Facebook: Oculus Will Become a Meaningful Platform in Many Years

[roseofbattle]

Facebook: Oculus Will Become a Meaningful Platform in Many Years

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg believes virtual reality is a part of the future, but it may take many years to become important.

Oculus [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/facebook], which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg stated won't reach a meaningful status as a platform until it's sold 50-100 million units, he said in a Q3 2014 earnings call.

Zuckerburg is optimistic that his investment in Oculus, which announced in March it had been acquired by Facebook [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/133231-Facebook-is-Buying-Oculus-VR-for-2-Billion-Update-4], will be successful.

"As I've said before, with Oculus we're making a long-term bet on the future of computing," Zuckerburg said in the earnings call. "Every 10-15 years a new major computing platform arrives, and we think virtual and augmented reality are important parts of this upcoming next platform."

However, Zuckerburg said the company's efforts for Oculus may not reach its full impact for several years. Facebook is approaching a strategy for Oculus for over the next 3, 5, and 10 years, and Oculus needs to sell 50-100 million units until it's a meaningful platform.

Zuckerburg is still confident Oculus is performing well in its early days. He stated the company has shipped 100,000 Oculus Rift developer kits across 130 countries. In September, Oculus released more details about the consumer version of the Oculus Rift [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137260-Oculus-VR-Rift-Consumer-Release-Palmer-Luckey-Nate-Mitchell-DK2-Virtual-Reality-Samsung], and Oculus co-founders are hoping to stay within the $200-$400 price range for the consumer version.

"It's still early days for Oculus, but we're encouraged to see the variety of apps and games being developed for the platform," Zuckerburg said. "Our efforts here will take longer to achieve their full impact, but we're going to continue preparing for the future by investing aggressively."

Source: CVG [http://www.media-server.com/m/p/22wd72e4]


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[circularlogic88]

I guess I'm not a visionary, because I can't see this having any sort of lasting mainstream appeal out of niche markets like tech heads and it's already established fan base that didn't jump ship when they sold over to Facebook.

 

[Verlander]

No it won't. Calling it now, safest bet since saying that England wouldn't win the last World Cup.

 

[Jacked Assassin]

I already lost a lot of excitement for VR. The whole having to wear it & it doubling as a motion controller have me unsold. Then there is the obsession with 4K that is happening. Even if they could shrink 4K or more into such a small screen I'm under the impression by some posts I've seen that it would be pointless as the human eye can't see it.

So I'm back to being hyped for the PS9!

 

[tzimize]

I guess I'm not a visionary, because I can't see this having any sort of lasting mainstream appeal out of niche markets like tech heads and it's already established fan base that didn't jump ship when they sold over to Facebook.

How about sitting in your own private movie theatre.

How about sitting in a live football game.

How about playing game in "true" first person.

How about digital tours.

How about digital museums.

How about Virtual meetings.

How about pilot training.

The possibilities are...if not endless...pretty damn big

 

[fluxy100]

Didn't we hear this literally last month?

Inventor Predicts Maybe 5 Years Before Oculus Rift Goes Mainstream

Permalink

Would you look at that, we did.

As for the Oculus becoming a meaningful platform, I doubt it. It will always be easier to just use a Computer or TV screen, and while there are enthusiasts, the general populace will always go with the easier option

 

[Product Placement]

How about...

One possibility is to improve the experience of using physical avatars in the real life world.

It could be used for stuff like...

Having a doctor hook up to a surgical robot and perform an operation cross country. No need for specialists to travel all over the place for his job.

Engineer that needs to examine dangerous locations, like contaminated areas in a nuclear reactor.

Business executive taking a tour on a factory that he's considering investing in, without having to travel to the area where it's at.

And sadly, there are military applications in there, as well. Why bother building artificial intelligence, when you can invest in improved drone technology for combat or even espionage.

Edit: And yes, I know all of these things are being done today. I'm saying that VR can help improve these things, by improving the experience of the operator.

 

[Gatlank]

I guess I'm not a visionary, because I can't see this having any sort of lasting mainstream appeal out of niche markets like tech heads and it's already established fan base that didn't jump ship when they sold over to Facebook.

How about sitting in your own private movie theatre.

How about sitting in a live football game.

How about playing game in "true" first person.

How about digital tours.

How about digital museums.

How about Virtual meetings.

How about pilot training.

The possibilities are...if not endless...pretty damn big

Isn't that what they said when the internet/cd's/or other great tech stuff appeared?

Captcha: usual suspects.

Indeed.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Yeah, we did hear this kind of thing back in the 80s and 90s, but not usually from people who actually knew the business. Not from John Motherfucking Carmack. There are a lot of technical hurdles needed to overcome before VR can really truly become a thing - you need sufficient graphical fidelity that the brain accepts it, and you have to render each image twice or it looks wrong, and you have to have a roughly 60FPS frame rate for both images, all not insignificant hurdles requiring a lot of computer horsepower to handle. There's also problems like VR sickness, and the necessity for head tracking software, without which you will become incredibly and very unpleasantly disoriented.

At the stage we are currently at the Rift works. That's why we're beginning to see games with Rift compatibility beginning to show up, from brand new titles to old products being ported over to the Rift. We're in the home stretch for the birth of VR - fine tuning of the hardware and software designs. I would guess it'll take another two years before the Rift is truly finished, and I'd agree with that analyst that within five the Rift will become a reasonably common piece of hardware.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Whelp, if they can sort out the latency and the fidelity problems then I'm game. Also the unit it's self will likely get smaller and smaller as technology improves so that's something to look forward to too.

Captcha: Goosebumps - not quite but i'll admit to a lite tingle of anticipation.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Rift may catch on, it's definitely not the first, or even second take on Virtual Reality though, but until I can actually try the device for myself, I'm reserving final judgement.

 

[Olas]

The Occulus Rift seems like a no-brainer idea to me frankly. If you're going to experience media by yourself, why have a large screen far away from your eyes?

 

[Jadak]

I guess I'm not a visionary, because I can't see this having any sort of lasting mainstream appeal out of niche markets like tech heads and it's already established fan base that didn't jump ship when they sold over to Facebook.

The main appeal I see in this technology is something that tends to rarely even be talked about.

Do something for me, take a moment and look around at your surroundings. How many monitors do you have? How many could you fit on your desk if you wanted more? How easy are they to rearrange?> Stack on top of each other? Surround yourself with them?

Now, think virtual reality. Or my dream, simply a virtual office. With a virtual reality medium, you only need one display device and you can then emulate many. Why buy 3 monitors to array across your desk when you can put on your VR goggles and find yourself in a different room where you can have as many as you like? Whatever sizes you want? Adding and removing them whenever you feel like?

With VR, forget games, that'll be a niche appeal until we're on par with a holodeck. But think about your surroundings. Get a comfy chair and a circular desk with you in the middle, and you can be surrounded by absolutely anything that is feasible to have without needing to be physically touched.

All of this without the limitations brought on by pesky things like expense, cable management, nor even physics.

Hell, just think of the corporate market. How much space does a cubicle worker when their surroundings can be digital? That worked can have, to their eyes, a perfect space to work in, all while stuffed in a closet.

Now, all things considered, the resolution of the current Oculus Rift and the power of modern computers is not quite yet up to the task of creating such a seamless virtual environment (at least not the part where you could create an arbitrary number of virtual monitors for your computer to use and still expect them to be high resolution), but in the future I fully expect my sitting environment to be absolutely whatever the fuck I choose it to be at any given moment, and that will be amazing.

 

[Entitled]

I already lost a lot of excitement for VR. The whole having to wear it & it doubling as a motion controller have me unsold.

The idea is not that it's "doubling as a motion control", but that head tracking is the most basic way to make it not feel like a monitor on your space, but a 360° virtual space surrounding you.

Then there is the obsession with 4K that is happening. Even if they could shrink 4K or more into such a small screen I'm under the impression by some posts I've seen that it would be pointless as the human eye can't see it.

It's not like there is a specific amount of pixels that the human eye can see, it's about the density, and how wide a field those pixels are covering.

Wit cell phones covering a 5-10° patch of vision in your hand, 1080p means almost full density, higher than that can be a bit useful for reading lots of tiny chinese characters, but that's about it.

For a monitor or TV, covering a 30° window right ahead of you, (most of your front vision), 4K is about close to diminishing returns, but 180p is still quite serviceable.

For a 90-180° HMD, the same pixels would be stretchd out over a several times wider field. The 720p rift still had a huge screendoor effect, 1080p solved that but the world it projects still feels like it was made by an old 480p TV. For VR, 180p is just the bare minimum of watchability, 4K is just the beginning for a commercial smootness and on the long term you could even sense the difference between 8K and 16K.

 

[Rozalia1]

Oculus is simply not ready, it won't draw money.
In the 10-15 years time frame talked about people will look back and state "Oculus gave thousands of people headaches, never drew a dime". That is my prediction anyway.

 

[Svarr]

Yay! I always wanted more ads in first person!


And now i won't be able to look away either, i'm sure in another 5 years after this there will be a "feature" to lock the headset on, or face death. :3


#conspiracy


hehehe

 

[nodlimax]

I don't see it becoming that popular. There are simple reasons for it. Whenever you wear that thing your surrounding should be completely clear so you can't by accident hurt yourself or damage your own stuff.

Do you keep drinks near your PC? Forget about drinking something when you have this thing around as you can't even see what's around you and in these virtual environments it could be easy to lose track of where you actually are in your room. So enjoy spilled drinks and stuff.

In the end it's one step closer towards real virtual environments, but we're still far away from it. You'll see me excited once we can enter the matrix....

 

[Strazdas]

I have to agree that its something thats going to be really widespread, but still quite far away. sadly technological limitations still make it quite unrealiable, such as bad ability to draw your own motions (Kinect 2.0 isnt even close to being realistic here) and poor graphics control (gota make those screens higher resolution and lower input lag if you want to get rid of nausea).

How about sitting in your own private movie theatre.

How about sitting in a live football game.

How about playing game in "true" first person.

How about digital tours.

How about digital museums.

How about Virtual meetings.

How about pilot training.

The possibilities are...if not endless...pretty damn big

Isn't that what they said when the internet/cd's/or other great tech stuff appeared?

Captcha: usual suspects.

Indeed.

well, the internet/cds/other great tech were extremely useful and widespread in our world, making this person.... correct? whats your point exactly?

Then there is the obsession with 4K that is happening. Even if they could shrink 4K or more into such a small screen I'm under the impression by some posts I've seen that it would be pointless as the human eye can't see it.

with a screen THAT CLOSE to your eyes 4k will look as bad as you looking at 480p monitors now.

 

[Gatlank]

well, the internet/cds/other great tech were extremely useful and widespread in our world, making this person.... correct? whats your point exactly?

I was pointing out that it was reinventing the wheel. Since when those things appeared similar things were said.
Oculus might be impressive but i doubt is going to become a common item so soon.