Oculus Connect becomes Facebook Connect, goes virtual on September 16

Goodbye, Oculus Connect — hello, Facebook Connect. Following last week’s controversial announcement that Facebook accounts will be required to use all future Oculus virtual reality devices, the social media giant today rebranded its annual VR confab to eliminate the Oculus name and announced a date for the now entirely online event: September 16.

Free for all attendees, Facebook Connect will focus on the combined work of Facebook’s AR and VR teams, which going forward will all be under the Facebook Reality Labs aegis. That means Oculus, Spark AR, Portal, and other AR/VR initiatives will operate under that name, while the former Facebook Reality Labs/Oculus Research group led by Michael Abrash will be known as FRL Research.