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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that is the mentality that's killing companies.

> Now that is the mentality that's killing companies. So Paul Graham selling Viaweb to Yahoo and starting Y Combinator is an example of "killing companies"?

What's Viaweb?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect Carmack is the sort of guy to say "fuck your golden handcuffs, I'd rather work on interesting problems". If it turns bad he'd go.

I expect he will have a similar situation that Ray Kurzweil has at Google.

Ray Kurzweil was hired by Google's current management to work at Google. How is this in any way analogous to Carmack's situation at Oculus, now Facebook?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my first reaction as well, however we have to remember Carmack is there. I am confident that he will not let original spirit of Rift die. I am sure you will be able to use Rift without Facebook account and device will be quite hackable. In any case, I think we should wait and see what Facebook does before crying foul.

What has "too long, didn't read" come to mean nowadays? Your dl:dr version is not significantly shorter than the 2 lines above and it is also not a summary.

Good point, edited the post.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#396

As a game developer that's interested in doing some work with the Oculus, I could see this going one of two ways: 1) Facebook could stay hands off, giving the company the company the breathing room and capital to absolutely revolutionize gaming, and then on to other fields. 2) Oculus as a "communication platform" is attempted too soon and the core team is drawn away working on pet projects resulting in a drastic lack…

Sorry to have to ask, but which was the GAE thread? I tried searching for it and havent found it. A link or the rough title regarding it would be helpful - thanks!

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#398

Palmer Luckey (founder of Oculus VR) just wrote a statement[0] on the Oculus subreddit: "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…

Wow. He is getting demolished there.

Can't say I'm surprised. Mentioning "Facebook" and "open" twice.... champions even!

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#399
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram has been allowed to go at their own pace since they've been acquired. Parse, also, has essentially gone on it's own and created things at it's own pace. It seems they're having the same attitude with Whatsapp. I assume, especially with Carmack coming over, that FB will be extremely hands-off with the base technology behind the rift. Facebook is an engineering company; in the way it's run and with what it pu…

Yes, but Instagram and Parse are services that fall within Facebook's major product area and have teams with related experience to Facebook's daily operations. Oculus is not a service, just a technology; one that has no relation (nor clear route to one) to any Facebook-held product.

I believe this acquisition was also a play to acquire more engineering talent. Through this acquisition they acquired John Carmack which is a fairly famous engineer amongst the tech community. That component alone strikes me as an incredibly awesome PR move in terms of recruitment.

As far as I'm concerned Facebook is the only competitor to Google at this point. Facebook is just trying to keep pace. I assume they're going to do many awesome things in the near future that aren't necessarily aligned with their current business model in order to keep up that pace.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#400
post #6

The reason why people haven't commented yet because we can't find the words. I have no immediate idea what can FB do with Oculus VR, even if I read Zuck's comments.

Best early random guess is this is defensive against Google Glass. Basically the world is going to stay mobile but the form factor will move from phones to glasses. FB won't be caught lagging this time (like they did from Web to Mobile).

right, that's why pure software companies now need to get into hardware, just like, erm, who exactly? do they want to be the next apple?

hardware is such a different skill and mindset than software, it's not even funny.

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