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Facebook Social Networks Hardware

Facebook Announces $199 Oculus Go Standalone VR Headset (variety.com) 86

Posted by msmash from the cheap,-mass-production dept.
Facebook is going to ship a standalone VR headset called Oculus Go next year. The headset, which won't require a PC or phone to run, will be available early next year for $199. From a report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg officially announced the new product during his keynote speech at Facebook's fourth Oculus Connect virtual reality (VR) developer conference in San Jose, Calif. Wednesday, where he framed the device as an important step towards bringing VR to the masses. "We want to get a billion people in virtual reality," Zuckerberg said. Facebook VP of VR Hugo Barra said that the company developed custom lenses for the headset, which allow for a wide field of view. The display is a fast-switch LCD screen with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels, and it comes with integrated headphones. The company will be shipping first headsets to developers in November.
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Facebook Announces $199 Oculus Go Standalone VR Headset More

Facebook Announces $199 Oculus Go Standalone VR Headset

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  • So it's virtual reality, but we'll need to log on with our real names?

    Why would Zuckerberg ever want us to log out of Facebook to enter a 'virtual reality?'

    It sounds a lot more like it would be 'Augmented Reality' with Facebook in charge of the augmenting. Which is kinda chilling, if you think about it very long.

    • Why would Zuckerberg ever want us to log out of Facebook to enter a 'virtual reality?'

      So we can go on virtual tours of weather-torn 3rd world countries [fortune.com], in hopes that we'll be so grief-stricken, we'll send aid to help, using Facebook [techcrunch.com], of course.

      • virtual tours of weather-torn 3rd world countries

        And yes, I know Puerto Rico is a US territory and not a 3rd world country. I used this phrase as an example of where Facebook's VR is going...

    • Even slashdot, by the nature of AC posts vs logged-in posts, has shown that when people feel anonymous they are more likely to be assholes. It would be fine with me if Real Names were optional, but I was able to completely block anyone not using theirs.

      • It would be fine with me if Real Names were optional

        Unless Facebook has become a lot more intrusive than they were, real names are totally optional. What's not allowed are names that don't sound real.

  • Missing the Mark (Score:4, Insightful)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @01:52PM (#55350911) Homepage Journal

    Unfortunately Zuck doesn't seem to understand what we want VR for, and what it was created for. We want to play our current games in VR. That's all. We don't want it to become a walled garden like the Occulus store. We don't want it for social media. We only want it as a display, nothing more. I don't see why all this money is being blown to make it into something people don't want.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mdm-adph ( 1030332 )

      Who's this "we?" You're not the target audience for this, nor ever will be. This is for the masses of people who gets their news on Facebook and spend 5+ hours a day there refreshing their feeds. Once they start getting blasted by ads for this thing, they'll start buying them up, especially since someone wearing a VR headset is a perfect captured audience for more ads.

    • Re:Missing the Mark (Score:4, Informative)

      by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @02:09PM (#55351037) Homepage Journal

      You do not have to buy all your games from from Oculus store. You can get games from Steam or other places. All you need to do is go into Oculus settings and check "Allow 3rd party apps"

    • I want VR for looking at 360 videos/streaming. I find it much more immersive than a standard 2D photograph/video. Some kind of Facebook where people could share that stuff would be awesome. I'm not opposed to the idea of VR games or some kind of VR Second Life, but that's not what particularly interests me, either.

      The controllers do seem game-focused, so maybe you will get your wish. Just don't confuse what you want with what everybody interested in VR wants.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > We want to play our current games in VR.

      That's not happening. Full room VR games are limited to stations and teleporting. You won't be able to walk/run through a large map like Skyrim.

      It works quite well for sit-down games like racing games or flight simulators, but neither are the dominate genres.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      The Rift isn't a walled garden. Most Steam games are compatible, you can freely develop on it, run free software, use WebVR, etc... You also don't need a Facebook account.
      The store itself is not open but you don't need to use it. In fact, with everything else being equal, it is recommended to buy your games on Steam, this way, if you get another compatible headset (like the Vive), you can still play your game.
      As for playing our current games in VR, it is not that simple. VR require a specific control scheme

  • If your goal is to look like a complete dork, do wear your VR goggles in public. Even better if you indulge in spastic movements of your hands, in your attempts to interact with the virtual world.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 )

      All the drones walking around with earbuds are creepy enough. Especially the ones talking to themselves.

    • Re: For dorks world over (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you care how you look in such situations you a shallow prick.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kwoff ( 516741 )
      When mobile/cell phones started becoming...popular (? enough that I saw them), I thought it was really weird. Someone would be walking down the street talking to themselves. It's normal now (though I still think it's weird. Then again, I'm a programmer who's never owned a smart phone, heh.)

  • Since Zuckerberg wants to be viewed as working for the betterment of mankind, how does this fit in:

    "We want to get a billion people in virtual reality,"

    I get that they'd want that in order to further their profits, but how would widespread adoption of OR make the world at large better?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 )

      The more money he has, the better the world is.....for him.

    • More people living in virtual reality means fewer crowding up the real world. If you can get them hooked young, then they'll be taken out of the gene pool before reproducing. These both seem like improvement to me.

  • No positional tracking makes it just another way to watch 360 video.

    • Where does it say that?

      • Re:Not VR (Score:5, Informative)

        by JohnFen ( 1641097 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @03:20PM (#55351611)

        From TFA:

        Oculus Go will ship with a handheld controller and work with the same apps available on Samsung’s Gear VR headset. However, it won’t have any positional tracking, which means that high-end VR apps available on the Oculus Rift headset won’t run on the device.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qzzpjs ( 1224510 )

      No, they can still build an entire virtual environment for you in the glasses and still do simple games. They just can't track if you're walking around your room. Some Oculus games now work by looking at a marker for 5 seconds to move to other places or move your head around to steer. That controller could help for navigation as well.

  • "We want to get a billion people in virtual reality,"

    Zuckerberg says that and I get a bit nervous.
    • "We want to get a billion people in virtual reality," And, you know, let them out occasionally in exchange for a modest fee.

  • I don't get it. What can a VR headset do without a computer or phone to power it? It needs to get its input from *somewhere*, right? Or are they going to stream the data to the device over the internet like video? I think one would need a truly exceptional connection for that to be remotely usable. Or is this device going to have its own CPU and actually run software on the device itself?

  • What would be the software availability?
    My Steam library has around 200 games, out of which exactly three have VR support.
    I am not interested in VR tech demos (like those 5 minute "spiders everywhere" games) nor VR porn (can't for the life of me get used to looking down and seeing a differently colored dick).

  • I love my Rift (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Thyamine ( 531612 )
    I built a gaming rig specifically so I could get the Oculus Rift this year. I love it. Almost everyone who tries it is amazed and loves it (my mom seemed somehow completely unimpressed). Since I purchased it, any new games are specifically for it. My poor consoles are languishing for any love at all. I don't see this headset competing against a Rift setup, which more or less people have already reported it will be equivalent to a smart phone, however I can see that once people get a taste of it, they m

    • Almost everyone who tries it is amazed and loves it (my mom seemed somehow completely unimpressed).

      I found it to be pretty cool, but I have no urge to own one.

  • They're probably iris scanners or something creepy like that. Don't forget to turn your microphone off.

  • This is all rather rich after the preaching from Oculus people about quality and deepest fears of proliferation of cheap knockoffs that suck and get everyone sick poisoning the well of public opinion.

    After all that here Oculus is directly releasing VR gear lacking positional tracking where any head movement translates into the wearer instantly feeling like shit.

    I happen to really get a kick out of VR. I'll spend hours on coaster simulators, playing descent, flying spaceships and doing crazy stunts that wou

    • This is all rather rich after the preaching from Oculus people about quality and deepest fears of proliferation of cheap knockoffs that suck and get everyone sick poisoning the well of public opinion.

      OR's problem is the VR market is tiny, and they're getting beaten in it by their competitors. I'm guessing that they recognize that they have to take some sort of action to change that, and that they think they can't win market share if they keep going toe-to-toe on the high end.

  • So this one must REALLY spy on you and record your voice and show ads and track you via GPS and probably process your entire DNA profile and sell it to your health insurance company. I don't trust Facebook. Nobody trusts Facebook. At this point the damn thing will probably have paid loot boxes and microtransactions.

    • Nobody trusts Facebook.

      Facebook has more than 2 billion active users. So it appears that 2 billion people trust them.

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