

    This is the end of my decade in VR. I have mixed feelings.

    Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning – mobile hardware, inside out tracking, optional PC streaming, 4k (ish) screen, cost effective. Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still getting value out of it. We have a good product. It is successful, and successful products make the world a better place. It all could have happened a bit faster and been going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to The Right Thing.

    The issue is our efficiency.

    Some will ask why I care how the progress is happening, as long as it is happening?

    If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.

    [edit: I was being overly poetic here, as several people have missed the intention. As a systems optimization person, I care deeply about efficiency. When you work hard at optimization for most of your life, seeing something that is grossly inefficient hurts your soul. I was likening observing our organization’s performance to seeing a tragically low number on a profiling tool.]

    We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think out organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say “Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!”

    It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently ot persuasive enough. A good Fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.

    This was admittedly self-inflicted – I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership, but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.

    Enough complaining. I wearied of the fight and have my own startup to run, but the fight is still winnable! VR can bring value to most of the people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do it than Meta. Maybe it is actually possible to get there by just plowing ahead with current practices, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

    Make better decisions and fill your products with “Give a Damn!”

  • Oculus Founder Says Meta’s Metaverse Is Like ‘Project Car’ That’s ‘Not Good’

    Oculus Founder Says Meta’s Metaverse Is Like ‘Project Car’ That’s ‘Not Good’

    Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is the latest to slam Meta’s metaverse, saying it’s “not good.”

    Meta is investing billions to build out its vision of the metaverse, but the response has been tepid at best. Everyone from Mark Cuban to major Meta investors are not sold on the company’s vision or the amount of money it is taking to create it.

    According to Business Insider, Luckey has likewise spoken critically of Meta’s efforts, saying they are largely driven by Mark Zuckerberg’s obsession with virtual reality.

    Read more: Major Meta Investor Urges Company to Scale Back Metaverse Investments

    “Mark Zuckerberg is the number one virtual reality fan in the world,” Luckey said. “He’s put in more money and time to it than anyone ever in history.”

    Luckey went on to describe the metaverse as a “project car,” something an owner sinks untold money into in the hopes it will one day be valuable. In the interim, though, Luckey says the metaverse is not very good.

    “It is terrible today, but it could be amazing in the future,” he said. “Zuckerberg will put the money in to do it. They’re in the best position of anyone to win in the long run.

    “You hack at it and maybe no one else sees the value,” Luckey continued. “Will they stumble? Yeah sure. Will they waste money? Will they add things to their project car that they later hack off? Yes.”

    With some already calling for Meta to cut back on its investment in the metaverse, only time will tell how patient the company’s investors are for what is increasingly looking like a financial black hole.

  • The Oculus Brand Is No More

    The Oculus Brand Is No More

    Facebook is killing off the Oculus brand on the heels of its “Meta” rebrand.

    Facebook made headlines Thursday when it announced its anticipated rebrand. The company chose the name Meta, a nod to its attempt to build a “metaverse” where AR, VR and in-person reality converge. Like the Alphabet/Google relationship, Meta will be the parent company, with Facebook one of the brands under its umbrella.

    In his post revealing the rebrand, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said none of the company’s brands would change.

    Our mission remains the same — it’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and their brands aren’t changing either. We’re still the company that designs technology around people.

    Despite that, it appears the company is doing exactly what Zuckerberg said they wouldn’t and are killing off the Oculus brand. In a post of his own, Andrew Bosworth, VP of AR/VR, said the Oculus brand is no more.

    Starting in early 2022, you’ll start to see the shift from Oculus Quest from Facebook to Meta Quest and Oculus App to Meta Quest App over time.

    We all have a strong attachment to the Oculus brand, and this was a very difficult decision to make. While we’re changing the brand of the hardware, Oculus will continue to be a core part of our DNA and will live on in things like software and developer tools.

    Only time will tell what other changes are in store following the company’s rebrand.

  • Facebook May Change Its Name

    Facebook May Change Its Name

    Facebook is considering the possibility of changing its name, both to better reflect its future ambitions and distance itself from existing scrutiny.

    Few companies are more well-known, or less favorably viewed, than Facebook. Nonetheless, the company is the 800-pound gorilla among social media platforms, and has bought up smaller rivals, like Instagram and WhatsApp, further cementing its lead.

    Despite its roots, Facebooks is devoting considerable resources to what it calls “the metaverse,” a mixture of virtual, augmented and in-person reality. Sources told The Verge that the new name is a closely-guarded secret within the company, with Zuckerberg likely to unveil it October 28 at the company’s Connect conference.

    It seems likely Facebook may go a similar route as Google, placing Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and its other properties underneath a parent company, the equivalent of Google’s Alphabet.

    No matter how well-planned or how valid the reasons, a name change is always a risky proposition for an established brand. Only time will tell if Facebook’s gamble will pay off.

  • Need Facebook Support? Buy an Oculus — But No Guarantees It Will Work

    Need Facebook Support? Buy an Oculus — But No Guarantees It Will Work

    Facebook may be one of the dominant social media platforms, but it certainly hasn’t achieved that based on its customer support — which is abysmal.

    In fact, Facebook’s tech support is so bad that some users are resorting to spending hundreds of dollars for VR equipment they don’t even want just to get support. Even then, Facebook’s support is leaving some users in the cold.

    Business Insider cites the case of Rachel Sines, whose account was disabled after she created a support group for individuals who had family members that had joined QAnon. Sines tried to get help from Facebook, without making any progress. She then bought an Oculus VR system, as well as a Portal tablet, since Oculus requires a Facebook account to work.

    Sines’ account was reactivated when she got the Oculus, only to be immediately deactivated again. The Oculus rep told her that Facebook had reviewed her account and the decision was upheld.

    “I lost 15 years of data in the blink of an eye… My dating journey, wedding, honeymoon, videos of our daughter’s first steps and baptism,” Sines told Insider. “It was like I, and any trace of me, was eerily deleted.”

    Ultimately, it took Insider reaching out to Facebook, seven months after the initial action, for Facebook to reinstate Sines’ account and acknowledge that disabling it had been a mistake. During that entire time, Facebook never reached out to Sines, or responded to her many, many attempts to get her account reactivated.

    Stories like this — where it takes getting a major news outlet involved to get a response — makes one wonder how Facebook ever became so popular.

  • Walmart, Verizon, BMW Having Success With STRIVR Virtual Reality Training Technology

    Walmart, Verizon, BMW Having Success With STRIVR Virtual Reality Training Technology

    “We started the rollout to all of the Walmart retail environments at the end of 2019 and so far so good,” says STRIVR CEO Derek Belch. “We’ve had almost a million Associates go through different training modules. Doug McMillon actually in their earnings report a month ago did reference employee training as being one of the reasons that their earnings are what they are. So it’s definitely something that we’re seeing have a very positive effect as it relates to placing employees in these simulation-based learning environments that virtual reality affords.”

    Derek Belch, founder and CEO of STRIVR, discusses the success that enterprise companies such as Walmart, Verizon, and BMW are having with their virtual reality employee training technology in an interview on CNBC:

    Walmart VR Training Positively Impacting Earnings

    We started the rollout to all of the Walmart retail environments at the end of 2019 and so far so good. We’ve had almost a million Associates go through different training modules. Doug McMillon actually in their earnings report a month ago did reference employee training as being one of the reasons that their earnings are what they are. So it’s definitely something that we’re seeing have a very positive effect as it relates to placing employees in these simulation-based learning environments that virtual reality affords. It’s been really cool.

    Walmart VR Training – Oculus x Walmart x STRIVR

    We have about 30 customers in the Fortune 500 right now. It’s definitely crossing the chasm. We’re still on our way up here in the early adopters’ phase but we’re seeing this catch on. There’s definitely product-market fit for immersive learning as we call it. This is the real deal. This is very similar to pilots in a flight simulator. Historically, we’ve trained employees or we’ve assessed employees via PowerPoint’s, videos, and lectures. Candidly, we don’t know if people are half asleep or if they’re actually engaged. 

    Now with virtual reality, we’re able to put people through simulation-based learning, simulation-based training, simulation-based assessment, and it’s catching on. I think by this time next year if you’re not doing something (with VR training) you’re behind in the Fortune 500. We’re seeing that this is the real deal.

    VR Technology Finding Its Legs As a Useful Tool In the Enterprise

    At this point, we’ve talked to everybody. There isn’t a company in the Fortune 500 that we have not talked to in some way, shape, or form. We are not working with Amazon currently. We have talked to them on and off and we’ll see where that goes. To be honest, I’m not really worried about anyone doing this themselves. This is still the very early days of virtual reality. We work very closely with Oculus, which is owned by Facebook, they’re a great partner of ours. 

    We take a lot of pride at STRIVR and what we call the end-to-end solution which is basically, hey,  in the early days while you’re an early adopter and the technology is certainly viable and ready it’s also really difficult to scale. So we do a lot of heavy lifting for our partners, Walmart being one of them along with Verizon and BMW. We just do a lot of work for them up front while the technology is finding its legs to get to the point where computers, iPads, and cell phones are right now as a useful tool in the enterprise. I’m not worried about anybody in the next 18 months or so doing this on their own but certainly, we’ll see as the ecosystem evolves where it goes from there.

    STRIVR VR Technology Being Used by Verizon

    As it relates to the viability of using this as a predictive tool, this is how the Walmart use case came about with using this for assessments. Were actually patent pending right now on what we call an engagement algorithm to see how engaged somebody is during a simulation. We tell our partners all the things we’re working on behind the scenes and Walmart said they wanted to test that out to see if this would be a good use case for them. 

    We Take Pride That Our VR Experiences Won’t Lead To Nausea

    This (disorientation) is an issue for sure. That question always comes up in every demo. “Hey, am I going to get sick? Oh, I’m good, I don’t need to put it on. I got sick last time.” This is all about how the brain works and your equilibrium. If you’re sitting or you’re standing and you put on a headset and now you’re on a rollercoaster or you’re running through an active shooter game or something like that, yeah you’re going to get nauseous because your body is static but your brain thinks that it’s doing something else.

    We take a lot of pride in making sure that the experiences we build along with some of the subtle things we do in the software aren’t going to lead to nausea.

    Walmart, Verizon, BMW Having Success With Virtual Reality Training Technology – STRIVR CEO Derek Belch
  • Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain, Says Anduril Founder

    Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain, Says Anduril Founder

    “I don’t think that Microsoft, Amazon, or any of these big tech companies are going to go all-in and say we are going to build products that are going to be controversial, part of the kill chain, and designed specifically for DoD,” says the founder of Oculus VR and Anduril, Palmer Luckey. “Because if it reduces their consumer enterprise sales by one percent or increases controversy by one percent it’s likely not worth doing.”

    Luckey added, “I don’t think that the United States leads in the technologies that are going to be relevant to the warfare of the future. I think that the US is falling behind in areas like autonomy and artificial intelligence.”

    Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and Anduril, discusses how Anduril can compete and win against behemoth defense contractors and big tech in an interview on CNBC:

    Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain

    No, (I don’t think Microsoft is a rival to Anduril). Actually, I think that we’re going to be doing a lot of work with Microsoft on a lot of this stuff. You’re not going to have one company owning everything anyway. I’m glad that Microsoft and Amazon are vigorously competing for this Jedi contract. Contrast that with Google that dropped out because they said they couldn’t be sure the government was going to abide to their internal corporate ethics principles. I think that there’s a big difference though between what Amazon and Microsoft are doing with Jedi and what we’re doing. Microsoft has said that the military will always have access to their best technology and that’s true. But they also are selling to everyone. They’re building a product that’s for everyone.

    Everything that we’re building is specifically for the Department of Defense. We’re not going out there and saying, let’s resell the thing where we make 90 percent of our money in the consumer or the enterprise space. We’re going to say what do they need and what is the absolute perfect thing? I don’t think that Microsoft, Amazon, or any of these big tech companies are going to go all-in and say we are going to build products that are going to be controversial, part of the kill chain, and designed specifically for DoD. Because if it reduces their consumer enterprise sales by one percent or increases controversy by one percent it’s likely not worth doing.

    US Is Falling Behind In Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence

    In China, you have lots of new companies doing defense work and lots of consumer technology companies doing really strong defense. China has a very strong pipeline from new tech to military deployment. I think the United States knows that they can learn a little bit from that and that they’re going to have to if they’re going to keep up with our adversaries who are honestly much better at that innovation pipeline than we are right now.

    I think that we lead right now especially when it comes to conventional military force and when it comes to conventional military operations. I don’t think that the United States leads in the technologies that are going to be relevant to the warfare of the future. I think that the US is falling behind in areas like autonomy and artificial intelligence. I think that China has structural advantages over the United States because they’re willing to surveil their entire population and use it as a training system for their artificial intelligence models. I’m not saying that we should do that. I’m very much against that in fact. But we do have to realize that China has certain structural advantages.

    In China, the government by law is able to take any technology they want from the private sector and use it for military purposes. In the United States, we’re lucky that our companies are even able to say I don’t want to work with the government. I don’t agree with Google’s decision to pull out of the Jedi contract, for example, but I am very supportive of their right to do so. Again, I’m not saying we need to be more like China on this. I think that would be terrible. But we do have to recognize that there are structural advantages in what they’re doing and so we have to not just do the same thing they’re doing. We have to try new things, better things, and alternate routes where they don’t really have such a strong advantage.

    Lockheed, Raytheon Do Not Have The Best New Tech Talent

    I think our (smaller) size actually works in our favor. If it was a big landscape of smaller highly competitive players I think we actually would have a harder time raising money. As it is investors look and they say, hey, the whole field is dominated by a handful of players that make all of the money. They’re old, they’re very slow-moving, they don’t have all the best talent. That type of market is the one where you can believe the most that somebody can come in and disrupt it.

    We’re a defense technology company first. We’re not a consumer technology company dabbling in defense work. We from day one said what can we develop that really helps the US Department of Defense and that helps keep America and our allies safe. That’s why we’re building artificial intelligence powered hardware and software. I think that we have a few big competitive advantages. The first thing is that we have a really strong team that comes from areas where the experts in autonomy, computer vision, machine learning, networking, those types of things, actually are. 

    Lockheed, Raytheon, the traditional defense primes, they’re good at building aircraft carriers and good at building fighter interceptors but they do not have the world’s best talent when it comes to artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning. That’s why our company is focusing on that. We think we can add a lot of value there that other people cannot necessarily add.

    Big Tech Won’t Build Products That Are Part of the Kill Chain, Says Anduril Founder Palmer Luckey


  • Oculus Exec Yelena Rachitzky Talks About How VR Can Move Beyond Gaming

    Oculus Exec Yelena Rachitzky Talks About How VR Can Move Beyond Gaming

    Most virtual reality products are aimed at gamers because there is an automatically understood natural fit. Can VR move beyond gaming? Oculus executive produce of experiences at Oculus offers her insights.

    Yelena Rachitsky, Executive Producer, Experiences at Oculus, a virtual reality technology company owned by Facebook, was recently interviewed by TechCrunch writer Lucus Matney:

    It’s Not Just About Content, Technology is Making it Easier

    We’re focusing a lot more on more highly interactive content and marrying concepts that were understanding from gaming into more narrative approaches. Instead of shooters and strategy, how do we use these mechanics of understanding on how our body works, natural intuitive mechanics to create pieces that people actually want to come back to, pieces people actually enjoy and don’t feel like they are playing a game necessarily.

    So we’re marrying that knowledge also with the form factors, I think a few people have mentioned Quest which is something we’re super excited about, so it’s not just the content it’s also the technology that’s coming and making it easier.

    Technology is Also Working to Make Things More Intuitive

    A lot of technology is also working just to make things much more intuitive. It’s a combination of how we’re approaching content being more compelling, more intuitive, more interactive, more emotional, with the form factors in the hardware. The thing I’m really interested in is how we approach experiences that have very more natural intuitive interactions versus a lot of button pressing.

    I gave this talk at Oculus Connect recently about embodiment and what makes us feel like something’s ours when they connect with an object and there’s this reality, our Facebook Reality Labs research talks about something called object believability, and we really believe that we’re picking up an object if it’s something that we recognize that we’ve done in the real world.

    The Hard Part of VR is That We Are Holding Controllers

    The hard part about VR is that we’re actually holding controllers in our hands. So how do you make your brain believe that you’re actually picking up those objects? People have approached this in different ways. With  Job Simulator (by Oculus) you have big hands that you press with really really big buttons. There’s something very rewarding about that. Then there’s a game that the studios’ team did called Lone Echo which they put a lot of effort into how the hands formed themselves around objects because if you’re seeing your hands actually shift in the way that they should in real life your brain believes that and it becomes super rewarding.

    With a lot of the projects we’re creating we’re still experimenting, we still don’t know a lot of this stuff, but we’re going all the way from fully interactive to still slightly linear. There’s not a magic formula to it, everything’s just about the intent that you want to create and then all the tools that you use for VR that push forward that intent.

  • Oculus Rift Ships, SDK Updated

    Oculus Rift Ships, SDK Updated

    Facebook’s Oculus announced pre-orders for the Oculus Rift virtual reality device in January for $599. The company just announced that shipping to over 20 countries and regions is now underway. Kickstarter units are shipping today while the first pre-ordered Rifts will start shipping mid-week, and arrive shortly thereafter.

    There are already over 30 games available on the Oculus Store, which can be played immediately. They’re also launching Oculus Video for Rift today. This features thousands of Facebook 360 videos and “the best of” Vimeo and Twitch livestreams.

    “We’ll be adding feature-length movies, new partners, and lots more content to Oculus Video soon,” a spokesperson for the company tells us in an email.

    Oculus 360 Photos lets users explore 200,000 places.

    The device also comes with Farlands, which is described as an alien world and a “new kind of VR experience”. This was created by Oculus and built with Epic’s Unreal Engine 4. It was designed specifically for the Rift.

    Developers will be pleased to know that the Oculus PC SDK 1.3 is now available on the Oculus Developer Center. It includes new features, including support for the consumer Rift, app lifecycle support, native integrations with the latest releases of Unity and Unreal Engine, and Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW). You can learn more about that here.

    Oculus discusses the SDK update in more detail here.

    Images via Oculus

  • Facebook Opens Up Oculus Rift Pre-Orders

    Facebook Opens Up Oculus Rift Pre-Orders

    Facebooks’ Oculus announced that pre-order day for the Oculus Rift virtual reality device is here. You can now pre-order one for $599 on Oculus.com.

    This includes the headset with built-in headphones and mic, sensor, and an Xbox One controller and Oculus Remote.

    A spokesperson for the company says, “Lucky’s Tale and EVE: Valkyrie are just two of the titles users will be able to play when Rift launches — dozens of full-length, AAA games designed for VR are coming to Rift, with more than 100 titles available by the end of 2016. Oculus Studios will introduce more than 20 games that are coming exclusively to Oculus this year, including: Rock Band VR by Harmonix, Edge of Nowhere by Insomniac, [and] The Climb by Crytek.”

    “Oculus Ready PCs are certified to meet recommended system specification and have been tested by Oculus,” they say. “Bundles that include an Oculus Ready PC and a Rift will be available for pre-order in February starting at $1499. Users can also check whether their current PC meets specs right now with the new Oculus compatibility tool.”

    The Oculus Rift will initially ship to 20 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States.

    More about the launch in this blog post.

    Image via Oculus

  • Netflix, Hulu And Others Headed To Virtual Reality

    Netflix, Hulu And Others Headed To Virtual Reality

    You’ll soon be able to watch Netflix, Hulu, and other video streaming services in virtual reality, it was revealed today at an Oculus developers conference.

    At first, the new experiences will just let you watch content like normal in virtual reality settings. For example, you’ll be able to watch Seinfeld on Hulu while sitting on a virtual version of Jerry’s couch.

    Hulu says its new VR app will be available this fall with immersive 3D environments from which you can watch anything from its library of content. Eventually, it will include original VR content beginning with a short film from the people behind RocketJump: The Show, which is produced by Lionsgate and RocketJump. From Hulu’s announcement:

    The range of experiences will include viewers transporting themselves into a comfortable living room setting to catch the latest episode of the Hulu Original Difficult People. Viewers can also choose to view Hulu’s library of premium content including movies and current season TV in a classic movie theater setting. Seinfeld fans can choose to be transported on to the blue couch in Jerry’s iconic apartment to watch favorite episodes of the series.
     
    “Hulu lives at the intersection of technology and entertainment, and this is a great example,” said Julian Eggebrecht, Hulu VP of Device Platforms. “Providing viewers with dynamic environments of their choice and themed around their favorite shows provides a whole new level of engagement, which together with our cinematic VR experiences makes Hulu an exciting VR destination.”
     
    Hulu will also create and house a variety of cinematic VR films across multiple genres that transport viewers into new worlds and change the way they experience and interact with Hulu. The first of these is the ground-breaking VR short film “The Big One,” on which Hulu partnered with Lionsgate to bring Freddie Wong and his RocketJump brand into the virtual reality space. “The Big One” will become a bonus short for Freddie Wong’s new Hulu series, RocketJump: The Show, which chronicles his filmmaking adventures. Produced by Lionsgate in tandem with RocketJump and VR innovator WEVR, “The Big One” invites users to witness a meteor shower that soon turns into an apocalyptic nightmare. The end is near, and Hulu VR viewers will have a front row seat.

    They’re not giving a release date yet.

    Netflix is offering a virtual living room experience that’s immediately available for Oculus.

    “We’ve been working with Oculus to develop a Netflix app for Samsung Gear VR,” says Anthony Park, VP of Engineering at Netflix. “The app includes a Netflix Living Room, allowing members to get the Netflix experience from the comfort of a virtual couch, wherever they bring their Gear VR headset. It’s available to Oculus users today.”

    The Netflix Tech Blog is featuring a post from Oculus CTO John Carmack, who gets into how they built it.

    Beyond Netflix and Hulu, Vimeo, Twitch, and Tivo are also reportedly on board. Facebook and YouTube of course are already providing 360-degree videos ideal for the virtual reality experience. Facebook announced the launch of its videos in the News Feed earlier this week.

    Also announced at the conference is a new $99 Samsung Gear VR headset that makes use of the Oculus platform, which should serve a a major component in getting this stuff to the masses.

    Image via Netflix

  • Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Begin Later This Year, VR Device Ships Early 2016

    Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Begin Later This Year, VR Device Ships Early 2016

    The Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus has announced that its headset, the Oculus Rift, is almost ready to go.

    You’ll be able to pre-order an Oculus Rift later this year and the device will ship early next year. The finished consumer edition “builds on the presence, immersion, and comfort of the Crescent Bay prototype with an improved tracking system that supports both seated and standing experiences, as well as a highly refined industrial design, and updated ergonomics for a more natural fit.”

    The announcement from Oculus, while exciting, is a bit vague.

    “The Rift delivers on the dream of consumer VR with compelling content, a full ecosystem, and a fully-integrated hardware/software tech stack designed specifically for virtual reality. It’s a system designed by a team of extremely passionate gamers, developers, and engineers to reimagine what gaming can be,” says the company.

    No word on whether or not the Oculus Rift will ship with its own platform to run the VR device, or if users will need a third-party system to run it – but “full ecosystem” sounds promising.

    Also no word on games or other software at ship time, just a promise to reveal more information in the weeks ahead. “In the weeks ahead, we’ll be revealing the details around hardware, software, input, and many of our unannounced made-for-VR games and experiences coming to the Rift,” says Oculus.

    Also no word on final price. Oculus has previously stated that it would like to keep it somewhere between $200 and $400.

    Above is what the first generation of Oculus Rift looks like. The company says it’s going to transform gaming, film, communications, and more. Communication? That’s likely Facebook’s hand in this. You knew it would be somewhere.

  • Facebook Is Making Virtual Reality Apps

    Facebook Is Making Virtual Reality Apps

    For those who feel they aren’t already immersed in the world of Facebook, the company is working on making the service a reality.

    Well, a virtual reality.

    According to Facebook head of product Chris Cox, the company is already building virtual reality versions of its apps. He made the announcement at the Code/Media conference, saying that the company is working on them, but Facebook virtual reality is a long way away.

    “We’re working on apps for VR,” he said. “You’ll do it. Beyoncé will do it…”, but it’ll “probably be a while.”

    Of course, this all makes sense considering Facebook’s recent buy of Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

    Though Zuckerberg promised that gaming would be front and center with the newly acquired VR technology, he did hint at his desire to build out the Oculus platform to focus on other uses:

    “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,” said Zuckerberg at the time of the acquisition.

    “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.”

    Oculus itself recently announced a bunch of new talent acquisitions.

    Image via Oculus

  • Ok, Who Gave Grandpa Virtual Reality Porn?

    Ok, Who Gave Grandpa Virtual Reality Porn?

    Virtual reality porn is sure to be the next big thing in personal entertainment, and the amount of it out there will only increase as the Oculus Rift (and similar technologies) permeate the market.

    But while it’s still a novel thing, it’s pretty funny to watch people react to viewing it for the first time.

    It’s especially funny when the people watching it for the first time are over 60.

    Blame Complex for this, which contains a couple of scenes you’ll be unable to remove from your brain. But hey, most of them had a good time and seem pretty thrilled about the future.

    “There were fat people, there were dwarves, and there was the animal of course.”

    Ok, Grandpa. I guess you don’t need virtual reality to have a good time.

    Image via Complex, YouTube screenshot

  • Facebook’s Oculus Bolsters Team With Acquisitions

    Facebook’s Oculus Bolsters Team With Acquisitions

    Oculus, the virtual reality company that Facebook recently acquired, announced some new acquisitions of its own in a bid to bring more talent to its team.

    The company has acquired Nimble VR (formerly 3Gear Systems) and 13th Lab, and has hired motion capture expert Chris Bregler. Oculus gives a little background on each:

    Nimble VR was founded in 2012 by Rob Wang, Chris Twigg, and Kenrick Kin. Since then, they’ve been developing machine learning and computer vision capabilities to enable high-quality, low-latency skeletal hand tracking, which has the potential to be part of a great VR user experience.

    The 13th Lab team has been focused on developing an efficient and accurate real-time 3D reconstruction framework. The ability to acquire accurate 3D models of the real-world can enable all sorts of new applications and experiences, like visiting a one-to-one 3D model of the pyramids in Egypt or the Roman Colosseum in VR.

    Chris is an expert in the motion capture space. His recent projects include visual tracking for The Lone Ranger and Star Trek Into Darkness movies, both of which were nominated for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

    All of these new members of the Oculus team will finish up with their respective existing projects before focusing on virtual reality full-time at Oculus.

    Image via Oculus

  • Facebook’s Oculus Ships DK2 Model, Partners With Samsung & Lets People Pilot A Jaeger

    Facebook’s Oculus Ships DK2 Model, Partners With Samsung & Lets People Pilot A Jaeger

    Oculus has been quite busy since its acquisition by Facebook closed earlier this week.

    For one, the second pre-release version of the Oculus Rift – the DK2 – started shipping. They were supposed to start shipping earlier this month, but software wasn’t ready on time.

    The devices have started shipping in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The company says it expects to have over 9,000 of them in developers’ hands by the end of next week.

    Oculus also released the new 0.4.0 SDK beta. In a blog post, the company wrote:

    As part of the new development kit release, we’ve published a major update to the SDK that allows developers to take full advantage of DK2. After over a year in development, this is the largest software release at Oculus yet.

    News is also out that Oculus is working with Samsung on a headset that uses mobile devices to create a virtual reality experience.

    Meanwhile, Oculus has a presence at Comic-Con, which includes letting people virtually pilot a Pacific Rim Jaeger.

    Image via YouTube

  • Star Trek Holodeck Becomes Reality With Oculus Rift, Results Are Impressive

    Star Trek Holodeck Becomes Reality With Oculus Rift, Results Are Impressive

    German scientists at the Max-Planch-Institute have created a way for us to experience the holodeck from Star Trek by using the wireless Oculus Rift. With this technology, the researchers were able to simulate travelling to different places around the world. It’s not quite as sophisticated as the Star Trek holodeck, but the results are impressive.

    Researchers placed several cameras throughout a 9.7 square-meter room. To experience the holodeck, test subjects had to wear markers that were able to track their position in the room to the nearest millimeter. The room had enough space for the subjects to wander around, and since the Oculus Rift is wireless, there wasn’t a hindrance from moving freely.

    Captain Picard gets excited about the new holodeck

    The markers used for the project are similar to those that are used in movies and games for motion capture purposes. The user is then given a virtual world where they can wander around. Unlike the Star Trek holodeck this technology does not yet allow users to interact with the virtual environment.

    One of the participants in the research said, “I got to try out the holodeck and the experience was crazy, really realistic.”

    Scientists explain how the holodeck technology works

    Since the space was limited, scientists had to improvise in order to give the illusion of a larger environment. When the user walks two feet, it will register as four feet in the virtual world. Researchers are also determining whether changing the user’s avatar size will make it appear as if the virtual world is larger.

    The holodeck experience does have its drawbacks. Users tend to become nauseous once they leave the virtual space, but the scientists are working to correct that problem. “I have to say I felt a little nauseous after I got a bit cocky in there; generally though you feel like you are there,” said one participant.

    The holodeck technology is still in its initial stages. There are no reports of it being available to the public anytime soon. However, knowing that there might be a possibility to experience a real holodeck is delightful, especially for Star Trek fans.

    Holodeck scene from Star Trek TV series

    Image via YouTube

  • Facebook Closes Oculus Acquisition

    Facebook Closes Oculus Acquisition

    Facebook has closed its acquisition of virtual reality technology makers Oculus VR. The deal gained FTC approval in April, and has now completed its final steps.

    The Wall Street Journal shares this statement from both companies:

    “We’re looking forward to an exciting future together, building the next computing platform and reimagining the way people communicate.”

    Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg had to say about the deal back in March:

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    Last month, Oculus made an acquisition of its own when it bought the team that designed the Xbox 360 controller.

    Let Facebook’s great virtual reality experiment begin!

    Image via OculusVR.com

  • Oculus Acquires the Team That Designed the Xbox 360 Controller

    Oculus Acquires the Team That Designed the Xbox 360 Controller

    The Facebook-owned Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift, have just announced the acquisition of Carbon Design, whom they call “one of the premier industrial design and product engineering teams in the country.”

    Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Oculus says that it should close later this summer.

    According to Oculus, the Carbon Design team will split their time between the Carbon studio in Seattle and the Oculus research and development offices in Redmond, WA.

    Although they are just announcing the acquisition now, Carbon Design has been working with Oculus on “multiple unannounced projects” for over a year.

    “A few seconds with the latest Oculus prototypes and you know that virtual reality is for real this time. From a design and engineering perspective, building the products that finally deliver consumer virtual reality is one of the most interesting and challenging problem sets ever,” said Carbon Design creative director Peter Bristol. “This is an entirely open product category. With consumer VR at its inception, the physical architectures are still unknown – We’re on the cutting edge of defining how virtual reality looks, feels, and functions.We’re incredibly excited to be part of the team and we’re looking forward to helping design the future.”

    The name Carbon Design might not rings any bells – but I guarantee you know their work. Among other things, Carbon Design is responsible for the look of the Xbox 360 controller, as well as the first-gen Kinect.

    Image via OculusVR.com

  • Facebook/Oculus Deal Gets FTC Approval

    Facebook/Oculus Deal Gets FTC Approval

    The Federal Trade Commission has given the thumbs up to the $2 billion deal which sees social media giant Facebook acquiring nascent virtual reality company Oculus VR.

    The U.S. regulatory agency granted the transaction, clearing it of any possible antitrust concerns.

    Facebook announced their intentions to purchase Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, late last month.

    “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,” said Zuckerberg at the time of the announcement.

    The deal was not met with celebration from early Oculus supporters, many of whom felt cheated. Oculus Rift was basically launched via a Kickstarter campaign, and many who donated their hard-earned money to the virtual reality device felt (and still feel, I’m sure), betrayed when the company sold out to Facebook–especially for such a hefty figure.

    Plus, all that jazz about “sharing” makes people nervous.

    In one of the more public displays of defiance, Notch famously canceled the idea of Minecraft on the Oculus Rift the day after Facebook announced the acquisition. The reason? Facebook simply “creeps” him out.

    Supporters of the deal argue that it would give Oculus a massive boost in resources to build their products.

    Like it or not, it’s happening. Oculus VR isn’t the only billions-dollar purchase Facebook has made in recent months. The company also acquired messaging company WhatsApp for $19 billion. WhatsApp just crossed the 500 million user mark.

    Image via OculusVR.com

  • Twitter Helmet Pecks at Google Glass, Facebook’s Oculus Buy

    Twitter Helmet Pecks at Google Glass, Facebook’s Oculus Buy

    In the jokiest, April Fools-y way possible, Twitter has fired some shots at immersive, wearable technology like Google Glass and even Oculus VR, which was recently acquired by “rival” Facebook. Oh no they di’int.

    Everyone has an April Fools’ joke to tell today. Google has a couple (per usual), Netflix has a video of a roasting chicken–it’s chaos, I tell you. Twitter’s April Fools’ joke was to announce a new product called the “Twitter Helmet,” which they describe as a “sophisticated, fully immersive, staggeringly high-resolution wearable device that allows our users to interact with the world around them entirely via a custom aviary interface.”

    Hah.

    All users have to do to tweet while wearing Twitter Helmet is to make a “pecking” motion.

    More from Twitter:

    The product will be available for purchase mid-September 2014 for $139.99 retail. In addition to the helmet, users can also purchase Twitter Helmet HD™ accessories including a hand-tooled leather case inspired by falconry hoods, feather-shaped Wi-Fi and cellular signal boosters, and a carbon fiber chinstrap with optional wattle-form factor microphone.

    $139.99? What a steal!

    You don’t have to read too far between the lines here to see that Twitter is poking fun at Google Glass. The joke is also a not-so-subtle jab at Facebook’s recent purchase of Oculus VR, whose flagship product is the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

    Good Morning America got in on the fun earlier today:

    Image via Good Morning America, Video Screenshot