Facebook Hires Hugo Barra, Former Android VP and Public Face of Xiaomi, To Head Oculus

Facebook has hired Hugo Barra, the most prominent global executive at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, to lead its virtual reality business including the Oculus unit, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said. "Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. They'll enable us to experience completely new things," Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook.

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[Anonymous Coward]

"...They'll enable us to experience completely new things,"

Let's hope that Facebooks investments will enable them to contribute more than feeding rampant narcissism via the worlds largest social media platform.

Re: Yaba-Daba-Doooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thread closed. Nuff said.

Did they fire that snotty kid

[Master5000]

that made the front page of that magazine? What was his name... Can't be bothered to look him up. Oculus is a fad for the foreseeable future. I can't believe that guys like Carmack and Michael Abrash bought into it, must've been paid a lot of money. There is no market adoption, everybody says wow for the first 5 minutes and then proceeds to not use it. Most people who bought one aren't using it anymore and it's siting there gathering dust. Also, most PCs aren't powerful enough to really run VR. Also, most games suck. A lot of money invested for embarrassing returns. Wonder what the consequences will be like. Hopefully some asses will get fired for these decisions.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[monkeyxpress]

Palmer Lucky. I disagree with you that it is a fad. I think there are some pretty interesting uses for the tech. Having tried one, there is a odd sense of immersion that you don't get from other forms of media, and it seems to work pretty well for simulation games (racing etc). However, you're right that it's pretty overblown with hype, as is anything tech related these days.

Personally, I simply think the tech is not ready yet. We need much higher resolution/refresh rate screens, and a huge increase in computing power for a much reduced price. Think Apple Newton vs iPhone - the ideas were similar, the tech just wasn't where it needed to be yet. It's probably going to be another decade before the computing power gets there, and by then I think the screen situation will take care of itself.

I don't think it is unreasonable to believe it could eventually grow into a decent sized market. But, a bit like Facebook, I think this idea that people are going to spend their lives in VR, or even that people outside of gaming and professional applications will use it, is a bit silly.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[iMadeGhostzilla]

VR has no overwhelming benefits that justify the radically different physical behavior to use it, in my opinion. They say it only needs a killer app, but I think any platform that needed a killer app has never found one. Killer app is what drives the design of the platform.

I tried Gear VR, it was unforgettable, like I was in someone else's dream, and it wasn't pleasant. And I was big on VR in the 90s. If there is a killer app for VR, it's scifi stories, but you don't need hardware for it.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[JMZero]

If all you've tried is GearVR, you haven't tried modern VR in any meaningful way - it's garbage. Really. Find someone with a proper computer and a Vive.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[Stormwatch]

Also, most PCs aren't powerful enough to really run VR.

Well, that's a given: you need more power to run any game as VR, because a good VR experience requires higher resolution and framerate than regular gaming.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[iMadeGhostzilla]

I assumed it was, and still couldn't imagine much of a difference re what it ultimately brings to the table.

One of the biggest issue was not having a body. That's a very unnatural experience. Even in dreams you mostly have a body. So I did a search for body in vr and found this -- http://www.polygon.com/virtual...

I'd definitely try that. Still even with that in mind the idea of overwhelming benefits continue to escape me. Hope I'm wrong.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[JMZero]

Having hands (well, controllers at least) and being able to walk around naturally/poke stuff helps a lot, as does better head tracking.

I mean, I don't know if that's "overwhelming benefits" (I'd recommend waiting for next generation to buy at this point) - but it's pretty cool, and worth trying out a Vive (or Rift with Touch) if you get a chance.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[HornWumpus]

Porn.

/. won't let me post the same answer to multiple threads. Even when appropriate.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Everybody says that. Have you tried it?

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[HornWumpus]

By my estimate 'good enough', Leah may be dead, but the slavegirl lives on. (lights at piratebay dim under /. load)

Good enough for a 16 year old (on a cardboard 2).

Beware the ones filmed from female POV, no trigger warnings for us?

Search 'VR' on pirate bay, count the seeds etc. Not sure how the producers are making their money, but with numbers like that, the 'videos' are everywhere.

Re:Did they fire that snotty kid

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Fair enough, sounds like the topic needs more research before jumping to conclusions.

Re: Another fad

[Type44Q]

Your use of the word "think" might be a bit of a stretch; just something to consider.

That's not going to help

[Dunbal]

I said a long time ago that the numbers on Oculus did not make sense when FB bought it and we found out they wanted to sell units at $800 or so per. There is no way they can ever sell enough units to recover the initial investment. That is even less likely now that they have competition. Oculus will eventually run out of other people's money and die the fiery death it deserves. Of course I'm sure Hugo Barra will make a ton of money riding it into the ground.

VR still sucks

[backslashdot]

I don't see why they would release VR without getting to 5K per eye? Or fine, 4K per eye. At resolutions below 4K per eye .. the screen door effect is far too prominent to stand for more than a few minutes (10 minutes being the Guiness world record, do not attempt -- the poor guy puked to death afterwords). Anyway, my point is that VR is basically not usable until we have the technologies to display, at absolute minimum 120 fps at 4K per eye. And that's for enthusiasts .. if it is for the mainstream we need it to be 180fps and 5K per eye.

Today, we are at less than HD resolution at 90 fps .. it's irresponsible to release a product half baked so early.

Re:VR still sucks

[tlhIngan]

I don't see why they would release VR without getting to 5K per eye? Or fine, 4K per eye. At resolutions below 4K per eye .. the screen door effect is far too prominent to stand for more than a few minutes (10 minutes being the Guiness world record, do not attempt -- the poor guy puked to death afterwords). Anyway, my point is that VR is basically not usable until we have the technologies to display, at absolute minimum 120 fps at 4K per eye. And that's for enthusiasts .. if it is for the mainstream we need it to be 180fps and 5K per eye.

Today, we are at less than HD resolution at 90 fps .. it's irresponsible to release a product half baked so early.

In other words, make VR even MORE inaccessible to people.

First, we don't yet have the display technology for 4K per eye. But let's assume we do.

Next you want to do dual 4K at 120fps. We can't even do that with top of the line video cards in PCs - 4K60 is still unachievable and you already want to do 4 times that. And we're using top of the line $1000 video cards. If we assume we can do it with 4 cards in an SLI configuration, that's $4000 worth of video cards. Right now the configuration requires just one higher end card $600-800 or so.

All told, you can spend anywhere from $1500-2000 for a new PC and VR headset that's released too early. With your requirements, we'd be looking at $5000+ for a new PC and headset. And as enthusiastic as people may be, that's in the range of flopping.

People already have a hard time justifying the existing cost, and it's why people are flocking towards the cheap smartphone route. It sucks, but it's cheap and accessible.

Waiting for display technology and graphics cards, and VR will be the next 3D TV - on the wane.

Re:VR still sucks

[backslashdot]

Did you read what 10% of what I said? I am saying don't release it all if we don't have the technology to make it usable.

Anyway, first let's make cars with brakes that don't work so that it will be more accessible to people? Accessibility to the masses isn't a good thing if what they are getting is a rip off. It does a huge disservice to VR technology. Nobody will invest in it if it keeps flopping.

Re:VR still sucks

[HornWumpus]

Don't make up bullshit numbers.

You could play for a solid hour on the VFX1, in 1996 (better later, GHz machines make for awesome frame rates on games built for 66MHz) if you selected content that didn't make you puke. NOT Descent 2, something that kept up mostly up, Commanche 2, Jane's ATF.

Same is true today. It's all about content that won't make you puke. But they are building a new Descent for VR...

Re:Full Potential of VR

[GuB-42]

At the time of the DK2, in Oculus, they said that they intended the final product to be around $300, $400 top. They said they chose this price point because more than that and people won't buy it, no matter how good it is.
They were right : $600 final price and people didn't buy.

With all its billions, I would have thought Facebook would have been more aggressive. Favoring wide adoption over large margins.

Re:Another fad

[spire3661]

VR is not a fad. The tracking tech alone is an industry in and of itself, even without HMDs. The difference between 3D TV and VR is that 3d TV was forced on consumers from the top down. It was created by Hollywood as a premium experience to help shore up flagging ticket sales. VR came from the ground up. A few people hacked together some prototypes and code and said 'Holy shit, we can do this'. Even if the VR industry dies tomorrow, people would hack together headsets. The genie is out of the bottle, and there is no going back.

LOL

[sexconker]

Stagnant megacorp hires washed up exec from stagnant and companies in an effort to avoid further stagnation.

When your brand starts to lose its luster, don't hire faces from other big name companies to try and restore it.

1: If they're willing to leave for a bit more cash (and your illegal collusion and spying means you'll only ever offer a bit more) and enter your musty old claptrap, they're not the hip rockstar you think they are.

2: Your opinion of the companies they're coming from is vastly different from what that person can do for your opinion. Inertia is a big thing in big companies. Even if you see that company as a super hip brand, it's likely a facade covering an internal morass. Hint: Look at your own company and the problem you're trying to solve compared to the company image you put out). Even if the company you're hiring the person from IS legitimately agile/hip/innovative/buzzword, the odds of it being due to that one person, or that one person being able to repeat their success on your ship, are slim to none.

3: Your customers don't give a shit what monkey in a suit you hire, they care about the shit you sell them. Cut executive pay and roll it into product development, QA, or even salaries for regular staff if you want your company to BE healthy as opposed to just APPEAR healthy.

Re:Another fad

[HornWumpus]

Porn.