Internet of Things review: Oculus bags $75M for VR, China joins iPhone craze
The Internet of Things is taking on new heights, with an ever-widening range of connected devices driving an unprecedented shift in the way we interact with technology. A company called Oculus is leading the charge with its namesake virtual reality headset, which succeeded in drawing the interest of both gamers and prominent Silicon Valley investors.
The company announced that it has closed a massive $75 million Series B financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing backers Spark Capital, Matrix Partners and Formation 8. The funding will be used to develop commercial models of the Oculus Rift, which made its debut on Kickstarter earlier this year and raised a total of $2.4 million through the crowdfunding site.
Chinese consumers also received some good news recently, with China Mobile confirming that it will start selling the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c starting January 17, 2014. The devices became available for pre-order on Wednesday.
“We know there are many China Mobile customers and potential new customers who are anxiously awaiting the incredible combination of iPhone on China Mobile’s leading network. We are delighted that iPhone on China Mobile will support our 4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA networks, providing customers with high-speed mobile service,” the carrier said in a statement.
Finally, jailbreaking team evad3rs canceled its agreement with TaiG after learning that the app store operator was distributing pirated applications. The controversy heat up even more when users discovered that the company’s newly released iOS 7 is not fully compatible with Cydia, apparently because evad3rs opted to use an untested version of the marketplace. Cydia’s Jay Freeman told Twitter followers that he was kept out of the loop and given “no lead time on evasi0n7.”
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