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from the 0.1053-What's-Apps-worth-of-stock dept.
Several community members have commented on Facebook's purchase of Oculus VR...
Techwolf writes, "There is news spreading all over the net about Facebook buying up Occulus Rift. Some cheer, some are jeering as kickstarters backers felt betrayed along with open source folks."
Ethanol-fueled writes:
Some of you may have already heard of the Oculus Rift, the kickstarted VR headset platform associated with John Carmack. Earlier today, social networking giant Facebook purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion in cash and stock (chump change compared to the $19 billion it paid for WhatsApp) with plans not so much for VR-gaming, but for VR-real-life...
"Facebook sees VR as a way to join a virtual community from the comfort of your own home and feel like you're really there. Whether you're taking a class, seeing a concert, or checking out the sights in an unfamiliar city..."And from this article:
"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." Sounds interesting, but all are not thrilled. Minecraft creator Notch broke off a previous engagement with Oculus after he found out, saying that Facebook "creeped him out."
Perhaps the most surprising bit of news itself buried in those articles is that John Carmack now works for Facebook. Who knew?
Jaruzel writes, "From PR Newswire, 'Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow. Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate,' said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Is this the end of Oculus? Will the Rift be forever consigned to Farmville style web games? Does this news help or hinder Sony and their Project Morpheus VR headset?"
Shub writes, "The company is expected to continue to develop technology aimed at the games industry, although Facebook plans to bring it to new markets. Irish Time's Link"
Lagg writes, "I'm personally fuming, but could the inevitable backlash lead to better things in the long term? Perhaps encouraging competition in this emerging market?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday March 25 2014, @11:52PM
A company that has nothing to do with gaming, no experience with gaming, no experience with open source, and really only has experience in purchasing companies that do.
While Facefuck has yet to totally trash a company yet, this does not bode well for state of the art VR gaming.
VR-Life?
Yeah. We all know what Facefuck wants. For us to be running around with something akin to Google Glass and they can get all those juicy data points.
Seriously. I bet they even said it in the meetings, "We will be able to sell targeted ads and display them directly on people's eyeballs without them having the ability to turn it off!"
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday March 26 2014, @12:06AM
Don't worry. When Zynga gets their hands on this, you are going to be AMAZED at the realism of your cows in OculusVille.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @04:59AM
Hmmm... was about to mod this '+1 Funny', but realized that I'm crying inside...
Sincerely,
Mod
(Score: 4, Informative) by Lunix Nutcase on Wednesday March 26 2014, @12:08AM
Facebook has no experience with open source? Then how do you explain: https://github.com/facebook?tab=repositories [github.com]
There is lots to complain about Facebook but they've released and contributed lots of OSS.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday March 26 2014, @12:27AM
Well there's a phrase I didn't expect would ever upset anybody.
Slashdolt logic: 1600 x 1200 > 1920 x 1200