Facebook buys virtual reality pioneer Oculus for $2 billion
Hot on the heels of the $19 billion acquisition of instant messaging platform WhatsApp, Facebook today announced its latest purchase.
The latest buy, however, has on the face of it nothing to do with Facebook's core social networking business.
Mark Zuckerberg's firm stumped up $2 billion to snap up Oculus, the company famous for making a wrap-around virtual reality headset, the Rift.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
That suggests that Zuckerberg has major plans to expand beyond what we think of today as social networking.
So, why virtual reality? Perhaps Zuckerberg imagines that the next generation of online social interaction will involve immersive virtual environments in cyberspace?
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.
-
Can Mike Johnson keep his job?Today's Big Question GOP women come after the House leader
-
A postapocalyptic trip to Sin City, a peek inside Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, and an explicit hockey romance in December TVthe week recommends This month’s new television releases include ‘Fallout,’ ‘Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era’ and ‘Heated Rivalry’
-
‘These accounts clearly are designed as a capitalist alternative’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Google avoids the worst in antitrust rulingSpeed Read A federal judge rejected the government's request to break up Google
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestoneSpeed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two yearsSpeed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on XSpeed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellitesSpeed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodesSpeed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff