Mark Zuckerberg's Vision for Oculus Rift

[Administrator]

Following the company's blockbuster $2 billion deal to buy Oculus VR last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has now provided some new thoughts regarding his vision for virtual reality.
Zuckerberg enjoying Oculus RiftDuring a recent Q&A session on Facebook, a fan asked Zuckerberg what his vision was for Oculus Rift. The 30-year-old billionaire responded by saying he sees the technology as an "incredibly powerful" platform that can connect the world in ways previously impossible--kind of like how Facebook itself.
"Our mission [is] to give people the power to experience anything," he said. "Even if you don't have the ability to travel somewhere, or to be with someone in person, or even if something is physically impossible to build in our analog world, the goal is to help build a medium that will give you the ability to do all of these things you might not otherwise be able to do."
"This will be incredibly powerful as a communication medium as well," Zuckerberg added. "Just like we capture photos and videos today and then share them on the Internet to let others experience them too, we'll be able to capture whole 3D scenes and create new environments and then share those with people as well. It will be pretty wild."
When Facebook acquired Oculus VR in 2014, Zuckerberg referred to virtual reality as "the platform of tomorrow." He went on to say at the time that, "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play, and communicate."
Outside of gaming, Facebook plans to extend Oculus Rift to other industries, including communications, media, and entertainment, among others. "Given these broad potential applications, virtual reality technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform," the company said at the time.
Oculus Rift has been in development for years, and there is still no word on when the consumer model will be available or what it will cost.
Outside of Oculus, Sony has its PlayStation 4 virtual reality headset Project Morpheus, which will ship to consumers early next year, while Valve and HTC have teamed up for a new virtual reality device called Vive. That headset will go on sale later this year. In addition, Microsoft has announced HoloLens, a "mixed reality" headset technology that is "something different" than traditional virtual reality devices.





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