Hope you're ready for your great-aunt to send you Candy Crush invites in 3D. Facebook has started creating versions of its own apps in virtual reality, beginning with video and photo sharing functions. Mark Zuckerberg's all-seeing tech giant acquired Oculus Rift last year for approximately £1.3 billion.
“I mean, virtual reality is pretty cool. We’re working on apps for VR,” Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said at a Code/Media conference in California. "Have you used some of the film demos inside of VR? You realize, when you’re in it, that you’re looking at the future, and it’s going to be awesome. When you’re in Facebook, you’re just sending around these bits of experience — a photo, a video, a thought, whereas with VR, you could be 'sending a fuller picture'. You'll do it, Beyoncé will do it."
Beyoncé still hasn't accepted my friend request, so it's unlikely I'll be reaping the benefits of Bey creating personal virtual postcards of Blue in this lifetime. Cox acknowledged that virtual reality films and games still require several cameras to produce, so Facebook users shouldn't expect the technology to be widely available "for a while. We’re probably a long way from everyone having these headsets".
When it does land, Cox envisions a future where headset wearers will be transported to a yurt in Mongolia or a fighter jet. But what he didn't confront is the horrifying possibility that we might have to suffer every single inane aspect of Facebook in VR too. Getting poked by your mother in Facebook is bad enough now, but in virtual reality? Best case scenario: we might be able to turn up to Facebook events by clocking in on Oculus Rift. Here's to 2020 and attending your mate's shit house night from the sofa.
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