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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#821

Post by cryoshon »

hsod wrote: post #304
saraid216 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine a 10 year high school reunion that exists not in the old gymnasium, but in a virtual space where you can catch up with them. And you offer one of them a hug and then pause and realize, "Oh yeah. I'm just sitting at home by myself again. Just like high school." > Imagine sitting in the front row of the next presidential debate, where you can see the sweat forming on the candidate's brow under the lights. You…

> And now I have no hope for American democracy. It is dead. I know HN has a natural tendency towards wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I don't understand this reaction at all. Why would watching a debate from a virtual auditorium be any worse for democracy than watching it on TV? Sometimes it feels like comment threads on here are secret competitions to see who can have the most extreme negative reaction.

The real joke here is equating watching the debates with American democracy.

Almost nobody watches the debates, and if they do, it really doesn't matter, because they're constructed to be a mere smokescreen designed to sound good while committing to less than a gust of wind in the autumn.

Remember the last however many SOTU addresses where we were promised change and reform to our ever-crumbling empire?

Remember all the things that have changed for the better?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#822

Post by jcnnghm »

froo wrote: post #377
hack_edu wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Oculus is not a service, just a technology; one that has no relation (nor clear route to one) to any Facebook-held product. Exactly. This is what diversification is all about. At it's core, Facebook is now a public technology company, which means that creating value for its shareholders is it's primary focus. Buying something that looks like it might be a big deal before it becomes a big deal is doing that. Killing…

Diversification at the corporate level isn't a good idea. Investors typically demand a discount (the conglomerate discount) for diversified corporations because they can easily diversify themselves by holding a variety of securities. Imagine an investor that values social networks highly, but who doesn't care for VR. They'll view this as a distraction from the core business, leading to a discount of the core business and an even greater discount of the VR portion. Diversification makes companies harder to analyze and reduces management focus, and has the tendency to depress both earnings and value.

There are some exceptions around market inefficiency, for example in the case of emerging markets where companies are difficult to manage and finance, but those are becoming less common, not more. I think there may be an argument that the market inefficiency caused by the extra reporting requirements imposed by SOX is causing more companies to go public by way of acquisition instead of IPO, but I haven't really seen clear data on that point.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#823

Post by SixSigma »

72deluxe wrote: post #727
SixSigma wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a minor shareholder in Facebook, there will be an Xbox tie in at some point.

Hopefully Sony will join in somehow and their "roll-on deodorant" sensor for gaming that involves waving your arms around will be joined with a massive headset. I don't see how sitting with a massive hat on can be considered great gaming. Perhaps I will go outside and enjoy the sunshine.

I've already owned a vr headset back when it was 320x240 screens. It is pretty good but gives you neckache after a while. Judging trajectories is better, playing Team Fortress and Everquest in full 3d was really cool. But neckache.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#825

Post by amitagrawal »

debt wrote: post #296
incision wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Oh come on -- this is just ridiculous. They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects." Honest question, do you have anything to base this idea that of "many many more times the resources" on? Have any companies been acquired by FB and immediately gone about pushing the envelope in ways that don't strictly line up the existing business…

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…

Maybe the only thing common between Instagram and Oculus is the investor (Andreessen) and the acquirer (FB)..oh and that Mark Andreessen was a board member during both the acquisitions!

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#826

Post by crpatino »

72deluxe wrote: post #721
anon4 wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you do face-to-face if both of you have giant goggles strapped to your faces?

That's made me laugh, thanks! "You look really good today!" "Thanks! Nice goggles!" At least if Google bought them, they would have had Google Goggles. The mind boggles at the goggles, it gives me the giggles.

So what? Now they will have Facebook Faces? creepy....

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#827

Post by sukuriant »

s3r3nity wrote: post #295
sukuriant wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because people here are less likely to actively avoid Google. We use it for our search engine, and some of us for App Engine and Google Drive, or for our phones. More people avoid Facebook for privacy reasons, etc.

> More people avoid Facebook for privacy reasons, etc. The fact that you admit deep deep use of Google and trust them with all your data tells me that there's a bit of naïveté in terms of Google & privacy (as if you're getting more privacy in one vs. the other.)

It's true. Personally, I don't want yet-another-company to have my information. There's that; and there's the whole thing around how Google doesn't have a track record of forgetting your privacy settings when they do an update to their services.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#828

Post by Mz »

Taylorious wrote: post #533
Mz wrote: post #72

Someone shared this with me with the words "RIP Oculus." Can the megacorps please stop eating our young? Microsoft has a terrible history of buying up companies and then killing the project for some reason. Posterous got bought (I don't recall by whom) and killed. These big companies tend to not develop this stuff. They just eat it.

I don't think it's fair to blame the megacorps and not the companies that are selling out. All these startups talk a good game about being cutting edge, disruptive, a passionate place to work etc. but it's all BS. Engineers work their asses off working on something they believe in and the minute some megacorp waves a big check in front of the founders they sell out. They might be passionate about their product but th…

My comment elsewhere in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469426

Not justifying it. Just saying if you are David, Goliath can be awfully hard to stand up to, psychologically, especially if Goliath is offering you money rather than looking to kill you (even though, long term, the result may be the death of your company).

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#829

Post by chad_c »

prawn wrote: post #613

From mid-2013 after Series A investment: 'Also, the plan is still to stay an independent company... not sell to a big fish like Sony, the way Iribe's former employer Gaikai did last June. "We want to stay independent and get to the consumer market, realizing VR the way we really think it needs to be done, and we don't need to take any shortcuts to get there," declares Iribe, adding that his new venture capital bosses…

I'm not sure what your source is, but I did find a similar statement from Iribe:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/17/4439608/oculus-series-a-fu...

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#830

Post by savethejets »

OedipusRex wrote: post #59

From the people who brought you Doom and Facebook... This could go either way, Facebook could leave it on the path it was on and just act as a parent company and the Oculus will be as awesome as we had hoped it would be. Or Facebook brands itself all over the Oculus, closes it down to Facebook's proprietary software and opens it up to ads, killing what some view as the catalyst of the VR bump recently, then Sony take…

Regardless of how this goes with Facebook's meddling, developers have left the platform.

Ask Ouya what happens when no one is developing for your hardware...

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