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element14's community on Oculus Rift and Facebook

Catwell

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Oculus Rift, inside and outside (via ifixit & pcworld)

 

We have all heard the news, Facebook makes a surprising buy of 3D VR goggle company Oculus VR, Inc. A kickstarter $2.4M super-success that sparked virtual reality dreams globally.

 

The Facebook buy out comes with fears of non-gaming focus for the headset. Or even that it will never reach commercial sales.

 

For all of you; sound off on what you think this deal means to you. Do they now have funding to make it all happen? Or is this the death knell of the concept? Or, just worried about John Carmack?

 

C

http://twitter.com/Cabe_Atwell

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    Hi Cabe,

     

    I'm not sure, is this the first hardware-related acquisition that FB have made? It may be that they just want some technology knowledge related to video, especially since they have What'sApp - maybe they want to video enable that too.

    Or, they may want some expertise in the area of interfacing to hardware devices for remote FB displays, e.g. wearables tech.

    So, they may not be interested in the original application of Oculus, but just rapidly wanted bits of technology.

    Personally I don't think it is a big loss for the gaming community if FB do nothing further with it, because from an electronic

    h/w standpoint the Oculus was a very simple design (an LCD screen and sensors). There was some mechanical design and

    optics, but possibly nothing others couldn't replicate given time. From a software standpoint I'm not sure, but hopefully the gaming

    companies they may have been working with may still have knowledge of the technology, or maybe some other clauses in their licenses to allow them to continue. If anything, I guess Jeri Ellsworth's CastAR sounds more interesting anyway, and could benefit from this news.

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  • 0

    Hi Cabe,

     

    I'm not sure, is this the first hardware-related acquisition that FB have made? It may be that they just want some technology knowledge related to video, especially since they have What'sApp - maybe they want to video enable that too.

    Or, they may want some expertise in the area of interfacing to hardware devices for remote FB displays, e.g. wearables tech.

    So, they may not be interested in the original application of Oculus, but just rapidly wanted bits of technology.

    Personally I don't think it is a big loss for the gaming community if FB do nothing further with it, because from an electronic

    h/w standpoint the Oculus was a very simple design (an LCD screen and sensors). There was some mechanical design and

    optics, but possibly nothing others couldn't replicate given time. From a software standpoint I'm not sure, but hopefully the gaming

    companies they may have been working with may still have knowledge of the technology, or maybe some other clauses in their licenses to allow them to continue. If anything, I guess Jeri Ellsworth's CastAR sounds more interesting anyway, and could benefit from this news.

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