Hugo Barra didn’t have a hard time finding gainful employment after his departure from Xiaomi on Sunday. The Brazilian technology executive will now be the vice-president of virtual reality at Facebook, a move that puts him in charge of the social media company’s Oculus VR platform, among Facebook’s other VR ventures.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote about the hiring in a post on the social media platform. Zuckerberg said that he and Barra share a \u00ab\u00a0belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. \u00a0\u00bb Barra was in China at the time, so the post included a picture from a virtual meeting between the pair.
Barra was once the product spokesperson for Google’s Android team. Among other things, he was involved in the development of several Nexus devices and Android releases from Honeycomb to KitKat. He subsequently worked as Vice President of International at Chinese electronics manufacturer Xaomi, directing the company’s advances into foreign markets. Barra’s hiring comes just a few weeks after former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe stepped down from the head position to lead a PC VR-specific group within the company, in a role focused on engineering and product development.<\/p>\n