After canceling ‘Rift 2’ overhaul, Oculus plans a modest update to flagship VR headset

Facebook’s virtual reality arm may soon find itself in the unfamiliar position of playing catch-up with hardware competitors. Last week, TechCrunch reported that Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe had decided to leave Facebook partially due to his “fundamentally different views on the future of Oculus” and decisions surrounding the cancellation of a next-generation “Rift 2” project. […]

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Facebook confirms it’s building augmented reality glasses

“Yeah! Well of course we’re working on it,” Facebook’s head of augmented reality Ficus Kirkpatrick told me when I asked him at TechCrunch’s AR/VR event in LA if Facebook was building AR glasses. “We are building hardware products. We’re going forward on this . . . We want to see those glasses come into reality, […]

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Oculus co-founder is leaving Facebook after cancellation of ‘Rift 2’ headset

Brendan Iribe, the co-founder and former CEO of Oculus, announced today that he is leaving Facebook, TechCrunch has learned. Iribe is leaving Facebook following some internal shake-ups in the company’s virtual reality arm last week that saw the cancellation of the company’s next generation “Rift 2” PC-powered virtual reality headset, which he had been leading […]

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Facebook rolls out 3D photos that use AI to simulate depth

What if you could peek behind what’s in your photos, like you’re moving your head to see what’s inside a window? That’s the futuristic promise of Facebook 3D photos. After announcing the feature at F8 in May, Facebook is now rolling out 3D photos to add make-believe depth to your iPhone portrait mode shots. Shoot one, […]

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Hands-on with Oculus Quest, Facebook’s best shot at a mainstream VR device

Most mobile VR headsets have left me with the impression of, “well… you have to start somewhere,” but after spending some time with Facebook’s newly-announced Oculus Quest, it’s clear that the standalone hardware is far less caged by its limitations and has a lot to offer as what is clearly the company’s most balanced consumer […]

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Facebook poisons the acquisition well

Who should you sell your startup to? Facebook and the founders of its former acquisitions are making a strong case against getting bought by Mark Zuckerberg and Co. After a half-decade of being seen as one of the most respectful and desired acquirers, a series of scandals has destroyed the image of Facebook’s M&A division. That […]

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At Oculus Connect keynote, original co-founders absent onstage

As Facebook execs took to the stage during the opening keynote for the company’s VR-focused Oculus Connect 5 conference, one thing was clearly missing, the founding team that had built the virtual reality startup Facebook bought for $2 billion in 2014. None of the five original OculusVR co-founders took to the stage at the company’s […]

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Star Wars: Vader Immortal is a virtual reality game coming in 2019

Few properties seem better suited to tap VR than Star Wars, if only because… you know, lightsabers. And Lucasfilm knows it. They’ve just announced Star Wars: Vader Immortal — a three part, at-home experience that’ll launch on Oculus’ just announced standalone Quest headset. Alas, there’s not much to go on besides the name, a quick […]

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Oculus Hybrid Apps let you use 2D & 3D software simultaneously in VR

Oculus showed off the future of working in VR today. Rather than just splaying out 2D software on an infinite desktop, the new Oculus Hybrid Apps system lets you see both 2D screens and 3D models in VR at the same time. That means you could use a traditional image editing suite to change the […]

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