Reality Labs
Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms that produces virtual reality and augmented reality hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Worlds. In June 2022, several artificial intelligence initiatives that were previously a part of Meta AI were transitioned to Reality Labs. This also includes Meta's fundamental AI Research laboratory FAIR which is now part of the Reality Labs - Research division.
The Reality Labs unit is the result of the merger of several initiatives under Meta Platforms and the incorporation of several acquired companies. This includes CTRL-Labs founded by Thomas Reardon which develops non-invasive neural interface technology as well as Oculus, a company that was founded in 2012 by Palmer Luckey, Brendan Iribe, Michael Antonov and Nate Mitchell to develop a VR headset for video gaming.
History
Founding
As a head-mounted display designer at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, Palmer Luckey earned a reputation for having the largest personal collection of HMDs in the world and was a longtime moderator in Meant to be Seen 's discussion forums.Palmer created a series of new technologies that resulted in a VR headset that was both higher performance than what was currently on the market and was also inexpensive for gamers. To develop the new product, Luckey founded Oculus VR with Scaleform co-founders Brendan Iribe and Michael Antonov, Nate Mitchell and Andrew Scott Reisse.
Coincidentally, John Carmack of id Software had been doing his research on HMDs and happened upon Palmer's developments. After sampling an early unit, Carmack favored Luckey's prototype, and just before the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, id Software announced that the BFG Edition of Doom 3 would be compatible with head-mounted display units.
During the convention, Carmack introduced a duct-taped head-mounted display, based on Palmer's Oculus Rift prototype, which ran Carmack's software. The unit featured a high-speed IMU and a LCD, visible via dual lenses that were positioned over the eyes to provide a 90 degree horizontal and 110 degree vertical stereoscopic 3D perspective. Carmack later left id Software as he was hired as Oculus VR's chief technology officer.
Funding for Oculus Rift and company
The Oculus Rift prototype was demonstrated at E3 in June 2012. On August 1, 2012, the company announced a Kickstarter campaign to further develop the product. Oculus announced that the "dev kit" version of the Oculus Rift would be given as a reward to backers who pledged $300 or more on Kickstarter, with an expected shipping date set of December 2012.There was also a limited run of 100 unassembled Rift prototype kits for pledges over $275 that would ship a month earlier. Both versions were intended to include Doom 3 BFG Edition, but Rift support in the game was not ready, so to make up for it they included a choice of discount vouchers for either Steam or the Oculus store. Within four hours of the announcement, Oculus secured its intended amount of US$250,000, and in less than 36 hours, the campaign had surpassed $1 million in funding, eventually ending with $2,437,429.
On December 12, 2013, Marc Andreessen joined the company's board when his firm, Andreessen Horowitz, led the $75 million Series B venture funding. In total, Oculus VR has raised $91 million with $2.4 million raised via crowdfunding.
Acquisition by Facebook
Although Oculus only released a development prototype of its headset, on March 25, 2014, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook, Inc. would be acquiring Oculus for US$2 billion, pending regulatory approval. The deal included $400 million in cash and 23.1 million common shares of Facebook, valued at $1.6 billion, as well as an additional $300 million assuming Facebook reaches certain milestones. This move was ridiculed by some backers who felt the acquisition was counter to the independent ideology of crowdfunding.Many Kickstarter backers and game industry figures, such as Minecraft developer Markus Persson, criticized the sale of Oculus to Facebook. On March 28, 2014, Michael Abrash joined the company as Chief Scientist. As of January 2015, the Oculus headquarters has been moved from Irvine, California to Menlo Park, where Facebook's headquarters are also located. Oculus has stated that this move is for their employees to be closer to Silicon Valley.
In May 2015, Oculus acquired British company Surreal Vision, a company based on 3D scene-mapping reconstruction and augmented reality.
News reported that Oculus and Surreal Vision could create "mixed reality" technology in Oculus' products, similar to the upcoming HMD, Microsoft HoloLens. They reported that Oculus, with Surreal's help, will make telepresence possible.
On March 28, 2016, the first consumer version of Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift "CV1", was released. In October 2017, Oculus unveiled the standalone mobile headset Oculus Go in partnership with Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi. On December 28, 2016, Facebook acquired Danish eye tracking startup The Eye Tribe. In September 2018, Oculus became a division of a new structural entity within Facebook known as Facebook Technologies, LLC. Facebook announced in August 2018 they had entered negotiations to lease the entire Burlingame Point campus in Burlingame, California, then under construction. The lease was executed in late 2018, and the site, owned by Kylli, a subsidiary of Genzon Investment Group, is expected to be complete by 2020. Oculus was expected to move to Burlingame Point when development is complete.
In February 2019, Facebook released Oculus Quest, a high-end standalone headset. In March 2019, Facebook unveiled Oculus Rift S, an updated revision of the original Rift PC headset in partnership with Chinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo, which featured updated hardware and features carried over from the Go and Quest.
On August 13, 2019, Nate Mitchell, Oculus co-founder and VP of product announced his departure from the company. On November 13, 2019, John Carmack wrote in a Facebook post that he would step down as CTO of Oculus to focus on developing artificial general intelligence. He stated he would remain involved with the company as a "Consulting CTO".
In September 2020, Facebook unveiled Oculus Quest 2, an update to the original Quest with a revised design and updated hardware.
Facebook integration
Upon the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook, Inc., Luckey "guaranteed" that "you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift." Under its ownership, Oculus has been promoted as a brand of Facebook rather than an independent entity and has increasingly integrated Facebook platforms into Oculus products. Support for optional Facebook integration was added to Gear VR in March 2016, with a focus on integration with the social network, and integrations with features such as Facebook Video and social games. By 2016, the division began to be largely marketed as Oculus from Facebook.In September 2016, support for optional Facebook integration was added to the Oculus Rift software, automatically populating the friends list with Facebook friends who have also linked their accounts. Users have been increasingly encouraged to use Facebook accounts to sign into its services.
In 2018, Oculus VR became a division of Facebook Technologies, LLC, to create "a single legal entity that can support multiple Facebook technology and hardware products".
On August 18, 2020, Facebook announced that all "decisions around use, processing, retention, and sharing of data" on its platforms will be delegated to the Facebook social network moving forward. Users became subject to the unified Facebook privacy policy, code of conduct, and community guidelines, and all users will be required to have a Facebook account to access Oculus products and services. Standalone account registration became unavailable in October 2020, all future Oculus hardware will only support Facebook accounts, and support for existing standalone Oculus accounts on already-released products will end on January 1, 2023. Facebook stated that this was needed to facilitate "more Facebook powered multiplayer and social experiences" and make it "easier to share across our platforms". Facebook stated that users would still be able to control sharing from Oculus, maintain a separate friends list within the Oculus platform, and hide their real name to others.
Users and media criticized Facebook for the move. Ars Technica noted that there is no clear way to opt-out of information tracking and that the collected data will likely be used for targeted advertising. Furthermore, Facebook requires the use of a person's real name. In September 2020, Facebook temporarily suspended sales of all Oculus products in Germany; a German watchdog had presented concerns that this integration requirement violates the General Data Protection Regulation, which prohibits making use of a service contingent on consenting to the collection of personally identifiable information, and the requirement that existing users also link to a Facebook account to use Oculus hardware and services.
On August 25, 2020, Facebook announced the formation of Facebook Reality Labs, a new unit that would encompass all of Facebook's virtual and augmented reality hardware and software, including Oculus, Portal, and Facebook Spark AR. The Oculus Connect conference was also renamed Facebook Connect.
In June 2021, Facebook announced it would do a test launch of targeted advertisements in applications for Oculus Quest. The company claims that movement data, voice recordings and raw images from the headset will not be used in targeting. Instead, the ads will rely on information from the user's Facebook profile and all user activity related to Oculus, including apps used or installed. The company has not stated whether ads will appear only in applications or in the Oculus Home experience as well.
In July 2021, Facebook announced it would be deprecating its proprietary Oculus API and adding full support for OpenXR.