HiGame

Two new pieces of Rift-related news today: First, the company has acknowledged it’s been hit by an “unexpected component shortage,” which delayed some of its shipments. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe took to Twitter to address the problem. According to Iribe, Oculus will provide free shipping on all preorders, including international ones, as a way to apologize to its most dedicated fans.




A later tweet clarified that all preorders made between January and April 1 will be free, regardless of when they were placed. There’s been some concern from Rift backers and pre-orders over when devices would actually ship and the company has been criticized for being largely silent on these issues — it’s good to see some clarification on the topic. That said, Oculus is still apparently struggling to process orders; a number of Twitter users claim not to have received confirmation emails days after placing an order.
The current shipping date for an Oculus Rift is July 2016 if you haven’t placed an order, but there’s no harm in letting the ecosystem firm up a bit. While we’re excited about the long-term potential of virtual reality, current reviews suggest the hardware and software suites are both first-gen products with the promise and pitfalls that entails.

Oculus’ Terms of Use raise eyebrows

Oculus’ shipping issues aren’t the only potential cloud on the horizon for the VR company. Gizmodo read through the Rift’s Terms of Use and pointed out some verbiage that’s likely to concern the privacy-minded. Some of the language is boilerplate-standard for a social company like Facebook, which grants itself the right to use any content you upload to the service for any purpose it wishes without acknowledgement, compensation, or expectation of privacy.

Oculus also states that it collects information about your specific system, IP address, and other device identifiers, data on the games, content, and applications installed on your system, your location information (including your exact location if you are using a mobile device), and your physical movements and dimensions while using VR.

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