There’s not much the founders of Google
disdain more than timid thinking.
“Companies are doing the same
incremental things they were doing 50
years ago,” CEO Larry Page said at the
TED conference just last week. “That’s
not what we need. Especially in
technology, we need revolutionary
change, not incremental change.” Today,
for once, Google looks pretty darn
incremental, thanks to Facebook and its
$2 billion purchase of Oculus, the virtual
reality headset maker. Explaining the
logic behind the acquisition on a call with
analysts Tuesday, Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg noted that major new
computing platforms have historically
come along once every 10 to 15 years.
When mobile started to displace the web,
Facebook wasn’t quite ready, although it
has done an impressive job of playing
catch up. Why Is Facebook Acquiring
The Maker Of A Virtual Reality Headset
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HofRobert Hof Contributor Could Google
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Thinks So Jeff BercoviciJeff Bercovici
Forbes Staff Oculus, Zuckerberg said,
represents Facebook’s gamble that what
he called “vision” will be the next
dominant platform: “We’re making a
long-term bet that immersive augmented
and virtual reality will become a daily part
of people’s lives.” And that’s not just in
gaming, where VR’s impact is already
starting to be felt, but in communications,
commerce, education and most other
areas where technology comes into play,
he said. Sound familiar? To a significant
degree, these pronouncements echo the
rhetoric around Glass, Google’s year-old
face-mounted mini-computer. Larry
Page and Sergey Brin also believe that
vision will be a huge platform,
transforming communications, education,
transportation, medicine and a host of
other fields. But they’d stop well short of
calling Glass a long-term bet on
“immersive augmented and virtual
reality.” In fact, while it was originally
conceived as an augmented reality
system, Google quickly pivoted away
from that positioning. Early prototypes
had the tiny screen set over the user’s
eye, but Google’s designers worried that
breaking eye contact required too radical
a departure from social norms, so they
moved it up to eyebrow height. Officially,
Glass is a mere “heads-up display.”
Interestingly, Zuckerberg and Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe repeatedly brought up eye contact on their conference call. “Details like being able to make eye contact with someone” in a completely virtual conversation are exactly what give Oculus the “potential to be the most social platform ever,” Zuckerberg said. “If you can see someone else and your brain believes they’re right in front of you, that you’re not looking at them through a screen or 2-D window, you get goosebumps,” said Iribe. That scenario isn’t coming tomorrow. “We think vision is going to be the next really big platform,” Zuckerberg said, but added, “it might take five or ten years to get there.” The obvious path forward involves getting the device in the hands of enough gamers that it will start to be economical for developers to build other, non-gaming applications. It’s an audacious vision, pun intended. So audacious, Page and Brin might wish it was theirs.
There’s not much the founders of Google disdain more than timid thinking. “Companies are doing the same incremental things they were doing 50 years ago,” CEO Larry Page said at the TED conference just last week. “That’s not what we need. Especially in technology, we need revolutionary change, not incremental change.”
Today, for once, Google looks pretty darn incremental, thanks to Facebook and its $2 billion purchase of Oculus, the virtual reality headset maker.
Explaining the logic behind the acquisition on a call with analysts Tuesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noted that major new computing platforms have historically come along once every 10 to 15 years. When mobile started to displace the web, Facebook wasn’t quite ready, although it has done an impressive job of playing catch up.
Oculus, Zuckerberg said, represents Facebook’s gamble that what he called “vision” will be the next dominant platform: “We’re making a long-term bet that immersive augmented and virtual reality will become a daily part of people’s lives.” And that’s not just in gaming, where VR’s impact is already starting to be felt, but in communications, commerce, education and most other areas where technology comes into play, he said.
Sound familiar? To a significant degree, these pronouncements echo the rhetoric around Glass, Google’s year-old face-mounted mini-computer. Larry Page and Sergey Brin also believe that vision will be a huge platform, transforming communications, education, transportation, medicine and a host of other fields.
But they’d stop well short of calling Glass a long-term bet on “immersive augmented and virtual reality.” In fact, while it was originally conceived as an augmented reality system, Google quickly pivoted away from that positioning. Early prototypes had the tiny screen set over the user’s eye, but Google’s designers worried that breaking eye contact required too radical a departure from social norms, so they moved it up to eyebrow height. Officially, Glass is a mere “heads-up display.”
Interestingly, Zuckerberg and Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe repeatedly brought up eye contact on their conference call. “Details like being able to make eye contact with someone” in a completely virtual conversation are exactly what give Oculus the “potential to be the most social platform ever,” Zuckerberg said.
“If you can see someone else and your brain believes they’re right in front of you, that you’re not looking at them through a screen or 2-D window, you get goosebumps,” said Iribe.
That scenario isn’t coming tomorrow. “We think vision is going to be the next really big platform,” Zuckerberg said, but added, “it might take five or ten years to get there.” The obvious path forward involves getting the device in the hands of enough gamers that it will start to be economical for developers to build other, non-gaming applications.
It’s an audacious vision, pun intended. So audacious, Page and Brin might wish it was theirs.
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