Oculus Go Aims to Be Facebook's VR Gateway for the Masses
*By Alisha Haridasani*
With its sights trained on a broader market for its virtual reality headsets, Facebook’s Oculus began selling its mid-range device on Tuesday.
The Oculus Go, which is available for sale on the Oculus website, Amazon, and in Best Buy stores, starts at $199, about half the price of the company’s high-end Rift product. The company also produces the cheaper Oculus Gear VR, which only works with select Samsung phones. The Go, unlike the Rift or the Gear VR, doesn’t need to be tethered to another device.
“We think that Oculus Go is a fantastic entry point for people who may not have tried getting into VR yet,” said Madhu Muthukumar, the product manager for Oculus Go, in an interview with Cheddar’s Alex Heath.
“We think of VR as a spectrum,” said Muthukumar, with the Rift at one end and the Gear VR at the other. The Go fits “nicely in the middle," he said.
The Go includes its own for-sale VR video library and access to Oculus TV, a new platform that allows users to access TV apps such as ESPN, Netflix, and Hulu. The new Go headset is also compatible with personal photos and videos from a user's phone, social media accounts, and Dropbox. The Go can also be fitted with prescription lenses.
“This is how people imagine VR should work,” said Muthukumar.
Oculus has grown from the Kickstarter-funded brainchild of [Palmer Luckey](https://www.wired.com/2014/05/oculus-rift-4/), who created the first prototype in 2011, when he was 18 years old, to a major player in virtual reality. Facebook acquired the company in 2014 for $2 billion, prompting other tech companies such as Microsoft and Google to try to develop their own competitive VR products. Apple is [reportedly](https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-is-working-on-an-ar-augmented-reality-vr-virtual-reality-headset-powered-by-a-wireless-wigig-hub/)working on its own headset that can run both VR and AR technology.
Despite Silicon Valley's push into VR, the technology hasn't been widely adopted by consumers. In 2016, only 200,000 Rift headsets were sold globally, according to a study by [SuperData](https://www.economist.com/news/business/21724863-vr-has-been-more-about-hype-substance-will-change-reality-check-virtual). The VR software and hardware industry made $1.8 billion in 2016, half the amount estimated in the study.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/facebook-looks-to-take-vr-mainstream-with-oculus-go).
The Robin Hood Foundation is New York City's largest poverty-fighting organization. For more than 30 years, Robin Hood has built and fueled non-profits across all five boroughs. CEO Richard Buery joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell ahead of his ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange and later, lighting of the NYSE Christmas tree.
Creator commerce platform LTK raised $300 million in a recent funding round, now valuing the company at $2 billion. LTK is the world's largest influencer marketing platform and is known for helping to pioneer the so-called 'creator economy.' The company helps content creators make money off of their social media posts by hosting them on one central marketplace. LTK says more than $3 million in products are bought each year on its website and app. Now, the company is looking to continue its growth. LTK co-founder and president Amber Venz Box joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Microsoft recently announced the standalone Teams Essentials as businesses continue to update their practices for the new norm of hybrid work life. Jared Spataro, corporate VP at Microsoft Modern Work, joined Cheddar to talk about solutions the tech giant has rolled out in order to help underserved small and medium-sized companies continue operations seamlessly. "We're excited about the opportunity to serve their needs better, and that, in particular, is focused on their meeting and communication needs," he said. "We start with Teams, which has been a wildly successful product for us up in the enterprise space, and now we have created a form of Teams that is particularly suited for small businesses."
No matter what you're in the market for this holiday season, there is one way that you can put some cash back in your pocket and stretch your gift budget a little bit further this year. With Lolli, for every gift you buy for someone else, you get the gift of free bitcoin back. CEO of Lolli, Alex Adelman, joins Cheddar News.
Iwao Fusillo, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, GM, joins Cheddar News to dispel myths and cut straight to the facts about GM's role in an all-electric future.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Elon Musk warned SpaceX employees in a leaked email that the company could be forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy if its raptor engine program fails. Musk then commented on the previous statement adding the detail that a recession could make such a bankruptcy possible.
Goldman Sachs is rolling out an Amazon Web Service for trading firms called GS Financial Cloud for Data with Amazon Web Services. The move comes as Wall Street looks to keep up with today's evolving tech.
Online ad-tech company Innovid made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange. CEO and co-founders Zvika Netter joined Cheddar's "Opening Bell" to discuss factors that drove the company to launch an IPO via a SPAC deal. He noted that the rapid growth of connected TV advertising (CTV) made it an opportune time for his business to go public. While the company is profitable, Netter also explained the various avenues it will take to increase total revenue.
