Oculus
Oculus VR was an American virtual reality company. Oculus VR created the Oculus Rift.
Oculus VR was founded by Palmer Luckey in July, 2012. The company was acquired by Facebook for 2 billion dollars in cash and stock.
It was founded in Irvine, California, United States.
Notable personnel included Hugo Barra (CEO), John Carmack (CTO), Michael Abrash (CSO).
Oculus' main office location was previously in Irvine, California and Menlo Park.[1]
Oculus Rift[edit]
- Main article: Oculus Rift
Versions:
History[edit]
2009: Palmer Luckey creates first Oculus Rift prototype.
January 2012: Palmer Luckey showcases a Oculus Rift prototype at Sundance Film Festival.
May 2012: Palmer Luckey reached out to John Carmack of id Software and sent him a prototype.
June 2012: Oculus Rift Prototype was showcased in E3.
July 1, 2012: Oculus VR was founded by Palmer Luckey and others.
August 1, 2012: Crowd funding campaign for Oculus Rift was began on Kickstarter. DK1 was promised to all backers who contribute at least 300 dollars.
August 14, 2012: Brandon Iribe officially joined Oculus VR.
September 1, 2012: Kickstarter campaign for Oculus Rift ended. It raised $2,437,429 out of the initial goal of $250,000 for the company.
September 26, 2012: Oculus Rift DK1 became available for pre-order on Oculus Rift's website.
March 29, 2013: Development Kit 1 (DK1) was released.
July 17, 2013: Oculus VR raised 16 million dollars through Series A round of venture funding led by Sparks Capital and Matrix Partners.
August 7, 2013: John Carmack joined Oculus VR.
December 12, 2013: Oculus VR raised 75 million dollars through Series B round of venture funding led by Andressen Horowitz.
March 19, 2014: Development Kit 2 was announced.
March 25, 2014: Facebook acquired Oculus VR for 2 billion dollars. The deal includes 400 million dollars in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock, valued at 1.6 billion dollars. An additional 300 million dollars are allocated when Facebook reach certain goals.
May 21, 2014: ZeniMax Media, former employer of John Carmack, filed a lawsuit against Oculus VR. ZeniMax claimed that John Carmack's contribution to Oculus Rift was the intellectual property of ZeniMax.
June 24, 2014: Oculus VR acquired Carbon Design, the company behind the design of Xbox 360 Controller and Kinect.[2]
June 25, 2014: Oculus VR responded to ZeniMax's lawsuit. Oculus VR claimed that Oculus Rift did not share any code or technology with ZeniMax's intellectual properties.
July, 2014: Development Kit 2 (DK2) was released.
July 7, 2014: Oculus VR acquired RakNet, a cross-platform C++ and C# game networking engine.
December 11, 2014: Oculus VR acquired Nimble VR, the company that developed Nimble Sense, a camera and software combination that accurately tracks hand movements and gestures. It also acquired 13th Lab, a 3D mapping and modeling company.
May 6, 2015: CV1's shipping date is announced as Q1 2016.
May 25, 2015: Oculus VR acquired Surreal Vision, a computer vision startup that focuses on real-time 3D scene reconstruction. One of the startup's main projects is the real-time importation of the 3D environment of the real world into the virtual world.
June 11, 2015: Oculus Touch was revealed in a Pre-E3 press conference.
July 16, 2015: Oculus VR acquired Pebbles Interfaces, a leader in depth sensing technology and computer vision.
September 24, 2015: First consumer version of Samsung Gear VR will be released in November 2015 for $99.
November 20, 2015: First consumer version of Samsung Gear VR is released.
January 6, 2016: Pre-orders for Oculus Rift CV1 begin for $599.
January 11, 2016: Peter Deng, Director of Product of Instagram, becomes Oculus VR's Head of Product Management.
February 16, 2016: Pre-orders for the Oculus Rift and Oculus Ready PC bundle began for $1,499.
March 28, 2016: Oculus Rift CV1 is officially released.
May 4, 2016: Hans Hartmann, former COO of Fitbit, becomes the COO of Oculus VR.
May 24, 2016: Oculus VR acquires Two Big Ears, the creators of 3Dception, a 3D audio engine.
October 6, 2016: Mark Zuckerberg announced that Oculus VR has invested $250 million into content with an additional $250 million on the way.
December 13, 2016: Brandon Iribe has stepped down from his position as CEO. He will head the PC VR division inside Oculus.
December 28, 2016: Oculus VR acquired Denmark-based eye tracking startup The Eye Tribe.
January 25, 2017: Hugo Barra became the new CEO of Oculus VR.
References[edit]
- ↑ "Reality Labs". 2014-03-26. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Labs.
- ↑ Oculus Acquires Carbon Design, The Team That Designed The Xbox 360 Controller. TechCrunch. June 24, 2014. https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/24/oculus-acquires-carbon-design-the-team-that-designed-the-xbox-360-controller/