A new virtual reality research facility for Oculus Rift has been purchased in Pittsburgh.
Facebook plans to improve its highest technology device yet by establishing a new virtual reality research facility for Oculus Rift. A Pennsylvania publication has revealed that the company has just bought a 20,000 square feet building in the city of Pittsburgh. The information has been confirmed by official representatives.
Oculus Rift was bought by Facebook two years ago in 2004 and has since hired numerous developers, computer vision technicians and post-doctoral scientists to work on the project. At the moment, the company is looking for new employees for the Pittsburgh location. And they will need quite a lot of people since the Oculus technology includes a constellation program to track the movements of the user. Furthermore, the device features several external visual indicators which can identify the LEDs located inside of it. These aspects might be soon joined by less movement trackers that are based on calculations for determining the position of the user, as well as a regular digicam.
However, this area of study can prove truly useful for other modern endeavours such as self-driving cars. As a result, Apple has also bought a location near the city in order to work on the Uber project.
As we come one step closer to making our dreams come as true as they can with virtual reality, it was only logical for Facebook to acquire a device that will surely prove very profitable in the future. The company paid over $2 billion for Oculus Rift: 23 million stock shares and $400 million cash. Mark Zuckerberg himself, Facebook CEO, is fascinated by the technology and thus determined to perfect it.
The project was started by its founder, Palmer Luckey, as a campaign on Kickstarter. After five years of hard work, Oculus Rift will finally be released in March. The device will come with two VR games and a remote that can be used to search for other experiences in online stores. Further software will be produced by partner app designers. On a more realistic note, Oculus will not come cheap: the device will cost $600.
By purchasing a new virtual reality research facility for Oculus Rift, Facebook is sure to soon advance with VR technology and thus get ahead of its competition, if it hasn’t done so already. The company has many future plans for Oculus, among which inside monitoring based on a camera installed on the device, and Hololens-type AR that uses a particular computer visuals programs in order to model external spaces.
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Deborah Campbell
