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occulus rift Now, logging onto Facebook means looking at photos of a friend’s birthday party. With Facebook’s latest acquisition, it soon might mean joining the party itself. Or at least feeling as if you’re doing so. Imagine you slip on a pair of goggles, fire up Facebook and immediately have the sense you’re stepping into someone’s home. When you turn your head left, you see your friend's living room and a half-dozen people leaning against his couch. Take a few steps forward and you’re staring at champagne glasses in the kitchen, listening to Daft Punk pound over the din of cocktail party chatter. At the end of the night, your skin tingles with pleasure as you enjoy a passionate kiss with your date. Yet back in the real world, there's still no one around you. It may sound futuristic, but Facebook’s new deal signals nothing short of Steven Spielberg-level ambitions. With its acquisition of virtual-reality headset creator Oculus VR, Facebook suggests that it hopes t...

Mark Zuckerberg has described VR as the ‘next major computing platform after mobile’, as Notch pulls support for Minecraft. Virtual reality has an unexpected new champion, as Facebook announces it has bought Oculus VR for $400 million cash and 23.1 million Facebook shares, plus another $300 million in potential bonuses. Not bad for a company that first shot to fame with a Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift headset. The obvious question though is what does Facebook want with what was a start-up company aimed primarily at hardcore PC gamers? ‘Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,’ said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. ‘Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.’ ‘The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from an...