1. Yes, Sony has a bad track record when it comes to marketing VR glasses. (Did you even know that VR glasses for the PS2 exist?) However, with all the press Oculus has generated and the competition getting ready, Sony may be willing to make a bigger bet on VR.

2. FB seems to be going for a hands off approach that won't hinder the adoption of the Oculus Rift. I'm at least willing to take a wait and see approach before condemning the buyout. Apart from that, core members of Oculus like John Carmack and Michael Abrash as well as Mark Zuckerberg seem to be inspired to implement the Metaverse as described in Snow Crash. This is likely a medium term goal that comes on top of the general Oculus platform.

3. Valve has clearly stated that they are not interested in producing their own VR hardware. And the former core members of Valves VR team are now employed by Oculus. Valve will likely promote good VR hardware solutions and software and provide a uniform VR API. It's also probable that we'll see recommended bundles of VR hardware, Steam boxes and the Steam controller.

Valve has no plans to produce their own hardware. And Michael Abrash, who was at the core of Valves VR research, is now working for Oculus.

Russia will probably be willing to lift the ban if the US lifts its own ITAR restrictions. They disallow the export defense-related technology, including rocketry, to Russia.

But a low framerate contributes to simulator sickness. It's no wonder the engineers in the video are careful to move their heads slowly.

Not quite. The GEMA only collects fees for its members. The problem is the GEMA assumption. If you play a song, you either have to pay the GEMA or document that the relevant artists do not have GEMA contracts (which is either a pain or plain impossible).

Do you have a source for this? To my knowledge, the GEMA demands 0.375 Euro cents [PDF] per view.

If you listen to Michael Abrash, you will hear him talk a lot about presence, a sense of being there that works even on a subconcious level. If you can't bring yourself to step over a virtual ledge, you have working VR.

What VR Could, Should, and Almost Certainly Will Be within Two Years

Is this a joke? This sounds exactly like what Borne Again Christians, including George W. Bush believe in.

Metadata is just data about data. This can be almost anything. For voice recordings, you could reasonably claim the following information to be metadata:
- Existence of keywords or keyphrases
- Voice signatures, identifying the speakers
- Stress levels of the voices

If you look at how US agencies are gaming the legal system, they will probably claim that transcripts of conversations are not the conversations themselves and therefore metadata.

Can we call this the Vasa effect? Named after the pride of the Swedish marine that sank minutes into its maiden voyage, killing dozens of the crew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

I live in Germany. And while we import a lot of oil from Russia and Norway, we are still more dependent on oil from the middle east than the US.

See http://knoema.de/jygmcvb/crude-oil-imports-into-the-eu-27-from-different-countries

The US doesn't really need oil from the middle east. Europe and Asia do.

Eduard Snowden wasn't employed by the NSA, but by Booz Allen Hamilton, which belongs to the Carlyle Group. Think about the opportunities insider information offers to these kinds of investors.

A non-US competitor to VISA would be even more important.

US companies won't regain any trust until the US government lifts all gag orders that came attached to NSLs.