Facebook’s Oculus VR Acquires Startup Surreal Vision

Janko Roettgers

Here’s more proof that Facebook’s plans for Oculus VR go beyond gaming: Oculus announced Tuesday the acquisition of Surreal Vision, a company specializing in making virtual worlds look more like real ones.

The purchase will bolster Oculus’ research team with the startup’s three principals: Richard Newcombe, Renato Salas-Moreno, and Steven Lovegrove.

Here’s how the Oculus team put it in a blog post announcing the acquisition:

“Great scene reconstruction will enable a new level of presence and telepresence, allowing you to move around the real world and interact with real-world objects from within VR.”

Oculus recently announced that its first consumer product will be available in early 2016. The company is also cooperating with Samsung on its Gear VR headset, and may announce additional mobile device partnerships in the future.

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