Former Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra has become the new boss of Facebook's VR team.
Hugo Barra's Professional Career
According to CNET, Hugo Barra had been serving as global lead of the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi. Earlier this week, he announced his departure from Xiaomi in order to return to Silicon Valley and join Facebook. He will become the vice president of Oculus virtual reality division at Facebook.
The announcement has been made by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post, on Wednesday, Jan. 25. The post was also mentioning Barra's track record at Xiaomi and Google. Zuckerberg said that he has been known Hugo for a long time, since the time when he was involved in developing the Android operating system.
After leading Google's Android product development, Barra joined Xiaomi back in 2013. During Barra's tenure, the Chinese company has expanded beyond its home country. However, Xiaomi did not penetrate yet the U.S. market. Earlier this month, the appearance of the Chinese company at the CES 2017 show in Las Vegas has been intended to help gain more exposure on a grand stage.
Facebook has acquired headset maker Oculus VR a few years back for an amount of $3 billion. Since then, the social media giant has also become a leading proponent of virtual reality technology. After years as little more than a sci-fi pipe dream, VR is just now coming into its own. The last holiday season marked the first time that high-end VR headsets from HTC, Sony and Oculus were on store shelves.
Zuckerberg also said in his Facebook post that Hugo shares his belief that the next major computing platform will be virtual and augmented reality. These technologies enable users to be more creative than ever before and to experience completely new things.
Barra said in a separate Facebook post that he will start the new job at Facebook's Oculus VR division in a couple of months. He added that he is excited to work on building the future of virtual reality immersive technology with visionaries in the Oculus team and big names as Mark Zuckerberg, Mike Schroepfer, and Brendan Trexler Iribe.
Barra also said that he left Xiaomi due to his desire to move from China back to Silicon Valley. In his new job position, he is expected to oversee the Oculus VR team, as well as all of Facebook's VR efforts.
Facebook's Oculus VR Division
Oculus is involved at the moment in an ongoing $2 billion trial against ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Id Software and Bethesda Softworks. ZeniMax claims that John Carmack stole VR trade secrets that were first developed at Id software. However, Carmack denied the claims. According to him, ZeniMax was discussing taking an ownership stake in the VR company and agreed to share code with Oculus.
According to Ars Technica, Oculus' next project seems to be developing the "Santa Cruz" prototype in order to prepare it to become a consumer product. Due to the packing of its own computer power, the Santa Cruz prototype is being "wireless." The prototype also features a better way to track the headset, called "inside out" tracking. This new method allows avoiding the need for the separate sensor boxes that the Oculus Rift and Vive use today.
