Tech giant Facebook is fully committed to VR, virtual reality. Not only for gamers or very specific applications, but also for meeting with colleagues or experiencing a concert on the other side of the world. Facebook sees VR as the new social platform.
Last month, the company introduced a new one stand-alone VR headset, the Oculus Quest 2, which according to experts is better than the competition in many ways and also much cheaper. But there is also criticism: the company collects a lot of data about the user through glasses.
Interesting for a large audience
“I think the new glasses are a game changer”, says Schelte Meinsma, founder of VR application developer Vrroom. His company built many applications for governments and companies. For example an MRI Experience for children, who are thus prepared for a real MRI scan.
Meinsma mentions the low price and the quality of Facebook’s glasses as big plus points, which makes VR interesting for a large audience. “What Elon Musk is to electric cars, Mark Zuckerberg is to us.”
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The great thing is that it feels ‘real’. The energy is better than with a video call.
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With VR glasses you completely shut yourself off from the real world, but the VR world is becoming increasingly social. Facebook sees VR primarily as a social platform, for example to have a meeting with colleagues who all work from home.
Meinsma already does this within his company. “The great thing is that it feels ‘real’. The energy is better than in a video call,” he says.
Vrroom is now working on several ‘social’ VR applications. For example, next year the company wants to organize ten virtual concerts with well-known DJs in collaboration with ID&T and Art of Dance. About a hundred thousand people have to come, of which five thousand with VR glasses.
Are you unable to attend your favorite football match in the stands due to corona, or were you late when ordering a ticket for that one festival? The VR glasses offer a solution:
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video-player"> —-With a virtual beer in the stands, or at the concert (for which you didn’t have a ticket)
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What is possible in VR?
Youtuber Casandra Vuong also expects to be able to visit more and more VR events in the coming years. “I’m quite small so at a real concert I don’t see anything when I’m in the back. At virtual concerts you can walk wherever you want and have contact with the artist himself. Really great.”
Vuong has been intensively involved with VR for four years and also sees that a new period is dawning now that Facebook is investing so heavily on the technology. “There are two sides to this. The fact that Facebook puts a lot of money into it is good for the VR industry. But the company also wants to collect and use a lot of data. Many VR fans are critical about that.”
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Because the Quest 2 works alone with a Facebook or Oculus account (Oculus was bought by Facebook in 2014). The glasses generate an enormous amount of data about use: your movements, which applications you use, your physical characteristics and images via the cameras on the glasses.
Meinsma: “Facebook can know through the glasses what emotions the user is experiencing. That kind of data ensures a better experience and services. The discussion we have to have is whether we want that, or whether it affects our privacy too much and we do this. do not want to.”
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High demand for VR glasses
Facebook wants to dominate the VR market even further in the coming years. The company already controls about 38 percent of the market. Research firm IDC expects virtual reality worldwide in the coming year will grow by 46 percent.
Recent figures about the Netherlands are not available, but according to the Smart Tech monitor (March) from market research agency Multiscope 700,000 people in our country have VR glasses. However, most of it (73 percent) works with a smartphone. IDC sees this form of VR as outdated, due to the lack of good content and the ‘toy-like’ nature of the experience.
Web store Alternate sees a high demand for VR glasses, partly thanks to the corona crisis, and specifically for the new glasses from Facebook. The company sees a 60 percent growth in sales of the new Quest glasses over the first version of the Quest.
Earlier we showed that VR glasses are causing a revolution in mental health care. By letting patients practice in a virtual world, various psychological problems and addictions can be tackled.
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How VR glasses help with psychological problems
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