Thread by @kentbye

THREAD👇
Oculus Connect 6 is about to start.
This thread will cover the news & highlights of where Facebook is taking the future of spatial computing.
It's my 6th Connect & I'll be providing commentary & context. #OC6
oculusconnect.com/watch

Mark Zuckerberg talking about why VR & AR are going to be the next computing platform.
Psychology, mirror neurons, & presence.
FB wants to put people at the center of the experience. Super focused on social presence.
[Me: Some people are introverts into other forms of presence.]

Facebook needs to build tech & software ecosystem.
They're selling the Quests as fast as they can make them & retention numbers are strong. Need to get to critical mass.
Now starting to implement forward compatibility of Quest titles will work in future platforms.

$100M in software sales on Oculus Home
20% from Quest titles.
Oculus Link will ship in November to run Oculus Rift content from your gaming PC + a cord
"Your Quest is now a Rift."
[Huge applause]

Finger tracking coming in 2020.
SUPER IMPRESSIVE

Finger tracking is launching on Quest early in 2020 with the inside out tracking + computer vision AI.
SUPER IMPRESSIVE!

The future is neural interfaces and being able to read your mind with brain control interfaces.
[Slight him of concern and worry from the audience]
Facebook just acquired neural interface leader @CTRLlabsCo which uses EMG.
My interview w them for more info
voicesofvr.com/814-neuroscien…

Here's the video of finger tracking.
It's super impressive.

https://twitter.com/kentbye/status/1176907989967499265?s=19

Facebook creating a social VR experience called Facebook Horizon.

Video of Facebook Horizon social VR experience

Head of VR/AR @boztank talking about relationship closeness being defined by frequency of interactions, diversity of experiences, & strength of connections & how VR can eliminate limits of distance, increase diversity of possible experiences, & strengthen depth of connections.

"We are building AR Glasses"
-@boztank

VR is great for connecting at a distance but AR will work better for co-locsted gatherings.

Facebook Reality Labs will mapping and modeling many different layers of an AR cloud.
[No discussion of any of the privacy implications or boundaries of any of this]

Talking about some of the functional updates to their VR platform including making more Oculus Go apps available on Quest. Integrated mixed reality functionality. Bring able to remotely update Quest apps remotely for faster dev iterations. Hand tracking.

More details of the hand tracking in VR.
Pretty amazing and cutting edge AI + computer vision on a mobile processor

The future of Social VR: Talking about adding more Facebook social graph features into Oculus. They want to start to cultivate more community activity within VR. Social word of mouth to dive new people to destinations. They're creating their own destinations as well.

Announcing a Media Studio distribution platform for 360 videos & immersive experiences. @baobabstudios used it to distribute CROW

Facebook Horizon is launching in closed beta early next year.
The most exciting part of it all to me is the fact that they have a world building tool.

Video for Oculus for Business shows how the Quest is revolutionizing training, collaboration, & spatial design. @GravitySketch gets a shout out from Ford.

Surgical training in VR is pretty revolutionary based upon a recent study from the Imperial College of London.
@Osso_VR on the bleeding edge here.

List of pioneering companies in the realm of Enterprise VR.

Talking about some of the Oculus for Business deployment & change management tools, auto-launch into apps, dedicated customer support, & ISV Partner Program. Some new stuff coming in November.

VR is Now.
It's not in the future
@Jason_Rubin reads the divinatory Magic 8-Ball.
"Should I buy into VR... Is now the time?"
'YES'
"Is now the time to think about developing for VR?"
'Absolutely YES'

"This is a DK1."
Fact checkers in the press here doubting this claim.
Probably some prototype, but definitely not the DK1 that was shipped out to devs, which had a square face.
Anyone know what or when this is actually from?

Looks like a DK-HD & not DK1

https://twitter.com/SiggiGG/status/1176923380903219200?s=19

.@BeatSaber devs announce some new music coming next week. They're living the indie dev dream

https://twitter.com/BeatSaber/status/1176923173767602178?s=19

A list of some of the VR games coming soon to the Quest

.@ILMxLAB talking about Episode 2 of Vader & how we're moving from Storytelling to Story Living where you become protagonist.
Episode 2 launches today.

After hearing about more upcoming games, now it's time to talk about the future of VR with Michael Abrash, by first looking into the past & evolution of computing.

In 1982, Abrash drops out of his Ph.D. program and start making video games.
Goes from command line interfaces to Windows GUI to mobile phone computing. Incredible evolution of human-computer interaction, and "the best is yet to come."

We're eventually going to hit a next-generation quantum leap, and the people in this room [& beyond this room] will help make it happen.
Abrash's previous predictions at Oculus Connect as to when have been overly optimistic.
Cites Hofstadter's Law will take longer than you think.

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Abrash diving into working prototype innovations from Facebook Reality Labs in the realms in vari-focal innovations in Half Dome prototypes 1, 2, & 3.
Also machine perception & Avatars

These video animations are not real-time video. They're spatialized reconstructions using cameras on the VR headset & a lot of predictive AI & computer vision from Facebook Reality Labs.
Me: How much of our microexpression VR sovereignty should we surrender to machine learning?

Abrash ends by talking about the future of work & remote collaboration. There's A LOT of technical innovation yet to happen to get to that point, & it's a use case to inspires the development of a lot of XR research projects that Facebook Reality Labs is working on.

Abrash ends saying again that "These are the Good Old Days" of XR.
Already tons of progress year to year with each Oculus Connect & from DK1 to Quest from 2013 to 2019.
Lots more innovation yet to come & it's going to be coming from this Immersive community. #OC6

I'll be roaming around #OC6 doing interviews for The Voices of VR podcast.
Keep an eye out for me & come say "Hi!"
voicesofvr.com

Part of the annual ritual of #OC6 is to have a swarm of VR developers around @ID_AA_Carmack asking him questions for hours and hours and hours non-stop. John is always super generous in answering questions about all things VR.

Here's the full video of the #OC6 Keynote. There's lots of nuances & details I missed, so be sure to watch it for the full context.
I've been unpacking reactions on the floor & there's lots of stuff not being said about privacy, ethics, & open metaverse.

Tucked away at the end of the hall at #OC6 is @CelineTricart's The Key, which won the top prize at Tribeca Storyscapes & Venice.
If you're into VR storytelling & you haven't seen it yet, then try to catch the full installation & then you can listen to this
voicesofvr.com/821-dreams-sym…