Facebook acquires Two Big Ears; will launch VR and 360-degree sound design tools

Facebook has acquired a spatial audio technology company named Two Big Ears for an undisclosed amount. In a statement, the company said, “Our mission is to make VR audio succeed across all devices and platforms and continue to help creators make the best experiences for billions of people across the world.” Two Big Ears stated that support for its paid licenses will be wound down in the next 12 months.

The company made the announcement via a blogpost and said, “We’re excited to be able to continue developing great tools for a larger number of people across the world. 3Dception for Games will no longer be a separate product but we will be working with the Oculus team to combine our expertise and create best in class VR audio.”

This is an acquisition which is being made for Facebook and not Oculus. The Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation is a software suite for designing spatial audio for 360 video and cinematic VR. It includes plugins for popular audio workstations, a time synchronized 360 video player and utilities to help design and publish spatial audio in a variety of formats.