It is an undeniable fact that there is a rapid improvement in terms of technology nowadays. There are many things today which were considered fictional ten or twenty years ago, and most of these things and concepts were pioneered by visionaries such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It's good to note that such vision is being perpetuated by other key players like Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook.
Zuckerberg, in an interview, excitedly shared that he and his company are working on another form of technology that may give users more connection freedom. According to techcrunch Zuckerberg explained that, "If you think about phones, it's still a little awkward to take it out of your pocket. In the future, if you want to look around you should be able to look around. If you want to select something, you should be able to look at it." And such futuristic ideal accordingly would be dealt by the introduction of Facebook's augmented reality. Yes, it is definitely true, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are working on augmented reality as next to virtual reality.
Zuckerberg and Michael Abrash, Oculus rift chief scientist, are working on the idea of bringing augmented reality into our online lives. Abrash on his statement via techcrunch explained challenges to be faced when dealing with augmented reality. He stated that;
"It's very interesting; it's something we'd all use if it worked well. 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 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."
For starters, augmented reality shares similar goal of immersing the user through a system. They only differ when it comes to the process of user's interaction. Augmented reality doesn't restrict the users from continually being in touch with the real world, all while interacting with virtual objects around them. On the other hand, Virtual reality by far isolates the users from the real world while being immersed in a fabricated world. Through this augmented reality, Facebook aims for people to be able to share almost anything with any audiences. Zuckerberg on his statement emphasized that;
"What Facebook is, is a way to give people a voice to share anything that they want in any form of medium with any audience they want. Certainly this more immersive content will be an increasing portion of what gets shared. But another part of the beauty of Internet communication is it's asynchronous. [But there will be] use cases where you can be in person with someone, doing surgery remotely, that you very much need to be synchronous."
Now the concept and vision of Mark Zuckerberg with regards both virtual and augmented reality is indeed noble. But the question is when would be the latter be perfected for commercial use. Common sense would tell us that augmented reality would indeed be a computing asset that would augment social media encounters into a more exciting level, without taking us out from the real world.
What do you think about the plans and steps being done by Facebook to augment reality? Feel free to share and comment below.
