Facebook names Hugo Barra its new head of VR

Facebook has appointed Hugo Barra, a former executive at smartphone outfit Xiaomi, as the new leader of all of facebook’s virtual reality projects, including its virtual reality firm Oculus.

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerburg announced the news with a photo of Barra and Mark in virtual reality together. 

"Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform," Said Zuckerburg. "They’ll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before. Hugo is going to help build that future, and I’m looking forward to having him on our team."

Oculus announced that CEO Brendan Iribe was stepping away from the CEO role in December this year, with him moving away from the CEO role to lead the Oculus PC team instead. The company said at the time of the release that they weren’t looking to replace Iribe as CEO, but would be looking for the right person to lead Facebook’s VR efforts and it seems like Barra is their chosen replacement.

Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014.