It has gotten cheaper to explore virtual reality on the Oculus Rift headset.
The device, made by a company owned by Facebook, now sells for $499. That's a 17 percent markdown from its previous price of $599. The Rift's touch controllers are also being reduced by $100 to $99.
Those costs don't include a high-powered computer that needs to be connected to the Rift.
The discounts mark the latest effort to lure more people into trying out virtual reality, the artificial worlds that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes will eventually reshape technology and culture. Facebook bought Oculus for about $2 billion as part of Zuckerberg's effort to realize his vision.
The Rift remains more expensive than Sony's Playstation VR headset that sells for $399. HTC's Vive headset costs $799.
"Barbenheimer" was a phenomenon impossible to manufacture. But, more than a year later, that hasn't stopped people from trying to make "Glicked" — or even "Babyratu" — happen.
The counterprogramming of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" in July 2023 hit a nerve culturally and had the receipts to back it up. Unlike so many things that begin as memes, it transcended its online beginnings. Instead of an either-or, the two movies ultimately complemented and boosted one another at the box office.
And ever since, moviegoers, marketers and meme makers have been trying to recreate that moment, searching the movie release schedule for odd mashups and sending candidates off into the social media void. Most attempts have fizzled (sorry, "Saw Patrol" ).
This weekend is perhaps the closest approximation yet as the Broadway musical adaptation "Wicked" opens Friday against the chest-thumping sword-and-sandals epic "Gladiator II." Two big studio releases (Universal and Paramount), with one-name titles, opposite tones and aesthetics and big blockbuster energy — it was already halfway there before the name game began: "Wickiator," "Wadiator," "Gladwick" and even the eyebrow raising "Gladicked" have all been suggested.
"'Glicked' rolls off the tongue a little bit more," actor Fred Hechinger said at the New York screening of "Gladiator II" this week. "I think we should all band around 'Glicked.' It gets too confusing if you have four or five different names for it."
As with "Barbenheimer," as reductive as it might seem, "Glicked" also has the male/female divide that make the fan art extra silly. One is pink and bright and awash in sparkles, tulle, Broadway bangers and brand tie-ins; The other is all sweat and sand, blood and bulging... Read More
