Hugo Barra taking charge of team Oculus as Facebook's new VR chief

Xiaomi's former global vice president, Hugo Barra, has been appointed VP of virtual reality at Facebook. 

That means Barra, who helped develop the Android operating system during his years at Google, will be taking charge of the Oculus team and overseeing all of Facebook's virtual reality efforts.

Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the move on Facebook, and explained Barra was brought onboard to help turn virtual reality into the "next major computing platform."

For Barra, that means shaping the nascent tech into a mainstream consumer prospect sooner rather than later. 

"There's no greater calling in our industry than taking breakthrough tech and making it available to the greatest number of people," wrote Barra. "[I'm] really looking forward to doing just that at Facebook."