Zuckerberg sees 'virtual travel' in future

During a written question-and-answer session available at his Facebook page on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said that the technology will one day let people travel virtually to places real or imagined.

“It will be pretty wild,” Zuckerberg said while fielding queries from members of the leading social network.

“Just like we capture photos and videos today and then share them on the Internet to let others experience them too, we’ll be able to capture whole 3D scenes and create new environments and then share those with people as well.”

Facebook executives have laid out a future that includes conceptually teleporting social network users with virtual reality technology from Oculus, a technology firm which Facebook bought last year in a deal valued at $2 billion.

The latest version Oculus headgear, called Crescent Bay, was shown off at Facebook’s annual developer conference in San Francisco last month.

“Virtual reality is potentially world-changing and incredibly cool and it is really happening,” Oculus chief scientist Michael Abrash told developers at the gathering.

Abrash said that Oculus would begin shipping virtual reality headgear in quantity “before too long.”

He predicted that, over time, virtual reality will incorporate body movements, nearby objects, and users’ environments.

Virtual reality gear is in the works from Japanese electronics giant Sony, while Valve and Taiwan-based smartphone maker HTC are working together on Vive virtual reality headgear.

South Korean consumer electronics titan Samsung is fielding Gear VR headsets powered by Oculus technology.

AFP