Facebook unveils a new Oculus headset, Google turns 20 and NASA reveals long-term plans to reach Mars. Here's your Daily Crunch for September 27, 2018. 1. Facebook's newest VR headset, Oculus Quest, ships in the spring for $399 With a $399 price tag, the Quest is more expensive than the already-released Oculus Go, but the Go ran on a last-gen mobile chipset and lacks the ability to freely move through space while being tracked. The standalone Quest, on the other hand, will be the first wireless Oculus hardware to sport positional tracking, both for the headset itself and the dual hand controllers. The headset will ship with 50-plus games made specifically for the device at launch. 2. Here are all of Google's 20th anniversary Easter eggs There's the obligatory Doodle, but in addition, certain 1998-style queries will prompt the suggestion "It's 2018! Did you mean ..." And Google Street View will take visitors inside the garage where it all started. 3. NASA's bold-ish plan for the next era takes us to the moon and Mars… eventually The National Space Exploration Campaign is the name of NASA's overarching plan to stop worrying about low Earth orbit (LEO), ditch the ISS, win the next moon race and then head off to Mars. 4. Compass nabs $400M, valuing the real estate technology startup at $4.4B Compass at its most basic offers a clear and easy way for property owners to list, market and sell properties. But it has also built its business in a quite traditional way, too: by adding people. 5. Crypto mining giant Bitmain reveals heady growth as it files for IPO The company grossed more than $2.5 billion in revenue last year, a near-10X leap on the $278 million it claims for 2016. And it says that revenue for the first six months of this year surpassed $2.8 billion. 6. Facebook poisons the acquisition well Josh Constine argues that after a half-decade of being seen as one of the most respectful and desired acquirers, a series of clashes have destroyed the image of Facebook's M&A division. 7. Opendoor just raised $400M in funding from SoftBank's Vision Fund The Compass investment was also led by SoftBank, so it seems like the firm is making a big investment in real estate tech. |