On the occasion of Facebook’s Annual F8 Developer Conference, the CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his executives expressed their vision to take Facebook to a new level where people can connect and socialize in the virtual world. With a VR headset or smartphone, Facebook wants its users to connect virtually with their family and friends. This conference had great emphasis to fulfill the promise of augmented reality and its marriage with Facebook. Lots of discussions were done related to the tools to blend Facebook with augmented reality. With your phone, you can transform a single two dimensional photo into a three dimensional scene with digital art. That’s what Augmented Reality does.
It was accepted that the technology is in the budding stage, and it would surely change the way we user our smartphones. Facebook Spaces is a new virtual world launched where users can use Oculus Rift VR headset to see their friends in an avatar version. It’s the first time that Facebook has been able to connect virtually with Rift for its users.
It can be truly said that out of the billions of Facebook users, very few use Oculus Rift Headset but surely it is the future which users would enjoy. Facebook rivals such as Snapchat has also introduced many features of augmented reality. In the coming years, augmented reality would be widely used as a technology; hence the effort by Facebook makes a lot of sense. With this virtual connection, you can do lots of creative stuff. Zuckerberg said that “If your daughter loves Harry Potter, you can change your home into Hogwarts.”
Updates have been made in the Facebook Messenger app to make it more interactive and user friendly. It has artificial intelligence bots that answers questions automatically and suggests emoji. Three years ago, Facebook had invested in Oculus Rift and not much was done about it. It is still expensive but now it is a step to make it more lucrative.
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There is news in the market that Zuckerberg is just trying to compete with Facebook’s rivals such as Snapchat and Pokemon Go who have taken the lead in using augmented reality. Snapchat had announced a tool, World lenses just a few hours before Mark took the stage at the big event.
With the AR wars heating up, we may actually be heading toward a truly connected world through Augmented Reality much sooner than we can imagine. The technology is advancing rapidly and with commercialization dictating the terms, we wouldn’t be surprised if we are to be greeted practical AR opportunities by the end of this decade.
