Faceboook’s move to position itself at the forefront of immersive technologies with the acquisition of Oculus VR last year, may have implications beyond Virtual Reality. During a talk at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg positively confirmed that Augmented Reality will play a part in the social media giant’s future, adding “It’s a bit further out.”

At first glance, Augmented Reality is actually a more logical direction for an immersive social technology company to pursue, but AR’s level of technical progression now sits some way behind that of virtual reality. This is partly because VR has received the lion’s share of investment and attention over the last few years thanks to it’s initial positioning as a Gaming technology.

However, despite VR’s technical requirements which have been and remain extremely challenging, AR’s mixed reality of computer visualisation overlaid into our real world poses a host of new ones. For this reason, it makes sense for VR to be the first stop for Facebook on the road for the next step in social interaction via it’s software platforms.

Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus and long time augmented reality evangelist, said on the subject “It’s kind of seamless. Maybe it’ll be contacts [or glasses]. You’ll have something on and it’ll be VR and AR as you choose,” but on those aforementioned technical hurdles “But right now the VR tech is past the knee of the curve. For AR, it’s harder. There are a whole host of challenges — how you do the optics and displays and get photos onto the eyes, how you have something that’s socially acceptable and comfortable all day. I think VR is here now, I think AR will be here, but it’s a long road to get there.”

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Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • kalqlate

    Yep. Makes sense. Google and Apple will surely help in pushing AR technology. Obviously likewise, look for Apple and Microsoft to announce their involvement with VR sometime next year. And as Abrash mentions, eventually AR and VR will be combined into some comfortable and sociably appealing device.