Facebook is killing the Oculus brand name as part of its huge Meta rebrand

Fb’s Oculus Quest virtual-reality headset is getting renamed as a part of the corporate’s sweeping rebrand.

Fb CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Thursday in the course of the firm’s Oculus Join occasion that Facebook was rebranding as “Meta,” a reputation that he stated mirrored the tech giant’s push into the so-called “metaverse.”

Fb govt Andrew Bosworth, who heads up the corporate’s digital actuality and augmented actuality division, introduced in a Facebook post Thursday that the Fb-made Oculus Quest VR headset could be renamed the Meta Quest, and the accompanying Oculus App could be referred to as the Meta App.

This successfully kills Oculus as a model – though some “software program and developer instruments” will nonetheless bear the Oculus title, he wrote.

“When folks purchase our merchandise, we would like them to obviously perceive that each one of those gadgets come from Meta and ladder as much as our metaverse imaginative and prescient,” Bosworth wrote.

“All of us have a robust attachment to the Oculus model, and this was a really tough resolution to make. Whereas we’re altering the model of the {hardware}, Oculus will proceed to be a core a part of our DNA and can dwell on in issues like software program and developer instruments,” he added.

Bosworth additionally introduced a change to the division title. Beforehand referred to as Fb Actuality Labs, the unit will lose the “Fb” and simply be referred to as Actuality Labs.

Zuckerberg stated Thursday that below its new title, the corporate will likely be break up into two sections: its Household of Apps – i.e., its social media enterprise, together with the Fb app, Instagram, and WhatsApp – and Actuality Labs.

The metaverse is a time period borrowed from science-fiction, and refers to a future model of the web which individuals entry utilizing VR and augmented actuality (AR) headsets, reasonably than by means of screens on telephones and laptops.

Throughout Thursday’s digital convention, Fb additionally unveiled some new virtual- and augmented-reality merchandise it plans to deliver out sooner or later. It teased a high-end VR headset referred to as “Project Cambria” in addition to a pair of AR glasses, codenamed “Nazaré.”

“Any more, we’ll be metaverse first, not Fb first,” Zuckerberg stated Thursday. The corporate introduced final week it deliberate to create 10,000 jobs in Europe over the subsequent 5 years to assist construct out its metaverse ambitions.