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Writer's pictureEddie Avil

Facebook AR/VR Changes to "Facebook Reality labs".

Oculus, Spark AR plus f8 thier neural interface research division is being renamed & rebranded as Facebook Reality labs.

Mark Zuckerberg posted earlier quoting his belief in Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality being the next computing platform & the need to unify oculus, Spark into a single entity


Every element of the social networking giant’s efforts in these fields, from consumer Oculus headsets to its SparkAR smartphone offerings and beyond will continue on under Chief Scientist Michael Abrash but with the new moniker Facebook Reality Labs .

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the company will still retain and use the Oculus branding, so expect future hardware like the heavily-rumored new Oculus Quest to still carry that label. Whats more, the company confirmed there have been no leadership or executive changes made in the transition.

In a blog post announcing the news — along with a date for the newly-named Facebook Connect developer event — Facebook VP of VR and AR Andrew Bosworth reasoned that the company had previously “lacked a unified brand identity from which to tell the story of how we’re building the future of VR and AR.”

“This is our seventh year hosting our annual AR/VR conference, and over the years, Connect has grown to include so much more than Oculus, with research updates and product news from Spark AR and more,” Bosworth wrote. “Moving forward, our annual AR/VR event will be called Facebook Connect to better reflect its broader scope, and we look forward to sharing even more news that represents the work happening across the entire Facebook Reality Labs team.”


The news comes a week after Facebook announced that, from October 2020, all first-time sign-ins to Oculus headsets will require a Facebook account. Existing Oculus accounts will be supported up until 2023, when users will lose access to unspecified features, a move which has not gone down well with developers, content creators and which could play a pivotal role in a startup that understands the mood of consumers and builds an open XR platform rather than these walled gardens built by these tech giants.


Facebook Connect takes place on September 16, and the company says it will share more on its new name and plans for the future during the show.


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