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Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 For

Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR. Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack. EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it is to watch this video fullscreen and try to imagine any way that Facebook could add to the experience, or at least not detract from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s It's hard to.

ekianjo 13y ago
> scaling crisis for VR. That's supposing Facebook knows how to scale production of electronic items... apart from the cash, they have no relevant experience about that. If it had been Google or Microsoft there would already be people who know how to make it scale to mass production.
- TaylorAlexander 13y ago
  Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. I don't think Google has much internal hardware production knowledge right now, aside from the knowledge they bought when they acquired Motorola. Before that, they mostly made things through hardware partners like HTC, Samsung, and LG. I think they produce the Chromecast internally, but it's not much fancier than a USB stick. I'm sure they are quickly learning, but Facebook is also already buying up hardware companies and they have been building their own custom servers for internal use for years.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    > Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. Well I have worked in companies making physical goods (shipping millions every year), and you just don't buy a team from one day to another. It's not just about production, it's about supply chain, it's about quality management and quality assurance, regulations for sale in different countries/states, market research, product qualification to improve the design, actual customer support, vendors, distribution, etc... It's a whole new area of skills/functions you don't have, and that does not mix very well with a software-only company mentality. I think it's going to be very tough for them to make something solid with Facebook. EDIT: They would have been better prepared for scaling with a company like Apple (whose main business is already making hardware), Microsoft or Google for that matter. Many people say Valve could have been a good choice, but Valve has said several times they don't want to go into the hardware business (and won't make Steam boxes themselves).
    - abjorn 13y ago
      I think the idea is that Oculus VR is already in this position, they just don't have the monetary resources that Facebook does.
  - jodrellblank 13y ago
    Google builds their own servers, since at least 2005 - http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/google-uncloaks-once-secret-server-10209580/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/google-uncloaks-once-secret-serv... and builds it's own switches, owns an ARM chip design company and "may be" building custom server chips - http://gigaom.com/2013/12/12/google-may-be-making-its-own-custom-server-chips-it-should/ http://gigaom.com/2013/12/12/google-may-be-making-its-own-cu...
  - jpwright 13y ago
    You're leaving out Glass, Fiber, Nest, Chromebook, and the 8 robotics companies they just acquired, among other things.
    - gress 13y ago
      Of those, only Nest designs and builds consumer electronics at scale.
      - VLM 13y ago
        "builds consumer electronics at scale." Made in China, as far as I can find out. They don't make hardware any more than Apple does.
  - eitally 13y ago
    Facebook doesn't build their own servers. They outsource to Quanta and Sanmina. Quanta is the hardware OEM and Sanmina handles the racking, configuration and testing. Facebook provides rack specs and the Linux image. Facebook tried to design their own servers via the Open Compute Project but they ran into heat dissipation problems. Sanmina's Newisys division (which makes dense storage arrays using by places like Amazon & Shutterfly) helped solve their problems. The point is that, while Facebook may be able to do hardware, servers is not a good example. Disclosure: my team at Sanmina has been responsible for delivering the test automation & integration software for the rack assembly & test operation for Facebook. For that matter, Google itself doesn't build anything at scale, either. Why would they? They outsource all their high-vol manufacturing to the same EMS companies everyone else uses (Quanta, Compal, Foxconn, Flextronics, Sanmina, Celestica, Jabil, Pegatron, Benchmark, Plexus and a handful of others).
- fchollet 13y ago
  The "scale" JC is referring to is not hardware production. It's the virtual reality. Millions of people interacting in real time in a virtual universe in which they are actually present. Think of it as similar to the scaling challenges of MMORPGs. Only much worse.
  - samstave 13y ago
    It is both; FB makes a shit-ton of HW with their open-cmpute platform.... They have a lot of XP in building real physical shit these days. Scaling traffic is a non-issue for them.
    - jpwright 13y ago
      A consumer product like the Rift is an entirely different proposition with an entirely different set of challenges. The Open Compute project was essentially Facebook giving away some of their data center designs and specifications (mostly things like server racks and power management), with a few other companies joining the initiative but with none of the designs actually being used on a significant scale. Also worth noting, the head of OCP left Facebook today. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2111680/open-compute-project-chief-frankovsky-quits-facebook.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2111680/open-compute-project-...
      - samstave 13y ago
        There are some other items that FB makes, which are not in the OCP though... such as the super dense fiber switch... My point is that they are not strangers to manufacturing tech...
    - drivingmenuts 13y ago
      How much experience do they have marketing that tech? I've never heard of someone selling a Facebook-brand router. The few times I've heard of FB involved in an actual product, it tanked or disappeared, never to be spoken of again. Facebook phone, anyone? There's a world of difference between a potential item, like the FB phone and an actual, demonstrated item, like the Oculus Rift, so they might get some points there. But their record ATM is non-existent, AFAIK.
maxden 13y ago
edit: To clarify, it was from reading this, which I originally read as 1 month, until I read the tweet. "Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481" https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481" ah.. 1 minute? I thought there was 1 month old tweet that mentioned FB (and obviously overlooked)
- lstamour 13y ago
  Today's March 25. That's when that tweet was posted. FYI. ;-)
ctdonath 13y ago
The problem with grokking Facebook's involvement is the lack of any apparent connection between VR and FB's core competencies. Google at least can use Glass for ever-more data mining. VR? FB? Carmack can sure put the $2B to good use, but how it benefits FB nobody seems to know.
- dropit_sphere 13y ago
  What's funny is that everyone would breathe a giant sigh of relief if, when asked about the deal, Zuckerberg just grinned boyishly and said, "It's a VR company run by Carmack, and I'm a multibillionaire. Of course I wanted to own it."
  - ejain 13y ago
    Maybe; but Zuckerberg didn't buy the company, Facebook did.
    - DennisP 13y ago
      Zuckerberg has complete control, with 57% of Facebook voting rights. http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/01/zuck-power-play/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/01/zuck-power-play/
      - _cbb1 13y ago
        This article could be out of date because it was written in 2012. It's been reported that he has sold some shares.
        csense 13y ago
        As a public company, isn't Facebook required to report how much of the company is owned by all major shareholders?
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      If Z doesn't have complete control, he's still got most control. Either way he knows that it's easier/cheaper to make FB the legal owner. If you're gonna spend $2B to buy something you want, better if you can get someone else to foot the bill.
NathanOsullivan 13y ago
"The FB deal" is likely an intentional euphemism intended to suggest its a partnership. This is not a "deal". Facebook will own the company and can (rightfully) be expected to do whatever they want with it.
Shivetya 13y ago
nah, all the angst is because far too many nerds like to think they "own" up and coming cool technology even if they are not even involved beyond having read about it. When it goes to company that the clique no longer favors, usually after incredible success or the unwashed masses show up, then they act as if the world collapses. It happens so often many of us just laugh if not smirk the whole time we watch the familiar process play itself out. Eventually they learn they are not the center of the universe.
- onetwofiveten 13y ago
  Oculus was funded by a kickstarter. I think Notch personally contributed. Having given money to help a company develop their core technology is a little different to "not even involved beyond having read about it".
  - jfoster 13y ago
    But that isn't what a Kickstarter buys you. You get rewards and you get to help fund the initial vision. (up to the scope of the Kickstarter, fulfilment of rewards, etc.) In any case, if making awesome VR a reality was Oculus' vision, they can make a pretty good case for that vision being well served by the resources of Facebook. At the end of the day, what are people afraid of? That the newest action games won't be playable on Rift? I just don't see how people figure Facebook might ruin this product.
    - onetwofiveten 13y ago
      I was just saying that Kickstarter contributors are more personally invested than simple bystanders. If a company shifts focus away from the initial vision they used to attract funding, before that vision has been realised, then naturally the contributors feel betrayed. I think that's reasonable. If you sell someone a vision you don't believe in, then that's dishonest, even if it's not illegal. That said, I personally don't know if Facebook is going to mess up Oculus. I imagine that what people are worried about is that Facebook will push for Oculus to be used for social VR and will largely ignore games. VR gaming requires high quality sensory experience in a dynamic environment with fast player movements. Social VR is probably going to be way, way more static, (but will have other demands like monitoring body position, face scanning, etc.)
chadillac 13y ago
I'm wondering why people in general think this is some kind of facebook integration stretch goal. Everyone is photoshoping friend requests into 3D Farmville screenshots and it's humorous and I get from a gamer perspective, but from other professionals in this industry I find it pretty shocking. Notch is vocal in his opposition, but it really just doesn't make sense to me. It's hardware and an SDK at the end of the day, and now it's in the hands of a leading tech company this is vanguarding OTHER difficult problems of their existing industry (and open sourcing large parts of it!). I have the DK1, and I ordered the DK2 not even a week ago, I've been active in tinkering with Oculus for a while now and even did some Twitch.tv casts of BF3, DayZ, etc. and other games running through TriDef or VorpX. I'm about to start working on a project allowing MS Kinect usage to be broadcast in an Oculus compatible format for web consumption by Oculus users. So I'm pretty "in touch" with the tech at this point. I see this move as FB ensuring a healthy portfolio and healthy future stock price for their investors by getting the jump on patents and technology of a sure fire success emerging market. I don't think you'll have 3D oculus web cam video calls or friend requests popping up in your flight sim, that's just rampant and misguided speculation. If I had a choice about WHO bought Oculus the top of the list would be Valve. They already have Carmack, having Newell in the mix would be amazing and ensure the tech was in good hands. Facebook or Google would be next in line, and waaaaay down at the bottom of the list would be Sony, Microsoft, or EA (I would burn the hardware and pretend it never existed if EA bought it). tl;dr The entire community is acting like a bunch of idiots, stop it, you're embarrassing yourselves and showing your business management ignorance. If I was a company that made it big in the social boom and IPO'd but was facing a shrinking userbase on my life blood product, you better bet your ass I'd utilize my resources to diversify my business. Keeping your all your eggs in a single basket is a historically bad idea. edit: also based on these comments people think Oculus offers software... they don't, you don't play an Oculus VR MMORPG... they provide hardware and an SDK, everything else is up to content producers, the scaling crisis would be purely one of hardware manufacturing and distribution and maintaining a very widely used SDK. Which I would consider FB pretty okay at... I won't say good... but okay will suffice, especially considering backwards compatibility for hardware/software of this type isn't a big concern.
- Autobots 13y ago
rocky1138 13y ago
All of the ways I can see involve Facebook being a supporting cast member, not a lead star. A question: does Facebook need to only be facebook.com? After all, there are plenty of examples in other industries of companies doing unrelated things and making a go of it. Consider Hitachi TVs and heavy equipment. Facebook could launch Facebook Games to coincide with Oculus' consumer launch, providing a Steam-like service to pick up and play VR games, day one. Integration from this standpoint could be as innocuous as "Log in with your Facebook account" along side "Log in with your Google account" or "create an account".

ekianjo 13y ago

> scaling crisis for VR. That's supposing Facebook knows how to scale production of electronic items... apart from the cash, they have no relevant experience about that. If it had been Google or Microsoft there would already be people who know how to make it scale to mass production.

TaylorAlexander 13y ago
Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. I don't think Google has much internal hardware production knowledge right now, aside from the knowledge they bought when they acquired Motorola. Before that, they mostly made things through hardware partners like HTC, Samsung, and LG. I think they produce the Chromecast internally, but it's not much fancier than a USB stick. I'm sure they are quickly learning, but Facebook is also already buying up hardware companies and they have been building their own custom servers for internal use for years.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. Well I have worked in companies making physical goods (shipping millions every year), and you just don't buy a team from one day to another. It's not just about production, it's about supply chain, it's about quality management and quality assurance, regulations for sale in different countries/states, market research, product qualification to improve the design, actual customer support, vendors, distribution, etc... It's a whole new area of skills/functions you don't have, and that does not mix very well with a software-only company mentality. I think it's going to be very tough for them to make something solid with Facebook. EDIT: They would have been better prepared for scaling with a company like Apple (whose main business is already making hardware), Microsoft or Google for that matter. Many people say Valve could have been a good choice, but Valve has said several times they don't want to go into the hardware business (and won't make Steam boxes themselves).
  - abjorn 13y ago
    I think the idea is that Oculus VR is already in this position, they just don't have the monetary resources that Facebook does.
- jodrellblank 13y ago
  Google builds their own servers, since at least 2005 - http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/google-uncloaks-once-secret-server-10209580/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/google-uncloaks-once-secret-serv... and builds it's own switches, owns an ARM chip design company and "may be" building custom server chips - http://gigaom.com/2013/12/12/google-may-be-making-its-own-custom-server-chips-it-should/ http://gigaom.com/2013/12/12/google-may-be-making-its-own-cu...
- jpwright 13y ago
  You're leaving out Glass, Fiber, Nest, Chromebook, and the 8 robotics companies they just acquired, among other things.
  - gress 13y ago
    Of those, only Nest designs and builds consumer electronics at scale.
    - VLM 13y ago
      "builds consumer electronics at scale." Made in China, as far as I can find out. They don't make hardware any more than Apple does.
- eitally 13y ago
  Facebook doesn't build their own servers. They outsource to Quanta and Sanmina. Quanta is the hardware OEM and Sanmina handles the racking, configuration and testing. Facebook provides rack specs and the Linux image. Facebook tried to design their own servers via the Open Compute Project but they ran into heat dissipation problems. Sanmina's Newisys division (which makes dense storage arrays using by places like Amazon & Shutterfly) helped solve their problems. The point is that, while Facebook may be able to do hardware, servers is not a good example. Disclosure: my team at Sanmina has been responsible for delivering the test automation & integration software for the rack assembly & test operation for Facebook. For that matter, Google itself doesn't build anything at scale, either. Why would they? They outsource all their high-vol manufacturing to the same EMS companies everyone else uses (Quanta, Compal, Foxconn, Flextronics, Sanmina, Celestica, Jabil, Pegatron, Benchmark, Plexus and a handful of others).
fchollet 13y ago
The "scale" JC is referring to is not hardware production. It's the virtual reality. Millions of people interacting in real time in a virtual universe in which they are actually present. Think of it as similar to the scaling challenges of MMORPGs. Only much worse.
- samstave 13y ago
  It is both; FB makes a shit-ton of HW with their open-cmpute platform.... They have a lot of XP in building real physical shit these days. Scaling traffic is a non-issue for them.
  - jpwright 13y ago
    A consumer product like the Rift is an entirely different proposition with an entirely different set of challenges. The Open Compute project was essentially Facebook giving away some of their data center designs and specifications (mostly things like server racks and power management), with a few other companies joining the initiative but with none of the designs actually being used on a significant scale. Also worth noting, the head of OCP left Facebook today. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2111680/open-compute-project-chief-frankovsky-quits-facebook.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2111680/open-compute-project-...
    - samstave 13y ago
      There are some other items that FB makes, which are not in the OCP though... such as the super dense fiber switch... My point is that they are not strangers to manufacturing tech...
  - drivingmenuts 13y ago
    How much experience do they have marketing that tech? I've never heard of someone selling a Facebook-brand router. The few times I've heard of FB involved in an actual product, it tanked or disappeared, never to be spoken of again. Facebook phone, anyone? There's a world of difference between a potential item, like the FB phone and an actual, demonstrated item, like the Oculus Rift, so they might get some points there. But their record ATM is non-existent, AFAIK.

maxden 13y ago

edit: To clarify, it was from reading this, which I originally read as 1 month, until I read the tweet. "Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481" https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481" ah.. 1 minute? I thought there was 1 month old tweet that mentioned FB (and obviously overlooked)

lstamour 13y ago
Today's March 25. That's when that tweet was posted. FYI. ;-)

ctdonath 13y ago

The problem with grokking Facebook's involvement is the lack of any apparent connection between VR and FB's core competencies. Google at least can use Glass for ever-more data mining. VR? FB? Carmack can sure put the $2B to good use, but how it benefits FB nobody seems to know.

dropit_sphere 13y ago
What's funny is that everyone would breathe a giant sigh of relief if, when asked about the deal, Zuckerberg just grinned boyishly and said, "It's a VR company run by Carmack, and I'm a multibillionaire. Of course I wanted to own it."
- ejain 13y ago
  Maybe; but Zuckerberg didn't buy the company, Facebook did.
  - DennisP 13y ago
    Zuckerberg has complete control, with 57% of Facebook voting rights. http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/01/zuck-power-play/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/01/zuck-power-play/
    - _cbb1 13y ago
      This article could be out of date because it was written in 2012. It's been reported that he has sold some shares.
      - csense 13y ago
        As a public company, isn't Facebook required to report how much of the company is owned by all major shareholders?
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    If Z doesn't have complete control, he's still got most control. Either way he knows that it's easier/cheaper to make FB the legal owner. If you're gonna spend $2B to buy something you want, better if you can get someone else to foot the bill.

NathanOsullivan 13y ago

"The FB deal" is likely an intentional euphemism intended to suggest its a partnership. This is not a "deal". Facebook will own the company and can (rightfully) be expected to do whatever they want with it.

Shivetya 13y ago

nah, all the angst is because far too many nerds like to think they "own" up and coming cool technology even if they are not even involved beyond having read about it. When it goes to company that the clique no longer favors, usually after incredible success or the unwashed masses show up, then they act as if the world collapses. It happens so often many of us just laugh if not smirk the whole time we watch the familiar process play itself out. Eventually they learn they are not the center of the universe.

onetwofiveten 13y ago
Oculus was funded by a kickstarter. I think Notch personally contributed. Having given money to help a company develop their core technology is a little different to "not even involved beyond having read about it".
- jfoster 13y ago
  But that isn't what a Kickstarter buys you. You get rewards and you get to help fund the initial vision. (up to the scope of the Kickstarter, fulfilment of rewards, etc.) In any case, if making awesome VR a reality was Oculus' vision, they can make a pretty good case for that vision being well served by the resources of Facebook. At the end of the day, what are people afraid of? That the newest action games won't be playable on Rift? I just don't see how people figure Facebook might ruin this product.
  - onetwofiveten 13y ago
    I was just saying that Kickstarter contributors are more personally invested than simple bystanders. If a company shifts focus away from the initial vision they used to attract funding, before that vision has been realised, then naturally the contributors feel betrayed. I think that's reasonable. If you sell someone a vision you don't believe in, then that's dishonest, even if it's not illegal. That said, I personally don't know if Facebook is going to mess up Oculus. I imagine that what people are worried about is that Facebook will push for Oculus to be used for social VR and will largely ignore games. VR gaming requires high quality sensory experience in a dynamic environment with fast player movements. Social VR is probably going to be way, way more static, (but will have other demands like monitoring body position, face scanning, etc.)

chadillac 13y ago

I'm wondering why people in general think this is some kind of facebook integration stretch goal. Everyone is photoshoping friend requests into 3D Farmville screenshots and it's humorous and I get from a gamer perspective, but from other professionals in this industry I find it pretty shocking. Notch is vocal in his opposition, but it really just doesn't make sense to me. It's hardware and an SDK at the end of the day, and now it's in the hands of a leading tech company this is vanguarding OTHER difficult problems of their existing industry (and open sourcing large parts of it!). I have the DK1, and I ordered the DK2 not even a week ago, I've been active in tinkering with Oculus for a while now and even did some Twitch.tv casts of BF3, DayZ, etc. and other games running through TriDef or VorpX. I'm about to start working on a project allowing MS Kinect usage to be broadcast in an Oculus compatible format for web consumption by Oculus users. So I'm pretty "in touch" with the tech at this point. I see this move as FB ensuring a healthy portfolio and healthy future stock price for their investors by getting the jump on patents and technology of a sure fire success emerging market. I don't think you'll have 3D oculus web cam video calls or friend requests popping up in your flight sim, that's just rampant and misguided speculation. If I had a choice about WHO bought Oculus the top of the list would be Valve. They already have Carmack, having Newell in the mix would be amazing and ensure the tech was in good hands. Facebook or Google would be next in line, and waaaaay down at the bottom of the list would be Sony, Microsoft, or EA (I would burn the hardware and pretend it never existed if EA bought it). tl;dr The entire community is acting like a bunch of idiots, stop it, you're embarrassing yourselves and showing your business management ignorance. If I was a company that made it big in the social boom and IPO'd but was facing a shrinking userbase on my life blood product, you better bet your ass I'd utilize my resources to diversify my business. Keeping your all your eggs in a single basket is a historically bad idea. edit: also based on these comments people think Oculus offers software... they don't, you don't play an Oculus VR MMORPG... they provide hardware and an SDK, everything else is up to content producers, the scaling crisis would be purely one of hardware manufacturing and distribution and maintaining a very widely used SDK. Which I would consider FB pretty okay at... I won't say good... but okay will suffice, especially considering backwards compatibility for hardware/software of this type isn't a big concern.

Autobots 13y ago

rocky1138 13y ago

All of the ways I can see involve Facebook being a supporting cast member, not a lead star. A question: does Facebook need to only be facebook.com? After all, there are plenty of examples in other industries of companies doing unrelated things and making a go of it. Consider Hitachi TVs and heavy equipment. Facebook could launch Facebook Games to coincide with Oculus' consumer launch, providing a Steam-like service to pick up and play VR games, day one. Integration from this standpoint could be as innocuous as "Log in with your Facebook account" along side "Log in with your Google account" or "create an account".