Mark Zuckerberg: Virtual
reality can become the most social platform
BARCELONA — Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance at Samsung’s Mobile World Congress
press conference Sunday to talk up progress in virtual reality and to promote
VR in the future as “the most social platform.”
Facebook, of course, paid
some $2 billion in 2014 to buy Oculus which has been working with Samsung on
its Gear VR consumer headsets. In fact, Zuckerberg appeared on stage during the
MWC event just after audience members took off the Gear VR headsets they had
donned to experience virtual reality during Samsung’s presentation.
Zuckerberg is actually
scheduled to deliver a keynote address to MWC attendees Monday, presumably to
address Internet.org and Facebook’s struggles to bring affordable Internet to
poor places around the world, which has met opposition because of net
neutrality concerns.
But Zuckerberg was all
about VR during his brief appearance on the Samsung stage.
“Pretty soon we’re going to live in a
world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes as if
you’re just there, right there in person,” Zuckerberg says. “Imagine being able
to sit in front of a campfire and hang out with friends anytime you want. Or
being able to watch a movie in a private theater with your friends anytime you
want. Imagine holding a group meeting or event anywhere in the world that you
want. All these things are going to be possible. And that’s why
Facebook is investing so much early on in virtual reality. So we can hope to
deliver these types of social experiences.”
Facebook also said Sunday
it had formed a team to create social interactions in virtual reality. The team
will work with Oculus and others at Facebook. It also said it was bringing its
streaming technology for 360 video to Samsung Gear VR in coming weeks.
Facebook has been selling Gear VR for
$99, though for the time being it will be bundled for free to folks who
preorder the company’s latest flagship phones that were unveiled here, the
Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. According to Zuckerberg millions of people will
get their hands on a Gear VR this year.
To deal with the challenges
in delivering social VR, Facebook recently created new teams to build the next
generation of social apps in VR. Hundreds of new titles are coming
to Oculus store this year, Zuckerberg says, including Minecraft.
“We’re excited to be focused on
building this next important computing platform that has the potential to be
changing our lives and to be doing it with zest.”
Virtual reality is getting
a lot of focus at Mobile World Congress. HTC, in partnership with Valve,
announced that it will begin taking preorders on the consumer version of HTC
Vive on Feb. 29; the price is $799 for now.
Samsung and Korean rival LG
announced new 360 cameras and the latter is also bringing own VR headset to
work with its new G5 phone.
And Chinese-owned Alcatel
will ship its new Idol 4S smartphones in a plastic box that doubles as Google
Cardboard compatible VR viewer.
Who: Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg
How: Made
a surprise appearance at Samsung’s Mobile World Congress press
conference to talk up progress in virtual reality and to promote VR in the
future as “the most social platform.”
When: Sunday
Key
words:
virtual
reality 虛擬實境
headset 耳機
unveil揭開
preorder 預購
neutrality
中立
