from that:
And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition.
I have the greatest respect for the talented engineers and developers at Oculus. It’s been a long time since I met a more dedicated and talented group of people. I understand this is purely a business deal, and I’d like to congratulate both Facebook and the Oculus owners. But this is where we part ways.
Have they solved sickness issues associated with Facebook yet?
This is seriously the most horrible thing I have heard in months. Facebook is the LAST company that could curate the creation of cool VR experiences that could be transformative for the wider world. I feel like Oculus just took a shit in the mouths of all their kickstarter supporters and the community that has given them so much support from the start. I’m ashamed I have been telling people to buy them. This is a sad day for community funded projects that make it big.
Question: how would people be reacting if google bought them instead of facebook? (apart from just merging them into google glass)
Right - fat load of good this is going to do to the transformative Kickstarter type movement. Smells engineered by the Wall St financiers who pwned Zuckerschmuck,
Google I’m a little more OK with. They’ve at least had some mildly successful hardware stuff and have shown they can think really big with regards to new technology. I would greatly prefer that they IPO’d, though.
Agreed. An IPO as an independent hardware provider would have been ideal. sigh
now that’s a first world problem
Four words I’ve never wanted to hear:
Carmack works for Zuckerberg.
I’m not so sure Facebook is so far off in terms of interactivity for webcams if that’s how they are thinking. This actually reminded me of something Jaron Lanier had written a while back:
http://www.jaronlanier.com/cocodexintro/lanier01sciam.pdf
Still, I get the feeling this is more like a “Windows 8” moment for Facebook. We want games, not teleconferencing and privacy violations!
This is a lousy news. A promising tech will go a less than promising way under that smug-faced bastard.
With a little luck it may not entirely “zuck”, though. It is basically a bunch of sensors, off-the-shelf displays and some optics. Should not be too difficult to interface with, whoever you are.
Let’s remember Kinect was Microsoft-exclusive as well, until somebody reverse-engineered the protocol and now there’s a lot of robotic (and other) stuff using it. Also a case of good tech in lousy hands; that one ended as a good tech available to play with, and hopefully the Oculus’s case will be the same.
Hope Zucker will not screw up the hardware. That matters the most.
I think fb really overvalues itself as anything more than a place to make stupid comments and share pictures. Nobody cares about their targeted marketing outside of those making the money. I bet this falls flat just like every other VR helmet that’s even been attempted. People don’t want to strap that clunky thing to their head.
I halfway agree. With the Facebook half, to be specific.
I did not have personal experience with the hardware yet, but based on what I heard so far it may be finally the VR helmet iteration that gets things right. The earlier attempts had one or more of show stoppers - low resolution, low framerate, lousy tracking, high cost. This one has a good chance. And a well-working VR is a paradigm shifter in many areas, from gaming to scientific visualisations to telepresence including remote vehicle control and virtual tourism.
I have never been able to figure out why anyone makes any money from internet advertising - 20 years and I have never clicked on, or really paid any attention to, an ad on the internet.
Oh hell no. I used it for five minutes and had to go sit down for ten.
Then The Zuck would just buy enough shares and get what he wants anyway. The system is rigged.
Volume!
Oculus VR sold 60,000 copies of its first development kit.
Analysts claim that there would have to be 1m units sold before mainstream game devs get on board. If they can sell 6% of that figure to devs in the first round, I think we’re in pretty good shape for 1m to happen.
Did you hear that yesterday a “court” in Egypt sentenced 500 people to death in a mass trial?
It’s a little more horrible and it happened yesterday.
Oh, I have. But that was on Amazon and, you know, I was already looking for books. I didn’t go to Amazon because of an ad, I was at Amazon specifically to view their ads.
