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"At every step along the way, the future is built by people who believe it can be better."
That's the message Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, brought to the company's fourth annual Oculus Connect virtual reality developer conference Wednesday. As in previous years, Zuckerberg joined the stage to discuss the promise of what virtual reality can be and show off some goodies.
The company tallied 100 million app downloads, he said, and added that the company continues to work on a less-bulky version of its headsets.
But he said the company has a goal: Get 1 billion people in VR.
Maybe Zuckerberg can take those billion people along on his virtual cartoon tour of Puerto Rico's hurricane damage.
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Facebook's Zuckerberg Wants to Get One Billion People in VR
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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @01:26PM (14 children)
Zuckerberg is visionary enough to realize the importance of getting everyone to use VR and Augmented Reality, all the time, every day.
This will accomplish two very important things.
1. It will get people to stop having their head down stuck in a smart phone while walking or driving. People should not be using a cell phone while driving. Especially in a self-driving car.
2. It will accelerate the corporate overlord goal of turning everyone into obedient robots. Zombie like, but without the drawbacks of true zombies. And people will pay handsomely for the privilege of becoming a corporate drone.
Maybe most people will even be buried or cremated with their VR headwear.
Google had the correct evil vision, but Google Glass failed in its first attempt. Zuckerberg might be able to pull it off. He has the necessary greed and lack of empathy. Only Google may be able to challenge.
Perhaps we'll end up with two robotized human army brands fighting and killing one another on sight in order to gain the higher market share and enhance corporate bonuses, and increase shareholder value. A possible defense would be to not put a brand logo on VR glasses to prevent the other brand from recognizing it. But the AI's controlling the humans would seek other recognition techniques to satisfy their market share goals.
The people who were attacking Google Glass users will be the first ones to go this time. That is understood now. So expect all brands of VR headsets to turn their wearers against the luddites first.
Welcome to the future! The future is here! And the future has poor battery life.
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(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday October 13 2017, @01:31PM (6 children)
Have you recently been watching a certain Joss Whedon TV series (in particular the two-part epilogue), by any chance?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @01:41PM (5 children)
I don't think so. But can you name the TV series?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @03:20PM
MASH ?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday October 13 2017, @04:09PM (3 children)
*spoilers*
The series is Dollhouse. It's about an organisation that can wipe peoples' minds and upload customised personalities for specialised missions / jobs, then wipe them clean and restore their personality later. They have a collection of (more or less consenting) people whose bodies they use for this purpose. It explores themes like consent, free will and slavery as it follows one particular "Doll" who starts to retain knowledge and memories from her various programmed personas. Think Westworld with people instead of robots, and contemporary USA instead of a theme park.
*extra spoily*
Each of the two series has an epilogue (called epitaph one and two) which together paint a (even more) distopian future future, where the technology has been developed beyond the limitations that defined it in the series. In the epitaphs, Dolls do not need to be laboriously prepped in a special laboratory for personality implants, it's possible to reprogram just anybody, anywhere, at range, in an instant. The result is an all-consuming war between various factions controlling the technology, with the general public used as zombified weapons.
It's a great series. If you liked Firefly and/or Buffy, you'll like this.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @05:54PM (2 children)
Never had heard of dollhouse until I notice it while looking around Netflix within the last week or so. Never watched it, nor Firefly, nor Buffy.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @07:17PM (1 child)
And got bashed as just being 'Cowboys in Space', which along with it being during college courses I was taking lead to me not watching it until 3+ years later.
The actual series delved into transhumanism, one world government dystopia, legalized prostitution as both a prestigious and often derided career, the economics of running a starship more akin to a poorly maintained airplane than something like the millenium falcon where you can fix anything and keep going, etc.)
A lot of plotlines were unresolved due to its single season cancellation, but the Serenity movie tied up two of the key ones: What are the Reavers and what happened to the Doctor's sister.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 13 2017, @07:27PM
And what is the great lesson we learn from Joss Whedon's misadventures in sci-fi? Why, don't name your shows or movies after feminine hygiene products, of course.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday October 13 2017, @01:36PM
> It will accelerate the corporate overlord goal of turning everyone into obedient robots.
I don't see the point. We're gonna [4th directive] you anyway. Your heat signature gives you away.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 13 2017, @01:40PM
Jeez. That prospect makes me want to pull the third lever for the Fight Club option.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday October 13 2017, @02:59PM (1 child)
Google had the correct evil vision, but Google Glass failed in its first attempt. Zuckerberg might be able to pull it off. He has the necessary greed and lack of empathy. Only Google may be able to challenge.
Not true. Apple and Microsoft can also challenge; they have the money.
The Apple VR set will only come in white, will use some proprietary connector which requires a proprietary ($$$) charger, and will only work with other Apple devices and online services, all costing a fortune and locking you into their highly curated walled-garden. It'll also have a sealed battery which will only last a little over a year (just past the warranty term), and can only be replaced at an Apple facility, but this will cost almost as much as a brand-new headset.
The Microsoft VR will be painted in garish colors, will look entirely goofy, and will regularly interrupt your VR experience at inconvenient times to apply updates and reboot. Then they'll cut off support for it after 6 months when they introduce a new and completely incompatible version.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @09:43PM
Microsoft Immersive Reality Experience will feature the beloved Clippit, voiced by James Earl Jones. "Tell me what you want to do!"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 13 2017, @05:39PM (2 children)
Sounds like a fun bit of dystopian sci-fi but I fail to see how replacing one small screen with two really small screens is going to make much of a difference.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 13 2017, @06:04PM
Dystopian sci-fi may come true just like other sci-fi.
Replacing one small screen with two doesn't matter, as you say.
What matters is that everyone will be wearing the one or two screens all the time instead of having their head stuck to a smartphone all the time. The machine manipulation of humans is a possibility. Not overnight to be sure. But gradually.
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(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday October 14 2017, @07:24PM
Because only one small screen lets you see the real world with your other eye. Two small screens stop that nonsense.