Photo illustration. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)
Facebook said Tuesday it’s developing virtual reality versions of its apps. The comments, made by Facebook product chief Chris Cox, come almost a year after the company bought virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR in a $2 billion deal.
Cox, who was speaking at a Re/code event in Laguna Niguel, California, described virtual reality as “pretty cool” and confirmed that the company is currently “working on apps for VR.”
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He didn’t go into any great detail on what’s currently being developed, but suggested a scenario where a user might share their environment with another user.
“You realize, when you’re in it, that you’re looking at the future, and it’s going to be awesome,” Cox told the audience. “When you’re in Facebook, you’re just sending around these bits of experience – a photo, a video, a thought,” but with VR, he said, there’d be a chance of “sending a fuller picture.”
While the Facebook executive admitted the rollout of such apps isn’t likely to happen for some time, the revelation at least offers us a peek at its current plans for the technology.
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Of course, as you’d expect when an ambitious company like Facebook meets an exciting fast-developing technology like virtual reality, app development will form just one strand of its ongoing exploration of the platform. Last month, for example, Oculus VR’s first ever virtual reality movie, the work of its recently announced in-house film studio, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival.
“I think the [film] community has done a really good job about getting excited about VR and starting to work on things in VR,” Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said during the event.
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