Facebook gets U.S. antitrust approval to buy Oculus

[Gizmotweak]

(Reuters) - Social network giant Facebook Inc has won U.S. antitrust approval to buy Oculus VR Inc, a two-year-old maker of virtual reality goggles, the Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.

Facebook said on March 25 that it planned to buy Oculus for $2 billion in its first-ever hardware deal. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said at the time that the proposed transaction reflected his company's desire to bet on "the platforms of tomorrow."

The deal was on a list of several proposed transactions that have been cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice and FTC. The commission puts out an updated list several times a week.

More at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/23/facebook-oculus-antitrust-idUSL2N0NF10E20140423


So now they can sign on the dotted line and moneys can be transfered between parties.

let the games begin.

I expect some big announcements now that its almost almost a done deal..congrats oculus team...make that massive cash injection count.

[Astrocyte]

Great, lets hope that it works out as planned. Really looking forward to what Oculus can now achieve! I really hope that this money delivers a better CV1 as indicated in Oculus interviews. Top of my wishlist, offloading some of the processing requirements for rendering onto the rift itself! Ooo, and a parallel port would go down nicely for research purposes. I could go on with a long list! 😄

[2EyeGuy]

Don't listen to Astrocyte, a parallel port is a bad idea.
I am still scared this deal might be a bad idea too. You portray it like Facebook is just charitably giving Oculus billions of dollars, but ignore that Oculus is being sold forever to people who don't understand anything about VR. Facebook shareholders could decide Oculus is a black-hole for money and want to scrap it. Or they could run it badly. Or do something else unrelated so badly people want to boycott Facebook and Oculus. In the past, when VR companies were sold it was always bad. It might be different now, but I don't know.
I think Oculus needs to promote its vision to Facebook shareholders and other powerful people in Facebook, because they will have tremendous power and little or no understanding.

[JohnyX]

"2EyeGuy" wrote:
Don't listen to Astrocyte, a parallel port is a bad idea.
I am still scared this deal might be a bad idea too. You portray it like Facebook is just charitably giving Oculus billions of dollars, but ignore that Oculus is being sold forever to people who don't understand anything about VR. Facebook shareholders could decide Oculus is a black-hole for money and want to scrap it. Or they could run it badly. Or do something else unrelated so badly people want to boycott Facebook and Oculus. In the past, when VR companies were sold it was always bad. It might be different now, but I don't know.
I think Oculus needs to promote its vision to Facebook shareholders and other powerful people in Facebook, because they will have tremendous power and little or no understanding.

Dont worry . . . .just look up who is behind big money of facebook . . .darpa have big plans for vr.

[Twitchmonkey]

Facebook doesn't know VR, that's why they bought Oculus, but they do know how to make money, so I doubt they would drop 2 billion dollars on a company just to dismantle it, especially considering Oculus is not a competitor for any of Facebook's existing platforms. Also I believe Mark Zuckerberg is still the majority shareholder, so while he must insure Facebook is acting in the financial interests of its shareholders, I'm pretty sure he would be the one to have to make that decision, which seems unlikely given that he was most likely the person behind the acquisition in the first place. The only way Oculus is going to be dissolved is if it's on the market for some time and fails to turn a profit, and given both the financial investment Facebook can provide Oculus in terms of R&D and marketing, as well as their deep pockets and ability to maintain business as usual without short-term profitability, I think the chances of that are a lot smaller than if Oculus was operating independently.

[Anonymous]

What Twitchmonkey said. I can see Facebook helping out on the business side of things while maintaining a hands off approach on the hardware designs. There is no reason for them to meddle there, at least not yet.

[Astrocyte]

"2EyeGuy" wrote:
Don't listen to Astrocyte, a parallel port is a bad idea.

Not really. A parallel port would be very useful for my research, but i acknowledge that it is not particularly useful for most people nowadays. Maybe there should be a research orientated model to parallel CV1?

I am certainly don't consider Facebook as a charity, only that as part of the said company, Oculus will now get the billions of dollars as part of the negotiated terms of the deal. I hope they spend it wisely! Can't say Facebook don't know anything about VR now since they effectively bought the expertise of the key people who definitely do! I expected someone would buy Oculus eventually. How else would they have got the significant funding to scale-up? Also, to get VR to where it needs to be to meet the hopes and aspirations of many in the gaming community and beyond, the R&D funding alone would be huge! Besides, From what I've read, Facebook apparently "gets it". The same cannot be said of the wider community though, so that is where the real slug for Oculus is I think. Even if in time philosophical differences between the companies lead to a split in the longer-term, we will have likely had 1-2 generations of the consumer Oculus, and there will likely be other hardware alternatives to switch to if you were so minded. So, either way i'm happy. 😄

[kojack]

"Astrocyte" wrote:

"2EyeGuy" wrote:
Don't listen to Astrocyte, a parallel port is a bad idea.

Not really. A parallel port would be very useful for my research, but i acknowledge that it is not particularly useful for most people nowadays. Maybe there should be a research orientated model to parallel CV1?

It's got a usb port, just plug in a parallel port to usb adapter, or a usb board with digital io pins.
If you just need input, there's the I-PAC. http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

[cleverusername]

"JohnyX" wrote:
Dont worry . . . .just look up who is behind big money of facebook . . .darpa have big plans for vr.

http://np.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/comments/1gulud/palantir_now_funding_oculus_is_this_a_good/ I fought with Palmer awhile back about Lonsdale Funding him! (I am martinlandau at reddit) LOL! But Lonsdale just LEFT! They just let him LEAVE, that is what Palmer tried to sell me! LOL! Like CIA director William Colby just LEFT, or that Spook Movie with Matt Damon about the launch of the CIA where they kill old spies who know too much.

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-driv...


In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt “got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple.”

Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information “verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?”

These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied attempts by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the lawsuit tossed, and gave final approval for the class action suit to go forward. A jury trial date has been set for May 27 in San Jose, before US District Court judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the Samsung-Apple patent suit.

Oh HAPPY day! Lots of nice guys at facebook, apple, msft, etc, all the rest, the LOVE us, looking out for us, not so RICH they have to steal 9 BILLION dollars from the poor people trying to eek out a meager existence on this planet! Go Get em ANNAKIN LUCKEY! I am on the EMPIRE's team now, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! and enslaves all you dumb suckers that desserve everything that is coming to you! 😉 Frozen in carbomite like han solo for being SUCKERS!

[densohax]

Yawn.