Oculus
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Uber Advanced Technologies Group hires Oculus platform lead Jon Thomason
Uber’s Advanced Technology Group has hired Jon Thomason, who most recently acted as Head of Mobile and Product at Facebook’s Oculus virtual reality company. Thomason will lead ATG software teams across Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto, working on ATG’s advanced software projects, including autonomous driving and trucking. Read More
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Former Facebook brand marketing head is new Oculus CMO
A long-time Facebook brand marketing exec has been tapped to lead marketing efforts at Oculus. Rebecca Van Dyck will be joining the virtual reality team as CMO. Her challenge will be making the sell to consumers for the company’s current and future virtual reality products. Read More
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Facebook’s Andrew Bosworth is taking over the company’s consumer hardware efforts
Veteran Facebook exec Andrew “Boz” Bosworth is taking over consumer hardware efforts at the company, including projects under groups like Building 8 and Oculus. The announcement was made internally by Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, Business Insider reports. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the appointment to TechCrunch. Read More
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Samsung’s virtual reality strategy has an upgrade problem
Today, Samsung showed off its flagship Note 8, the device has a big, beautiful screen, the S Pen and a battery that’s a little bit smaller. The company also announced that there’s a new $130 Gear VR on the way that you’ll have to buy if you want to try Samsung’s brand of VR on the Note 8. What’s new over past models? Not much. Samsung has made several upgrades to… Read More
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HTC drops price of Vive by $200 as it looks to compete with Facebook’s aggressive VR pricing
Just as reality appears to be getting worse by the day, VR companies are doing the lord’s work and making the price of escaping it a bit more accessible. HTC is dropping the price of its Vive virtual reality system from $799 to $599 as the Taiwanese tech giant seeks to compete with aggressive price cuts coming from Facebook-owned Oculus and their Rift headset. At the beginning of the… Read More
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Vive Studios releases MakeVR Pro 3D modeling software for serious creatives
In the world of high-end virtual reality, the battle is to capture the larger subset of a niche market. For HTC, which makes the Vive headset, this task has become more difficult as significant price cuts (some temporary) from Facebook’s Oculus have left HTC selling comparable hardware at double the price ($799 vs. $399). Though price cuts may be inevitable, for HTC their main focus has… Read More
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Oculus updates its Home platform to play nice with Steam purchases
Oculus may be aiming to become the content power house of virtual reality, but it’s still making efforts to play nice with other ecosystems. In a new update rolling out today for PCs, Oculus has added support for launching off-platform titles, meaning most critically, that gamers will be able to access all the available Rift-compatible apps and games in-headset without having to… Read More
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New border wall bill draws on Palmer Luckey’s new defense company
After being ousted from the VR empire he built, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is wasting no time on his next project: building the wall. As CNN reports, Luckey’s newfound interest in defense is evident in the Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology (SMART) Act, proposed by Texas Representative Will Hurd. Read More
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Embody an 80s family robot in Funny or Die’s feature-length VR flick ‘Miyubi’
In VR, we’re all robots, but some experiences make that a bit more apparent than others. Today, Oculus is releasing a VR comedy called “Miyubi.” The experience, produced by Funny or Die and Felix & Paul Studios, is the longest VR narrative to be funded by Oculus to date, clocking in at around 40 minutes. Read More
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Marvel is bringing its superheroes to VR with a new Oculus-exclusive game
The Incredible Hulk and some of his other box office money-grabbing super pals will be coming to the world of virtual reality. Marvel Powers United VR, announced at Disney’s D23 event on Saturday, will allow players a chance to step into the shoes of some familiar heroes as they destroy lots of stuff in VR. Read More
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Facebook really can’t decide how much VR should cost
On the heels of a temporary $200 price cut, today Facebook’s Oculus has announced that the Rift and Touch will be receiving a permanent $100 price cut, bringing the bundled price of the virtual reality system down to $499 once the summer sale is over. The company has also announced that it will now be bundling the two products in a single package. Read More
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Oculus reportedly planning $200 standalone wireless VR headset for 2018
Facebook is set to reveal a standalone Oculus virtual reality headset later this year, Bloomberg reports, with a ship date of sometime in 2018. The headset will work without requiring a tethered PC or smartphone, according to the report, and will be branded with the Oculus name around the world, except in China, where it’ll carry Xiaomi trade dress and run some Xiaomi software. Read More
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Oculus Rift and Touch controllers on sale for $399 through summer
The best current hardware experience for VR is also now one of the most affordable: Oculus Rift and the Oculus Touch Controllers are reduced to just $399 for both for the remainder of the summer, or the next six weeks. The deal brings the Rift and Touch Controllers to price parity with the PlayStation VR, and undercuts significantly the HTC Vive. The pricing isn’t permanent, but… Read More
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Palmer Luckey backs development of VR tool that lets HTC Vive users play Oculus exclusives
The rift between Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey and the company he left earlier this year appears to be growing wider. Luckey is putting some of the money he made from Facebook buying his VR company to ensure that users of a different VR headset can play the exclusive titles that Facebook is funding. Read More
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Facebook announces dates for its Oculus Connect 4 conference
Facebook’s Oculus is returning to San Jose on October 11-12 this year to share some news about the future of VR at the company’s Oculus Connect 4 developers conference. Facebook has slowly been bringing the Oculus name and leadership under its own core brand. With the amount of VR news popping up at F8, some wondered whether Oculus Connect’s days were numbered. Apparently not. Read More
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Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is developing border surveillance technology
Last time we heard from Palmer Luckey, the one-time poster boy for VR, he was quietly ousted from Facebook after a $100,000 donation to a pro-Trump “shitposting” group came to light. Now Luckey, who sold his VR company Oculus to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, is back, and his new company is concerned with national security. Read More
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Walmart is bringing VR instruction to all of its U.S. training centers
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will soon be using virtual reality to help train its employees on topics like management and customer service. VR instruction will be used at each of the retailer’s 200 “Walmart Academy” training centers in the U.S. by the end of the year, helping educate the estimated 150,000 employees that will go through the program each year. Read More
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Oculus adds Chromecast streaming support for the Gear VR
Oculus is still trying to show people what virtual reality is like when they aren’t the ones wearing the headsets. In March, the company introduced Facebook live-streaming to the platform, and today, the company is making it even easier for you to locally share your experiences inside the Gear VR with those around you thanks to added support for Google Chromecast. The Chromecast support… Read More
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Facebook shutters Oculus Story Studio original VR content division
Virtual reality may be in desperate need of some content, but Facebook’s Oculus will now be focusing its efforts on investing in rather than creating virtual reality. Oculus VP of Content Jason Rubin announced today that the company will shut down its award-winning cinematic VR division, Oculus Story Studio. Read More
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