Lifeboat Foundation

Facebook today announced the launch of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), which is bringing together a coalition of internet service providers and tech companies to focus on the engineering challenges of delivering high-res video and virtual reality. The group has 30 initial members including T-Mobile, Nokia, Intel, Deutsche Telekom, and SK Telecom. The approach is modeled after the Open Compute Project, which was started by Facebook in 2011 to share designs of data-center products, and has ties to Facebook’s Internet.org initiative to bring connectivity to rural areas and developing countries.

“Every day, more people and more devices around the world are coming online, and it’s becoming easier to share data-intensive experiences like video and virtual reality,” Jay Parikh, Facebook’s global head of engineering and infrastructure, writes in a blog post. “Scaling traditional telecom infrastructure to meet this global data challenge is not moving as fast as people need it to.”

The TIP’s technology companies and hardware makers will work together to contribute designs for products like wireless radios and optical fiber gear to better manage, store, and deliver intensive data, while telecoms can then use those designs in practice. “This will result in significant gains in cost and operational efficiency for both rural and urban deployments,” Parikh adds. The group will also work toward accelerating the development of 5G networks.

Continue reading “Facebook wants to help internet providers get ready for virtual reality” »

Thanks to “room-scale” VR, full-body gaming is coming. WIRED’s Peter Rubin tries out “Raw Data,” a first-person shooter that turns players into jumping, shooting, crouching, katana-slicing action heroes. Your living room will never be the same again.

We’ve just wrapped up the second day of Mobile World Congress, the annual mobile technology conference in Barcelona. We’ve seen smartphones, VR headsets, and some batshit crazy stuff (see photo above)—and almost all of it has been awesome. Here are some of our favorites:

The VR system from HTC and Valve comes with greater sticker shock, but also includes more stuff.

Ever since Facebook purchased Oculus in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg has been speaking to promise of virtual reality as the next communications platform. Yesterday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona he punctuated those thoughts with a big announcement – the creation of an internal team dedicated to Social VR.

Led by Daniel James and Mike Booth, the team will work closely with Oculus as well as other divisions within Facebook to explore and build the future of social interaction in VR, the company says.

Facebook describes their work in VR as “still early” but Oculus has been working to lay the groundwork themselves with experiences like Toybox and an upcoming social SDK that will allow developers to easily implement key multiplayer and networking features into their experiences. In fact, Oculus’ dedication to Social VR is “the reason why [they’re] part of Facebook,” Oculus founder Palmer Luckey told us earlier this year.

Continue reading “Facebook to Open New Division to Build the Future of Social VR” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEYjfzRAnsQ

Full event: https://youtu.be/dz057r6hGj4
Watch Mark Zuckerberg talks at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016: VR is the next social platform.

At Samsung’s Unpacked event — where the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge were revealed — Zuckerberg explained about his fascination with VR and how he has been dreaming of using the technology since the age of 11.

Continue reading “Mark Zuckerberg talks at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016: VR is the next social platform” »

Welcome to the future.

On Sunday, Facebook CEO and virtual reality enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg shared the image above on his Facebook profile.

The photo was taken this past weekend at the Mobile World Congress, a big tech conference in Spain.

Continue reading “The internet is losing its mind over this photo of Mark Zuckerberg walking through a sea of people in VR headsets” »

It’s looking like 2016 will be the year virtual reality hits the mainstream now that Oculus Rift is on the brink of shipping and Google Cardboard is into the millions of units sold. Now, we finally know when Sony is releasing its new VR headset too. GameStop CEO Paul Raines revealed the PlayStation VR will launch in the third quarter of this year during a live television interview.

“We will launch the Sony product this fall,” said Raines, “and we’re in discussions with the other two players.” Shortly after blurting out the PlayStation VR release date, Raines redirected the conversation to GameStop’s dominance in gaming hardware sales. To watch the flub, jump to the 2:40 mark in the clip below:

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AP News now in VR.

The American multi-national news agency Associated Press has partnered with California-based chipmaker AMD to launch a virtual reality and 360-degree digital portal. (Pictured: AP’s 360-degree experience Rush Delivery)