skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I am shattered right now. I was so happy for Oculus VR, I wanted it to become big, I wanted it to become something truly special.

And now this happens. I'm horrified and speechless.

This is the day I stop cheering for Oculus VR and get behind Sony's Morpheus: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/tech/gaming-gadgets/sony-morph...

Notch on this deal: "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out." (https://twitter.com/notch/status/448586381565390848).

Oh God why did this have to happen
Are you sure? What did you know of their situation (financial, etc)?
I have tried to develop app for facebook. Just terrible experience.
Are they just acquiring every startup that shows up in news?
This sucks so unbelievably bad.
Which is sad because in the end Facebook is all about showing ads to people who don't want to see them.
Google is also investing heavily into stuff thats far from their core competency, like robots and self driving cars. I just hope FB don't mess with it too much in the next few years.
Nuzen Hair Oil – Have You Used Nuzen Hair Oil?
>it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.

Once you sell your soul you are free. /s
no more carmack pouring his passion. it will be left to 'product managers' in facebook.
As long as they don't turn it into Facebook Glass (which it sounds like it may eventually become) it may not be the worst thing. I think with Facebooks cash the Oculus team might be able to get a quality consumer headset for gaming out a lot faster than as a "startup" without having to worry about multiple additional rounds of funding. The founders also probably couldn't say no to $2b...I wonder if they'll bounce when they can or who even is going along with the acquisition.
"We're Fucked, It's Over" strikes me as a pretty dramatic response to a technology vendor failing to renew a contract. Unless they have extra-special access to customers or customer data, whatever they do can be replicated in-house.
Does it really always have to be about money? This is just stupid.
What do you do if you break Production Code?
Eh, this is the type of sensationalist comment that disappoints me when it makes it to the top of the comments list, because you offer no real commentary outside of "I just really dislike facebook" -- proving there is a circle-jerk of hate on FB in the HN community.

>I prefer to actually visit my doctor where facebook doesn't get all the data about it.

Until you use a self-hosted email client, self-hosted calendar server, a dumb phone (i.e. not a smartphone like android) , etc. -- Google and/or some other company already is "getting" the data about your doctor and you.

The way I interpreted this, I think about all the cases where open communication is increasingly fostered. Imagine someone like Snowden being able to communicate with his girlfriend again; imagine traveling across the world, and having your mom/pop see what you are seeing. THAT's the cool stuff/ideas we should be upvoting.
whoa. didn't see this coming. Doesn't really fit Carmack's style at all. Wonder if this deal was done over him...
McElroy Flavelle : Oculus Rift Prediction
I'm not super thrilled by this but at least it's better than GM acquiring Tesla.
Zuck is buying his way into the next generation of consumer digital consumption.

Trying the Oculus for the first time was one of those "this is going to be huge" moments in my life akin to seeing the first iPhone demo.

FB's entire business went to mobile, and pre-IPO there was a lot of discussion around if they were going to figure mobile out.

Now they own arguably the best team and technology that's going to be in front of the next wave of consumption.

Palmer & the early Oculus team deserve the huge success, but man I hope they stay hungry and keep innovating given the brilliance that they gave us with the 1st Dev Kit.
A virtual reality game console deeply integrated with facebook? What could go wrong there?
Oh I was thinking about a collaboration scenario. Something next door to pair programming where two people are working on a document together but just not simultaneously.
King Digital (Candy Crush) IPO Prices at 7.5B
Same.

My initial reaction is to hate this. After thinking it over briefly I still hate it.

I think I'm going to look to Carmack as my proxy. If he jumps ship, the whole thing is surely tainted.
The prophesied Windows XP and IE 8 crisis is nigh (unless you’re in China)
Hey Boss – I Am Telling You "NO"
Look on the bright side - now you can actually buy a stake in Oculus! Albeit at a ridiculous premium.
> Imagine a 10 year high school reunion that exists not in the old gymnasium, but in a virtual space where you can catch up with them.

And you offer one of them a hug and then pause and realize, "Oh yeah. I'm just sitting at home by myself again. Just like high school."

> Imagine sitting in the front row of the next presidential debate, where you can see the sweat forming on the candidate's brow under the lights. You can look over and talk to your friend sitting next to you without disturbing the action.

And now I have no hope for American democracy. It is dead.
Carmack has always wanted to build a full VR world/universe, if that's Zuckberberg's vision, they actually might fit. Crazy though.
This is really upsetting.
Great point. Read http://ryancarson.com/ for a very different point of view.
It's most likely the association with opposite realities, one direction of whom is associated with passionate research, and the other, profit-based production for the masses.

And this is not far from reality, in a way. Carmack is a true innovator who's never thought about money, and shared his product with humanity - his writings are amazing -, Zuckerberg... well, "dumb f*cks who trust me".
Wow.. I came to the comments page wanting to express my disappointment. I really wasn't expecting to see so many other people sharing the sentiment. I thought I was one of the last people in existence who deleted their Facebook account years ago and left it deleted. :)
Have you no IMAGINATION!? Can't you picture a Farmville where you can actually see the teats on the cow right in front of you? See the corn waving in a virtual breeze? Best of all, see a beautifully rendered image of your money go up in flames each time you make an in-game purchase!
A million isn't that much these days. You probably want at least 2 or 3 to be financially independent, able to live a comfortable life in perpetuity with minimal risk.
Try having none for a while. It's hard to stand by "principles" when you aren't eating. A lot of people are very, very afraid of stuff like that, even if they have not suffered in a long time or never really, truly suffered but maybe their parents grew up hungry and instilled in them terror of doing without.

I mean, some folks stand by their principles. But, seriously, it's not easy.
<Not sarcastic> Do you feel that distance learning is limited by the fact that it is in 2d instead of 3d? is the ability to see the teacher in stereocopic presentation hampering?
</not sarcastic>
I'll hazard a guess, though Zuckerburg more or less lays it out. They'll create the Metaverse (as described in Snow Crash), but they'll own it. You will meet virtually with friends on the Facebook platform, and they will own it all the way through to the consumer hardware.
I wonder does this have anything to do with Sony announcing her own VR project Morpheus. Technology wise Sony's alternative didn't show much advantage, but industry support wise it showed that it's a very very prominent opponent Oculus VR has to beat.

Selling it to Facebook seems to me an indication that the leadership no longer believe that Oculus can be as successful in the gaming industry as they hoped.
That's probably the worst analogy I have ever heard; or is this killing with someone else hand something common... somewhere?
I can also see them creating a commerce platform. Companies create some sort of VR marketplace where customers can log in and view products. For example, you're shopping for a car. Instead of going to a dealer you put on the goggles and see models and options. Nvidia would love to get in on that; offload 3D model generation to one of their GPU compute clusters. Facebook gets either a bulk payment up front or some percentage of sales; basically like advertising space.

Just a thought.
It doesn't matter. OP was putting the blame on Facebook, where a deal has always a signature from all involved parties.

Regardless of their situation, one can always say no.

It is a matter of convictions and being able to live with the consequences.

Apparently, getting money was more important.
You are vastly underestimating the difficulty of finding good engineers who you can work with. Sprinkling clojure in your job postings isn't magic. A world of difference exists between people saying "thats cool" and "I will work for you for 50% under market rates".
>I am shattered right now.

Oh come on -- this is just ridiculous. They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects.

I know i'll get down votes for saying this, but if Google was the buyer, there would be much more positive comments here. Use some rational analysis here, folks.
The value proposition and technology growth for Oculus seems far more valuable than WhatsApp,

In not so sure. I don't doubt that Oculus Rift will dominate the first wave of rich, western virtual reality headsets. But there's no guarantee they will continue to do, and its going to be a long time before virtual reality is accessible to a vast number of people around the world.

WhatsApp was as valuable as it was because it runs everywhere, including cheap feature phones you find in Africa and India.
Palmer Luckey (founder of Oculus VR) just wrote a statement[0] on the Oculus subreddit:

"I’ve always loved games. They’re windows into worlds that let us travel somewhere fantastic. My foray into virtual reality was driven by a desire to enhance my gaming experience; to make my rig more than just a window to these worlds, to actually let me step inside them. As time went on, I realized that VR technology wasn’t just possible, it was almost ready to move into the mainstream. All it needed was the right push.
We started Oculus VR with the vision of making virtual reality affordable and accessible, to allow everyone to experience the impossible. With the help of an incredible community, we’ve received orders for over 75,000 development kits from game developers, content creators, and artists around the world. When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible.
Facebook is run in an open way that’s aligned with Oculus’ culture. Over the last decade, Mark and Facebook have been champions of open software and hardware, pushing the envelope of innovation for the entire tech industry. As Facebook has grown, they’ve continued to invest in efforts like with the Open Compute Project, their initiative that aims to drive innovation and reduce the cost of computing infrastructure across the industry. This is a team that’s used to making bold bets on the future.
In the end, I kept coming back to a question we always ask ourselves every day at Oculus: what’s best for the future of virtual reality? Partnering with Mark and the Facebook team is a unique and powerful opportunity. The partnership accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas and take risks that were otherwise impossible. Most importantly, it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.
Very little changes day-to-day at Oculus, although we’ll have substantially more resources to build the right team. If you want to come work on these hard problems in computer vision, graphics, input, and audio, please apply!
This is a special moment for the gaming industry — Oculus’ somewhat unpredictable future just became crystal clear: virtual reality is coming, and it’s going to change the way we play games forever.
I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast.
I’m proud to be a member of this community — thank you all for carrying virtual reality and gaming forward and trusting in us to deliver. We won’t let you down."

[0]: http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of...
I wonder does this have anything to do with Sony announcing her own VR project Morpheus. Technology wise Sony's alternative didn't show much advantage, but industry support wise it showed that it's a very very prominent opponent Oculus VR has to beat.
Selling it to Facebook seems to me an indication that the leadership no longer believe that Oculus can be as successful in the gaming industry as they hoped.
Is there a "I disagree with who you're marrying, but I'll gladly defend your right to marry them" corollary to that? If not, maybe there should be.
When is Google Maps going to restore "Save as Contact"? I keep my old Galaxy Nexus around so I can use Maps 6. The new Maps is a definite downgrade.
I'm guessing he wasn't really lacking funds before that either.
Imagine going on an epic ski run from your sofa. Or wheelchair.

Imagine jumping out of the Stratos like Felix Baumgartner, from your desk.

I wonder whether GoPro is working on a stereo vision headset (with microphones) so extreme athletes can capture what desk jockeys will play back on their Rifts, Walter Mitty style.

Edit: Imagine what playing Madden 2016 could be like.
"Facebook is the biggest name in social media." -> "Google, another tech powerhouse, is trying to push their social media offerings." -> "Google has 3 things that Facebook does not: Email, Youtube, and Glass." -> "Facebook is comfortable with the first two, since they have been there for years, but Glass is threatening to them." -> "Facebook needs their own 'Glass', in case Glass pans out."

My prediction: Glass will not pan out for Google, and Oculus Rift with languish with Facebook as a result. Facebook may put out some half-hearted "Use a Rift to view your friends 3d panoramas of their vacation" nonsense that nobody will care about, and the industry will be put off VR for another half-decade at least.
I already sent an emailing asking how to cancel.

If it turns out to be good I'll get one. Not bothering to preorder though. No need to risk money supporting the company now.
No, it's terrible for everyone. I'm quite sad for the same reasons. The openness, the possibilities... (sigh) maybe someone else will take the torch.
They contacted us later and were very conciliatory about the person who was a bit heavy-handed in his communications. They really haven't been aggressive beyond that one guy who probably didn't have the authority to speak for Google. I was worried at first too, but they are handling the situation a lo t better.
Yeah... because Google has experience with this sort of project. It's in Google's wheelhouse, so to speak.
Sudden urge to read Snow Crash again. Reading this makes me feel like they want to take the first step into making a Metaverse[1]. That way they can control it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Metaverse
Now that is the mentality that's killing companies.
It would be very useful if 500+ karma users could reply privately to comments. The use case here would be to be able to tell a user why their comment is not appropriate or lowers the quality of discourse.

This feature could also come with the ability for 500+ karma to make such private comments visible (to make sure this privilege isn't being abused).

For example, in the following thread I would love to tell users why their comment does not constructively contribute to the discussion, but I also know that my comments on their comments don't contribute to the OP. There are many comments on there where a downvote is sufficient, but there are also borderline comments that merit an explanation as well.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115
This is a bit of a WTF.

I don't think Facebook would necessarily "ruin" Occulus (although it likely will) but I don't really see the fit. Courtside seats at basketball games -- OK totally doable technically speaking, but the hard part would be licensing.

If VR ever takes off in the mainstream it will probably end up becoming a "FRAND" kind of deal, where a bunch of key players pool their patents. Occulus will be a player, but hardly the only player.

I could see Sony or Microsoft wanting to sew up Occulus (although I think it would be a mistake to sell to either). Facebook just doesn't make much sense. Maybe it's just Zuckerberg really likes the technology.
Oculus just went from something incredibly amazing that I couldn't wait to be a part of to something that I want nothing to do with. I suspect I'm not alone. Humans are emotional creatures, not always driven by strict rationality. Maybe I'll feel differently in a year.
Well for me its the fact Facebook is an overbearing controlling experience which abuses it market position for its own interests above those of its users (both paying and free).

Its also a very narrow sighted company that has moved into the clone or buy instead of innovate cycle that most big companies evolve into.

That sort of mindset in the upper ends of management would kill the potential of something like occulus, especially when occullus have essentially been trumped by Sony (standing vs sitting, supporting accessories, and a massive user base) in the last week and will be playing catch up... and no doubt the MS power house will be on full roll as well rolling out headsets in the same market space... so its market share is drastically shrinking before its ready for launch.

Theres no way Facebook management will be able to handle the company intelligently enough to prevent the product from faltering. IMO it's pretty much a death blow for occulus.
Same boat here. I can't escape Facebook and Google. I use something, it get acquired by one of them. I'm glad I'm not alone.
Thinking at Google has changed since you left. The more recent IaaS products from Google (from GCE onwards) have relatively little to do with earlier cloud initiatives like AppEngine, other than learning from their experience.
And suddenly all my interest in Oculus VR has vanished. What a pity, I had high hopes for them :(
The Surprising Purpose of Pain – IMPOSSIBLE
The comprehensive solution to this issue (as we, the researchers mentioned in the article, see it) should be a combination of API safeguards and to have a hardwired "recording" light on Glass.

The API checks would prevent what we were able to do in Malnotes, and the "recording" light would work much like webcams currently do.

A more technical discussion of what we were able to exploit is on Ars Technica in the comments (skip past the trolls).
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/google-glass-spyware...
Honest, naive question -- what makes human data worth so much? Is it speculation that it will be worth more in future that drives the feverish collection of it, or are there already concrete uses/buyers? It feels bigger and more urgent than to simply help brands sell their merchandise more effectively
But ^L is also consistent with Terminal, across all platforms, at least in bash and other programs that use readline. :)
Maybe. I doubt facebook will be satisfied if they sell their Oculi (What's the plural?) like lg sells their monitors. I'm sure they sell it like samsung sells their phones: Full of stuff i do not want, deeply integrated into a ecosystem that i do distrust.
I don't think they're "great new technologies" so much as "pie in the sky" goal-spread diversification that shareholders like to see. There is a cultural aspect of the stock market where a range of goals is seen as more stable than, you know, getting real good at search and ads.

I suspect this in Facebook-OVR. FB might ruin it, a la Yahoo-Flickr, or leave them alone, but Facebook isn't really making headlines these days, and OVR is, so now every OVR story will now have to mention Facebook. It may not turn out this way, but there's no reason why the pairing has to be tightly coupled.
That's because you're viewing "open" and "connected" through technological terms, as in how other technology can connect with Facebook and how open the Facebook platform is. If you view the words instead in terms of people -- opening people's lives to friends and connecting people around the world at a level that was almost impossible before the rise of social networks -- then it makes complete sense.
I really want to see a comment from Oculus stating that this acquisition came with legal guarantees that the platform will remain open. If Oculus ends up only working with a Facebook login, we all lose. :(
It's for 400M in cash w/ 1.6B in Facebook stock.

I feel like Facebook is really trying to get all the mileage it can out of its stock.
I came here to say exactly this.

There will be others, though. Lots of others.
Just like Caprica.
It is an application that makes use of a database engine, exposing data access services, either locally or via the network as a server.
Sorry, it may not be directly related, but Google also slashed prices for Google Drive about ten days ago.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/13/google-drive-gets-a-big-pri...
So Facebook is buying every tech available? AI tech, Drone tech, VR tech - uhoh, are they going to build the Matrix?
To make matters worse, people who get this news while wearing an Oculus Rift headset can't even do a proper facepalm.
Not like there were many positive comments about Nest and Google, IIRC.
I'm not a lawyer or a tax advisor... but I'll tell you what I think so that you can kick-off your research.

You spent $50 and then sold them for $500. That is a $450 short-term capital gains tax. If you held onto them for more than a year, then it'd be a long-term capital gains tax. (But since you were actively trading, its definitely going to be taxxed at the higher short-term rate)

You then re-bought the 2BTC and totally lost them. That would be a capital loss (which if reported, will lower the amount that you are taxed)
My relationship with Oculus VR were just merely following the threads on HN and even I have this disturbing feeling of betrayal.
Why people are freaking about Glass, I just don't get.

Because there is a difference between a technology being relatively obscure, because a lot of people find it creepy and socially unacceptable, and the same kind of technology being more widely adopted by the general public because it's piggybacking on something else, apparently without any real privacy safeguards to prevent abuse whatever Google might have liked to happen, and in addition automatically uploading footage to the mothership with or without the knowledge of its owner in approximately real time.

As with much of the modern privacy debate, matters of scale, connectivity and the erosion of anonymity/obscurity make a much bigger difference in practice than traditional distinctions between public and private locations.
I expect Carmack got some pretty shiny golden handcuffs in the deal, I wouldn't expect him to jump ship anytime soon.
So they don't even have the money yet and have already lost 1.6 / 69.35 * 64.5 billion = 112 million.

Good start.
Nope, you have the cool/hip/popular opinion. Like hating country music or Nickleback.