Facebook connects people all over the world, making geographic limits almost meaningless. According to Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, the social media company intends to take it up a notch with a fully functional teleporter by 2025.
At a press event before the Dublin Web Summit, Schroepfer says that the company has in mind an instrument that'll let users be anywhere with anyone, which is essentially a teleportation device.
"Facebook wants to build a device that allows you to be anywhere you want, with anyone, regardless of geographic boundaries," Business Insider reports as Schroepfer's statement at the press event.
Unfortunately, it won't be a machine that'll transfer a person's whole body to another location like the ones on sci-fi TV. It'll be a machine that can "trick" a person's senses, making the user believe that the virtual world they see is real. This idea stems from Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of the Oculus Rift, which the company intends to bring to new heights beyond gaming.
It'll be quite a challenge, but here are Facebook's plans to fill up that tall virtual reality order.
First, it'll be hard to let users see themselves and other people in real-time. To do this, Facebook plans to use Oculus Touch controllers, which can detect users' movements and allow interactions with their environment as well as let them see their own hands. Along with pressure sensors in the Rift and cameras to capture facial expressions, the combination will be able to generate realistic avatars.
Next, the environment in the virtual reality. Oculus acquired Surreal Vision sometime around May 2015. The computer vision company specializes in restructuring real-life scenes into 3D. The Surreal Vision team is now working on ways to send realistic scenes to virtual reality in real-time.
The last challenge is allowing people to create in virtual reality. The Oculus Touch controllers will come with the Medium program that'll allow users to sculpt and make objects in their virtual worlds. Oculus aims to let users create their own worlds in a simple way that even people without training can do.
It seems that Facebook's teleporter will be the next best thing in the foreseeable future.
Check out the video below to see Oculus Medium in action.
