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Facebook has Begun Ghosting the “Oculus” Moniker in its VR Division

posted by martyb on Friday August 28 2020, @05:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the resistance-is-futile dept.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/08/facebook-has-begun-ghosting-the-oculus-moniker-in-its-vr-division/

Our "Facebookening of Oculus" series continues today with the announcement of the Facebook Connect conference as a free, live-streamed event on September 16. You may remember years of "Oculus Connect" conferences, which focused on the company's efforts in virtual reality and other "mixed reality" mediums. That conference is dead. It's Facebook Connect now.

[...] What's more, Facebook used the Tuesday announcement as an opportunity to rename its entire Oculus VR division: Facebook Reality Labs. That name may sound familiar, since it was given to a number of skunkworks teams working on experimental VR-like features and hardware (including years of focus on 3D spatial audio at its Seattle-area office).

Facebook isn't shy about explaining why it is renaming everything: to collate and combine its disparate entities in order to "build the next computing platform to help people feel more present with each other, even when we're apart." That sure sounds like a bold admission of the so-called "Facebook operating system" that I keep hearing rumors about, with VR, mixed reality, and smartphone cameras at its core. Facebook has spent months hinting at mixed computing systems being combined in the workplace, which the company has conveniently summarized in a new Facebook Reality Labs post from today.

Previously:
Oculus to Begin Requiring Facebook Accounts to Use VR Headsets

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Friday August 28 2020, @08:42AM (1 child)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday August 28 2020, @08:42AM (#1043204) Homepage

    "Facebook has spent months hinting at mixed computing systems being combined in the workplace"... "Begin Requiring Facebook Accounts to Use VR Headsets"

    Sorry, but if you don't see the problem RIGHT THERE, then you need to wake up, Facebook (and article author).

    You want to put VR in the workplace, but then demand a Facebook account to make it work.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @10:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @10:34AM (#1043226)

    But Facebook is busy infesting the workplace already. We've been told to start using the new @Workplace app for all internal "chatter" and that's how the company news is being delivered now (used to be on a web page).

    I checked and confirmed that I wasn't contractually obliged to sign up for the Workplace (i.e. Facebook at work) account and so I've never activated the one they'd already set up on my behalf.

    I don't appear to be missing out, busier than ever and if something important comes up my boss tells me about it as normal.