Vox - Facebook’s F8 developer conference 2017https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2017-04-19T21:18:37-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/151092932017-04-19T21:18:37-04:002017-04-19T21:18:37-04:00What we know — and what we want to know — about Facebook’s big plans for augmented reality
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<img alt="Mark Zuckerberg Delivers Keynote Address At Facebook F8 Conference" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XhlyAxj1wGhKwqSHz2ngU6y5rlQ=/214x0:2901x2015/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54351583/669897710.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Justin Sullivan / Getty</figcaption>
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<p>Why Facebook is building AR glasses — and why it wants to read your mind.</p> <p id="I5ZA0G">Facebook is <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15315764/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-augmented-reality-ar-f8-glasses">betting big on augmented reality</a>, and the technology — which overlays digital text and objects on the real world through a lens — was the major theme of the company’s annual <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15345252/facebook-f8-developer-conference-2017">F8 developer conference</a> this week.</p>
<p id="HpkGjR">Facebook’s announcements were bold, futuristic and, at times, a little hard to piece together.</p>
<p id="YJAp9d">But after listening to all the keynotes and sitting down for interviews with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Mike Schroepfer, we think we’re getting the hang of it. </p>
<p id="9jUcu8">Here’s what’s worth knowing about Facebook’s AR ambitions so far — and what we’re still wondering about.</p>
<p id="qNR0Q7"><strong>Is Facebook building augmented</strong><strong>-</strong><strong>reality glasses?</strong></p>
<p id="Go2IoV">Yes. Facebook spent a lot of time this week talking about its vision for AR glasses, and how that <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15315764/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-augmented-reality-ar-f8-glasses">vision starts with the features for your smartphone camera</a>.</p>
<p id="ZyaJ8o">Eventually, Facebook thinks AR glasses will be able to help you do everything from transforming your house into a magical castle to providing you with the nutritional information of whatever food you happen to be looking at.</p>
<p id="LQS9P4"><strong>Why does Facebook want to build AR glasses?</strong></p>
<p id="DV7jyl">Facebook believes glasses will be the next (or the <em>next</em> next) major platform where people go to consume content and interact with services.</p>
<p id="puGuJS">“Twenty or 30 years from now, I predict that instead of carrying stylish smartphones everywhere, we’ll wear stylish glasses,” said Michael Abrash, the chief scientist for Oculus, from the conference stage today. “Those glasses will offer VR, AR and everything in between, and we’ll wear them all day and use them in almost every aspect of our lives.”</p>
<p id="UEMupW"><strong>So Facebook actually envisions a world where everyone is wearing glasses?</strong></p>
<p id="YhdMoE">Yep. Though Abrash did say <em>“stylish”</em> glasses, at least. </p>
<p id="XB721L"><strong>There must be another option though, right? I don’t like glasses.</strong> </p>
<p id="dYldVv">We asked CTO Mike Schroepfer if the company was also building AR contact lenses, but it doesn’t sound like it. At least not yet.</p>
<p id="1YAYr8">“Contacts are even harder than glasses, and glasses are already pretty deep in the ‘R’ part of the R&D phase,” Schroepfer said. “You actually need to make pretty fundamental breakthroughs in optics and illuminators and a whole bunch of other things to make this work.” </p>
<p id="BQLXh4"><strong>Ok</strong><strong>ay</strong><strong>,</strong><strong> so Facebook is set on building AR glasses. How soon will this actually be available?</strong></p>
<p id="bTJKae">Abrash says high-level AR glasses could be as close as five years away, but are more likely 10-plus years down the road. In the meantime, you’ll see simpler versions of AR out in the wild, he said, like the AR camera features that Facebook and Snapchat are already using.</p>
<p id="Nro48K"><strong>Why is Facebook building those AR camera features anyways? They feel a </strong><em><strong>little</strong></em><strong> gimmicky. </strong></p>
<p id="UpgG31">One word: Snapchat. </p>
<p id="C0GQ0A">Facebook wouldn’t admit that, of course, and there are other reasons — like its future AR glasses — that the company wants developers to start investing time and resources into AR software.</p>
<p id="PXHhbx">But the camera filters you’ll see now are meant to help familiarize people with the technology, jumpstart the industry so more developers get involved (<a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/3/24/11587234/two-years-later-facebooks-oculus-acquisition-has-changed-virtual">like what happened with VR</a>), and ultimately provide competition for Snapchat, which is Facebook’s biggest threat in capturing the attention of young mobile users.</p>
<p id="Ci674L"><strong>How will Facebook make money from AR?</strong></p>
<p id="S2Pnht">It’s early, but there are plenty of possibilities for AR advertising and other business models. (Snapchat, of course, already sells custom AR filters to advertisers.)</p>
<p id="N27oSA">Facebook is still making a ton of money from Facebook, so it doesn’t need to worry about this for a long time. Still, it will be interesting to watch the revenue side emerge here.</p>
<p id="OCdCDe"><strong>Why would developers build AR features for Facebook? Are they being paid?</strong></p>
<p id="7QCJan">Facebook’s developer partners are not paid. Schroepfer says Facebook has thought of a business plan for its AR platform, but didn’t get into details, and likely won’t for some time.</p>
<p id="0aBfdV">Instead, Schroepfer says the company is offering two things that most developers crave: Access to free technology and billions of potential users to test out their creations. That’s usually enough to entice developers to give something a try.</p>
<p id="SHQzke"><strong>What about the last time Facebook launched a big social app platform? Wasn’t that a cautionary tale?</strong></p>
<p id="fMYVDL">It was. Companies piggybacked on Facebook’s huge user base to build some very popular (if spammy) apps and games, such as Zynga’s FarmVille. Some of them got very rich, but it didn’t end well for many of them, especially those that were gimmicky and/or didn’t diversify onto other platforms. Facebook will likely have some competition for AR apps, too, from companies like Apple, Google and Snap.</p>
<p id="T4BorD"><strong>Didn’t Facebook also roll</strong><strong> </strong><strong>out a mind</strong><strong>-</strong><strong>control device?</strong></p>
<p id="3imwLO">Close! </p>
<p id="Ixq1xL">You’re thinking of a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/19/15361568/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-brain-mind-reader-regina-dugan-building-f8">mind-<em>reading</em> device</a>, and Facebook didn’t roll it out, but it did talk about it. </p>
<p id="J7Dkkv">The company is working on technology to automatically transcribe your thoughts into digital text. So instead of typing out a message to someone on your phone, you would simply <em>t</em><em>hink</em> about that message, and the technology would transcribe it for you.</p>
<p id="mYH4EC"><strong>That sounds terrifying. </strong></p>
<p id="f0y3Kw">Right?! Regina Dugan, who heads up Building 8 — Facebook’s secretive research lab that’s developing the technology — thinks it’s terrifying for a different reason though. She says the research is so important that it’s scary to think about what might happen if it fails. “Is it a little terrifying? Of course,” she said onstage. “This matters. Success matters. So if we fail, it’s gonna suck.”</p>
<p id="qrdI8l"><strong>What does this have to do with AR? Anything?</strong></p>
<p id="4iypaV">Remember the AR glasses we just talked about? Those glasses won’t have a keyboard. And may not even have buttons, and certainly not enough to type out entire conversations the way we do now. “If I have this awesome pair of glasses, I need to have input on them in some form,” Schroepfer explained. “I could tap on it on the side or have a remote that I could carry in my pocket, but that kind of destroys the utility.” Instead, you will be able to control the device with your eyes and your brain.</p>
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<aside id="RYawgM"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/19/15364674/facebook-augmented-reality-glasses-recapKurt Wagner2017-04-19T15:42:58-04:002017-04-19T15:42:58-04:00Facebook is developing a way to read your mind
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<img alt="Mark Zuckerberg Delivers Keynote Address At Facebook F8 Conference" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/l-M_5ovQ6ANqGww57VDx5fi0SQ0=/0x0:2721x2041/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54346685/669889778.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Justin Sullivan / Getty</figcaption>
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<p>Seriously. </p> <p id="w2LopO">“What if you could type directly from your brain?”</p>
<p id="ok03dH">That was the question Facebook executive Regina Dugan, who runs the company’s secretive research and hardware lab Building 8, posed to the audience Wednesday at the company’s annual F8 developer conference in San Jose. </p>
<p id="mj5vFq">The question was not meant to be rhetorical. Dugan and Facebook are actually making technology intended to do just that. </p>
<p id="SAz3m9">Facebook is building what it calls a “brain-computer speech-to-text interface,” technology that’s supposed to translate your thoughts directly from your brain to a computer screen without any need for speech or fingertips. </p>
<p id="GaPVpw">The idea is that this technology will be able to take what you’re thinking to yourself in silence, using non-invasive sensors that can read exactly what you intend to say, and turn it into readable text.</p>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10103661167577621/"></a><p>A few minutes ago at F8, we shared a project we're working on that will one day allow us to choose to share a thought, just like we do with photos and videos.
Our brains produce enough data to stream 4 HD movies every second. The problem is that the best way we have to get information out into the world -- speech -- can only transmit about the same amount of data as a 1980s modem. We're working on a system that will let you type straight from your brain about 5x faster than you can type on your phone today. Eventually, we want to turn it into a wearable technology that can be manufactured at scale. Even a simple yes/no "brain click" would help make things like augmented reality feel much more natural.
Technology is going to have to get a lot more advanced before we can share a pure thought or feeling, but this is a first step.</p>Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck">Mark Zuckerberg</a> on Wednesday, April 19, 2017</blockquote></div>
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<p id="glFoaR">Dugan says the idea is not that crazy. She showed video of a woman from a Stanford research experiment who could type eight words per minute using a small electrode implanted into her brain to move a computer cursor over a keyboard. </p>
<p id="aQCrXu">Dugan says Facebook’s goal is to create technology that could autonomously type 100 words per minute based on a person’s thoughts “in a few years.”</p>
<p id="z1pDgy">The goal is to “one day become a speech prosthetic for people with communication disorders or a new means for input to AR,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Even something as simple as a ‘yes/no’ brain click or a ‘brain mouse’ would be transformative.”</p>
<p id="g3nYun">It is supposed to only detect activity in a very specific region of the brain where thoughts are translated into speech. “We are not talking about decoding your random thoughts,” she said. “That might be more than any of us care to know.”</p>
<p id="JQytIj">But in order to ensure that Facebook is only translating the thoughts you want to share, the company says it will need to build new sensor technology that can better detect brain activity at lightning speed. </p>
<p id="YVAAOC">That tech doesn’t yet exist, but the company says it has over 60 scientists working on it now. Facebook also expects to create and ship these sensors at scale, thanks in part to miniaturization advancements from the telecom industry. </p>
<p id="V32rF7">Reading the human brain isn’t the kind of technology announcement we’re used to seeing from Facebook, which makes truckloads of money advertising against user selfies and home videos.</p>
<p id="JoFTxM">But Facebook signaled that it had widespread ambitions last year when Dugan was hired and her <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/4/13/11586104/facebook-regina-dugan-hardware">new secret research lab, Building 8, was announced</a> alongside hundreds of millions in funding. And Facebook spent the better part of its F8 presentations talking about <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15315764/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-augmented-reality-ar-f8-glasses">its plans for augmented reality</a>; the company envisions a world where <a href="https://twitter.com/KurtWagner8/status/854754603107090433">smartphones will be replaced by smart glasses</a> and keyboards may not exist. </p>
<p id="np6K80">Dugan previously ran the U.S. military’s research lab, DARPA, and then worked at Google before joining Facebook, and her work thus far has been kept private. It turns out that her plans for Facebook are as audacious as you might have imagined when she joined. </p>
<p id="RMsnvS">“Is it a little terrifying? Of course,” she said at the end of her keynote address. “If we fail, it’s gonna suck.”</p>
<p id="iaxckm">CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not been shy about his scientific ambitions — but most of those have been linked to his philanthropic efforts, specifically a pledge with his wife Priscilla to spend $3 billion over the next decade trying to cure all disease. </p>
<p id="ujgnUf">In a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/2/16/14640460/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-manifesto-letter">lengthy letter published in February</a>, Zuck made just a small mention of “accelerating science” amid lots of talk about creating global communities. </p>
<h2 id="2vNYDI">It’s the interface</h2>
<p id="mCtA0j">Facebook isn’t only planning to listen to your thoughts. The company is also building technology to communicate with humans through their <em>skin</em>. </p>
<p id="ALVNF5">Facebook says its technology will act like the cochlea part of the ear, which translates sound into frequencies that are sent to the brain and decoded. Only rather than using your ears, Facebook says it will use your skin.</p>
<p id="yGVTWb">Though details on this project are slim, the social media company compared its new project with braille, which translates specific surface textures into words and is used by those who are visually impaired. </p>
<p id="1QwS4x">Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is also <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/3/27/15079226/elon-musk-computers-technology-brain-ai-artificial-intelligence-neural-lace">reportedly launching a new company</a> that will work on brain-computer interface technology, called Neuralink. Musk described his idea for brain interface technology, which he calls “neural lace,” at <strong>Recode’s</strong> Code Conference last year. </p>
<p id="jYpQBg">Creating a wireless interface between computers and the brain could help humans keep apace with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, which Musk said will cause humanity to “be left behind by a lot.”</p>
<p id="dKd1es">Watch Elon Musk talk about his idea for neural lace:</p>
<div id="hxrOWU"><div><div style="left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZrGPuUQsDjo?wmode=transparent&rel=0&autohide=1&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;"></iframe></div></div></div>
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<aside id="w9YM3G"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/19/15361568/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-brain-mind-reader-regina-dugan-building-f8April GlaserKurt Wagner2017-04-19T13:15:01-04:002017-04-19T13:15:01-04:00Facebook designed another 360-degree video camera, but you don’t have to build this one yourself
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dSOik4-CL8S7r55H2yV0Rxpm0TY=/139x0:3339x2400/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54333873/x24_x6_009_b.0.png" />
<figcaption>Facebook</figcaption>
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<p>The new camera can also shoot video in six degrees of freedom, which is great for VR. </p> <p id="4h2X5z">Ever since Facebook <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/3/24/11587234/two-years-later-facebooks-oculus-acquisition-has-changed-virtual">bought Oculus Rift for $2 billion</a>, the company has been seeding the VR industry with money and technology to help generate content that might encourage people to give VR a try. </p>
<p id="6V3bht">Facebook’s most recent effort: A new video camera built specifically to record 360-degree videos, the kind of videos that work well inside a VR headset. Facebook unveiled the camera at its annual F8 developer conference on Wednesday. </p>
<p id="WqGiFO">The new camera is shaped like a ball and comes with either 24 lenses (the x24) or six lenses (the x6). It’s the second 360-video camera to come out of Facebook in the past two years; the first camera, which <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/7/26/12281110/facebook-video-360-degree-camera">looks like a flying saucer and has 17 lenses</a>, was also unveiled at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, but in 2016. </p>
<aside id="zR7OYF"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Watch: Facebook Says These 360-Degree Videos Rock the Most","url":"https://www.recode.net/2015/12/22/11621670/watch-facebook-says-these-360-degree-videos-rock-the-most"}]}'></div></aside><p id="cwtoZd">Why is Facebook, a social media company that makes almost all of its money from advertising, building high-end 360-degree video cameras?</p>
<p id="pMiJIk">Because virtual reality is still a niche industry, and mainstream users won’t fork over money for a headset if they don’t have great content to enjoy it with. If Facebook can get its 360-degree cameras into the hands of filmmakers, perhaps they’ll make the kind of stuff that motivates people to go buy new products. </p>
<p id="Bp4NUD">The new camera is different from Facebook’s original camera in two ways. </p>
<p id="bLv9V7">For starters, Facebook isn’t giving away the blueprints to this camera for free, like it did with the flying saucer version. The hope there was that people would take those blueprints and build the camera themselves. </p>
<p id="ugBZPE">In actuality, though, that camera was far from free — it cost $30,000 to build. Facebook realized that some people would rather just pay for the camera in the first place. So Facebook will license the designs for the new cameras to “commercial partners” and let <em>them</em> sell the cameras to interested buyers instead.</p>
<p id="rPRNti">The new cameras also offer an extra visual element to the video they capture: Depth. The new cameras shoot in six degrees of freedom, which means viewers can move forward and backward within a scene, not just left/right and up/down. That’s an important element when it comes to creating a virtual world that’s meant to feel natural. </p>
<p id="3lHXkR">Facebook says it hopes to have the new cameras available, via its partners, by the end of the year. The company won’t say how much the cameras will cost, but it’s a camera for professional photographers, not amateurs, which probably means it’s expensive. </p>
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<aside id="q1dOHE"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/19/15353542/facebook-360-video-camera-vrKurt Wagner2017-04-19T13:01:32-04:002017-04-19T13:01:32-04:00Facebook built a helicopter-drone to provide wireless internet to disaster areas
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<img alt="The Cancer Research - Oxford v Cambridge University Boat Races 2017" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gI2cFniCoLYdx5igk7cjsgwvr5Y=/93x0:1593x1125/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54342143/663713114.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>This is not a picture of Facebook’s helicopter-drone. | Jordan Mansfield / Getty</figcaption>
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<p>The unmanned chopper will be tethered to the ground so it can stay airborne for days at a time. </p> <p id="GuRFxO">Facebook thinks it can do more to help in times of crisis. </p>
<p id="56b9nN">The social giant already offers a feature called Safety Check, which lets users mark themselves safe during a crisis or <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/2/8/14544518/facebook-safety-check-update-community-help">connect with other users</a> who might have food, clothing or shelter on hand during a natural disaster. </p>
<p id="L6fcVj">But Facebook doesn’t just want to connect people to each other during these disasters — it wants to connect people to the internet, too. </p>
<p id="vqM8qu">The company announced on Wednesday what it’s calling “Tether-tenna technology,” essentially a small, unmanned helicopter that will provide Wi-Fi access to crisis zones when existing Wi-Fi towers are down or damaged. </p>
<p id="411Ewd">The helicopter-drone, which is roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, is literally tethered to a fiber line and a power source on the ground, which enables the chopper to stay airborne for days at a time. (Facebook says its goal is to keep it up for weeks or months.)</p>
<p id="YRFT1W">The Tether-tenna technology is still in early testing, which means it isn’t being deployed to actual disaster areas just yet, said Yael Maguire, head of Facebook’s connectivity lab, in an interview with <strong>Recode</strong>. </p>
<p id="Vkt2Nw">Maguire — whose team also built <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/12/18/13998900/facebooks-drone-crash-aquila-arizona-structural-failure">Facebook’s internet-beaming drone, Aquila</a>, and is laying <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14741128/facebook-fiber-mark-zuckerberg-cable-africa-uganda">hundreds of miles of fiber cable</a> in Africa to increase access to the internet there — estimates that one helicopter could connect “in the neighborhood of thousands to tens of thousands of people.” The Aquila drone hasn’t been deployed yet either; the aircraft was damaged<a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/12/18/13998900/facebooks-drone-crash-aquila-arizona-structural-failure"> after it crashed upon landing</a> during a test flight last summer.</p>
<p id="CBhaio">There are still some unanswered questions about Tether-tenna, like how widespread the wireless connection will be or how the choppers will get to the scene in a crisis. </p>
<p id="mwnKFr">Facebook is not the only company taking this tethered approach. CyPhy Works, a Massachusetts-based drone maker, is also <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/2/1/14441304/tethered-drone-cyphy-works-internet-cell-super-bowl">working on a tethered Wi-Fi drone</a>. </p>
<p id="Ag77DR">Facebook will demo the Tether-tenna technology at its annual F8 conference on Wednesday in San Jose, Calif. We haven’t seen it just yet but will update with observations once we do.</p>
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<aside id="aYOsxT"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/19/15353688/facebook-drone-helicopter-wireless-internet-disasterKurt WagnerApril Glaser2017-04-18T21:09:05-04:002017-04-18T21:09:05-04:00Here are all the new products Facebook announced at F8
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<img alt="Mark Zuckerberg Delivers Keynote Address At Facebook F8 Conference" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bSVp8wfawUNqK2RZLjJYPmLPnps=/142x757:1799x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54331039/669897718.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Justin Sullivan / Getty</figcaption>
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<p>Augmented and virtual reality were on the long list of updates from Facebook on Tuesday. </p> <p id="IXN0X4">Facebook’s theme of the day on Tuesday: Alternate realities. </p>
<p id="tIpE2O">The social giant hosted thousands of developers in San Jose Tuesday for the first day of F8, its annual developer conference. </p>
<p id="kMAFLz">CEO Mark Zuckerberg headlined the company’s keynote in his signature gray t-shirt and blue jeans, and spent almost 20 minutes outlining Facebook’s new augmented reality platform, a new way for developers to build features into Facebook’s built-in camera that add digital graphics to the real world you see through the lens. </p>
<p id="RuB6av">Simple versions of what Zuckerberg has in mind already exist in the real world: Face-distorting filters that Snapchat popularized are one examples, and so is the mobile game Pokémon Go.</p>
<p id="5Iq6tl">“Think about how many of the things you use [that] don’t actually need to be physical,” <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15315764/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-augmented-reality-ar-f8-glasses">Zuckerberg told <strong>Recode</strong> in an interview</a> where he outlined his broader AR vision, which includes AR glasses. “A key part of that journey is making an open platform where any developer can create anything they want,” he added. </p>
<p id="5BCbPl">Facebook launched that platform Tuesday, but it wasn’t the only major update. </p>
<ul>
<li id="1Yb6IN">
<strong>A New “Social VR” product</strong>: Facebook is beta testing a new <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15344368/facebook-virtual-reality-spaces-social-vr-oculus">social VR product called Spaces</a> that lets users create an avatar, then “meet up” with other users’ avatars in a digital world. It’s an effort to turn VR, which has historically been a solo activity, into a group activity. Users can chat and gesture with their arms, draw pictures or watch a YouTube video. The challenge, as with all VR products, is scale. How do you convince people to buy a headset in order to spend time together in a virtual world? Explained Rachel Franklin, Facebook’s head of social VR, in an interview with <strong>Recode</strong>: “If we can do a good enough job of having you feel [an actual emotional connection] in VR, then the hardware purchase becomes a no-brainer.”</li>
<li id="UTvc8D">
<strong>A better way to find bots</strong>: Facebook Messenger has tens of thousands of bots on its platform, but they are hard to find. So Messenger is launching a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15336942/facebook-messenger-bots-qr-codes-fb">dedicated discovery tab and new QR codes</a> that, when scanned, bring users directly into conversation with a bot. QR codes are big in messaging apps in Asia, but haven’t caught on here in the United States, including when Messenger has tried them before. “But we’re going to give this another go,” Messenger boss David Marcus said. </li>
<li id="IsiwB1">
<strong>More partners for Facebook Workplace</strong>: Facebook has an enterprise version of its social network, called Workplace, that it launched last fall. Now Workplace is partnering with a bunch of enterprise partners, like Microsoft, Box, Quip, Dropbox and Salesforce, so that it’s easier to share and organize files. Workplace also opened up its platform so developers can make custom bots specific to their organization’s needs. </li>
</ul>
<p id="6VxBB6">F8 continues with Day Two on Wednesday, and we expect the company will talk more about its hardware ambitions. The keynotes begin at 10 am PT and you can watch it <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/videos">here</a>. </p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="TbmfoI">
<aside id="vMXTR1"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/18/15347640/facebook-f8-products-recap-day-one-arKurt Wagner2017-04-18T14:51:30-04:002017-04-18T14:51:30-04:00Facebook is rolling out a product so you can hang with friends in virtual reality
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZiZBkBsr3tL1fzWYROMmKEM1z_k=/77x59:718x540/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54322245/01_facebook_spaces_still_shot.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Facebook</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Spaces” is Facebook’s first attempt at social VR. </p> <p id="Ao0CBW">Virtual reality is often a solo experience — you throw on a headset, plug in some headphones and tune out the world while you play a game or watch a movie. </p>
<p id="pdMwKW">Facebook thinks it can make make VR more social, and now it has an actual product so people can spend time with other real people in a virtual world. </p>
<p id="ozJAFh">The product, <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/04/facebook-spaces/">called “Spaces,”</a> lets users create a digital avatar based on their actual Facebook profile photo, and interact as that person in a virtual world where they can meet other real-world friends.</p>
<p id="4WARgT">For example: Two friends who live across the country from one another could put on headsets, open Spaces on the Oculus Rift and meet anywhere in the world as their respective avatars. </p>
<p id="mXBufM">Others in the virtual reality industry, including <a href="https://altvr.com/">AltspaceVR</a>, have similar products where users can hang out in a virtual world and play games as digital avatars. It’s too soon to know whether or not social VR will help the industry move more mainstream. Right now, VR is limited to a small number of users, primarily gamers, who are willing to fork over money for expensive headsets. Plus, there are plenty of other ways for people to communicate from a distance without a headset. </p>
<p id="XcTHAj">Still, Facebook’s mission is to connect the world and this is yet another way to do that. Spaces was announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference Tuesday; it is based on the <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/4/13/11586098/watch-facebook-social-virtual-reality-demo">vision for “social VR”</a> that Facebook unveiled at the same conference in 2016. </p>
<p id="28X2BI">Now that vision is a reality — at least for some Facebook users. The Spaces product is launching in beta on Facebook’s Oculus Rift. Here’s Facebook’s promo video for how it might work in real life. </p>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/FacebookTips/videos/10155260579068466/"></a><p></p>Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FacebookTips/">Facebook Tips</a> on Monday, April 17, 2017</blockquote></div>
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<aside id="mPD5MY"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/18/15344368/facebook-virtual-reality-spaces-social-vr-oculusKurt Wagner2017-04-18T14:03:49-04:002017-04-18T14:03:49-04:00Messenger is finally making it easier to find and use bots
<figure>
<img alt="New Zealand v Pakistan - 1st Test: Day 2" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2bfi9D9-676abQVgaT-0w7cjn3U=/378x0:4975x3448/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54320735/624080650.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Kai Schwoerer / Getty</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Messenger is adding new QR codes and a bot discovery tab. </p> <p id="w34L9m">It’s been one year since <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/4/12/11586058/bots-facebook-messenger">Facebook Messenger first unveiled its bot platform</a> in the hope that brands and retailers would use the app to automate messaging conversations with their customers. </p>
<p id="XCGI4z">Since then, developers have created tens of thousands of chat bots — they just aren’t very easy to find. </p>
<p id="YJf6RN">Messenger is hoping to change that. The company is rolling out a new discover tab inside the app that will categorize bots by industry, provide featured suggestions, and includes a bot-specific search function. It’s a bit like an app store, but for bots. </p>
<div class="c-float-right"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WcuzopHf_3PZr_89gQ8ltiJ1bME=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8361161/DiscoverTab.png">
<cite>Messenger</cite>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="8rVoYF">The company is also rolling out new QR codes to bot creators that, when scanned, bring the user into a conversation with the bot. The hope is that people will interact more often with Messenger bots that they come across in the real world, like at a concert or a restaurant. </p>
<p id="J9Waqm">Messenger already offered <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/7/11383958/facebook-messenger-codes-announced-900m-mau">QR codes</a>, but Messenger boss David Marcus admitted at the company’s annual developer conference Tuesday that theses types of codes aren’t as popular in the West as they are for messaging apps in Asia. “But we’re going to give this another go,” he said Tuesday from the stage. </p>
<p id="Tk0l9O">Imagine a ballgame where scanning a code on the back of the seat places you into conversation with a bot where you can ask for player stats, find the nearest hotdog vendor or order merchandise from the team store. </p>
<p id="U6t9in">The codes don’t work for payments just yet, but that seems likely to be developed. Messenger already offers peer-to-peer payments, and scanning a code to pay for a meal or purchase a movie ticket seems like a logical next step. (Though <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/11/15252854/facebook-messenger-payments-advertising-revenue-business-model">Messenger doesn’t plan to make money</a> from facilitating these kinds of transactions.) </p>
<p id="shqXmU">Messenger announced the changes Tuesday at Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference in San Jose, Calif. It’s the same conference where Facebook announced the Messenger platform in 2015 and rolled out its bot ambitions last year. </p>
<p id="AhTg11">Messenger has had a busy April. Earlier this month it announced that artificial intelligence technology would start <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/6/15203526/facebook-messenger-m-artificial-intelligence-ai-bots">making suggestions for things to do inside users’ private conversations</a>, and it also rolled out group payments last week. </p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="Ad7DtX">
<aside id="dLmgI4"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/18/15336942/facebook-messenger-bots-qr-codes-fbKurt Wagner2017-04-18T13:30:02-04:002017-04-18T13:30:02-04:00Mark Zuckerberg, in his own words, on why AR is Facebook’s next big platform bet
<figure>
<img alt="New Samsung S7 Worldwide Unveiling" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UxeqRXu8AYJNoEfHjaMVkryp0x0=/471x0:4472x3001/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54309455/511573652.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mark Zuckerberg wants to build you a pair of augmented reality glasses.</p> <p id="djvy5v">Mark Zuckerberg has a vision for the future, and it involves a lot less <em>stuff</em>. </p>
<p id="WmJC77">“Think about how many of the things you use [that] don’t actually need to be physical,” Zuckerberg, Facebook’s future-forming, 32-year-old CEO, said from his all-glass office last week at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. </p>
<p id="9CkWZr">“You want to play a board game? You snap your fingers, and here’s the board game,” he said, motioning to the coffee table. “You want to watch TV?” he gestured to the flat screen up on the wall. “You don’t need a physical hardware TV, you buy a one-dollar app ‘TV’ and put it on the wall.”</p>
<p id="lFqIlu">Zuckerberg hasn’t figured out a way to conjure physical objects out of thin air. Instead he has plans to produce digital objects using software-powered glasses, the kind of futuristic lenses that can overlay digital text and images onto the physical world around you.</p>
<p id="oQZJF5">The technology, referred to as augmented reality, is already around, though in a much simpler form. It’s the same technology that powers Facebook’s (and Snapchat’s) <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/3/9/11586814/facebook-couldnt-buy-snapchat-so-it-bought-silly-selfie-filters-like">face-distorting camera lenses</a>, and helped propel <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/9/19/12965508/pokemon-go-john-hanke-augmented-virtual-reality-ar-recode-decode-podcast">Pokémon Go</a> into a cultural phenomenon. </p>
<p id="4aJL0K">Somewhere down the line, Zuckerberg said, augmented reality will be a big part of Facebook, too. That vision was laid out today at the company’s <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/17/15325262/facebook-f8-conference-preview-what-to-expect">annual developer conference</a>, F8, in San Jose, Calif., just 20 miles down the road from Facebook’s corporate headquarters. </p>
<p id="dUEanB">Facebook doesn’t have AR glasses yet — though Zuckerberg confirmed to <strong>Recode</strong> that the company is building “AR hardware” — but it’s taking a different step toward bringing augmented reality mainstream: It’s opening up a developer platform so that people can build augmented-reality features for the cameras that live inside Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp. </p>
<p id="CHeQ71">“The tools today are primitive,” Zuckerberg told <strong>Recode</strong>, referring to face filters and games like Pokémon. “And people aren’t using primitive tools because they prefer primitive tools. They’re using primitive tools because we’re still early on the journey to creating better tools.”</p>
<p id="ihqa2q">“A key part of that journey is making an open platform where any developer can create anything they want,” Zuckerberg added. </p>
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<p id="i0hJIQ">That platform has a name — the “Camera Effects Platform” — and Facebook is launching it with just six developer partners, which will soon build AR features and lenses for the Facebook in-app camera. Other interested developers can apply to join the program, and users don’t need to do anything — features that Facebook deems fun or interesting enough will simply be added to the app as they’re approved. </p>
<p id="fBYM2v">Zuckerberg has talked about his <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/4/12/11586066/facebook-augmented-reality">augmented reality ambitions</a> before, though never in as much detail. Specifically, Zuckerberg sees AR as an extension of virtual reality, which Facebook is also working on through its Oculus division. </p>
<p id="v47CzC">“We can’t build the AR product that we want today, so building VR is the path to getting to those AR glasses,” Zuckerberg explained, adding that a lot of the early research and artificial intelligence used in VR is also applicable to AR. </p>
<p id="K6WcsN">There are still a lot of questions surrounding Facebook’s AR efforts. Virtual reality isn’t exactly booming, and the industry — which relies on content for entertainment — has struggled to break out of the gamer demographic. </p>
<p id="t7XgPy">Augmented reality, on the other hand, has a lot of potential corporate applications, from reading and sending emails to designing cars or spaceships. It’s why Zuckerberg thinks it could be bigger than VR, though he admits the business around AR is still undefined. </p>
<p id="4Q7HYo">“I don’t know what the eventual business is going to be for us,” he admitted. “We focus more on the software side of things, but one thing that seems to be true is that early on in the development of these platforms, the hardware and software are pretty hard to untangle. So it would be very hard to push the VR ecosystem forward and help out there without also working on hardware early on. And I would imagine that the same is going to be true about AR as well.”</p>
<p id="Ura9nr">Zuckerberg and Facebook aren’t talking much about their hardware efforts, though he did say that Facebook’s AR and VR development will likely result in separate products. “Is it going to be one product line? No,” he said. “I think eventually there are going to be people who want a VR product and there are going to be people who want an AR product. I would bet the AR one will be bigger if it can get developed in a good way.”</p>
<p id="qyETHj">This, of course, is mostly a vision for now, or at least Facebook and Zuckerberg aren’t claiming to have AR figured out. It’s not even clear that consumers would be interested in the concept if it did — some are most certainly still trying to wash the taste of Google Glass out of their mouths.</p>
<p id="hhY5AV">“I think everyone would basically agree that we do not have the science or technology today to build the AR glasses that we want,” Zuckerberg said. “We may in five years, or seven years, or something like that. But we’re not likely to be able to deliver the experience that we want right now.” </p>
<p id="rTuC2C">When asked what he learned about Glass, Google’s evolving attempt at AR glasses that flopped as a consumer product, Zuckerberg talked about the dangers of moving too quickly. </p>
<p id="jr48OA">“They would have agreed too, I’m sure, that they couldn’t build the thing that they wanted to. So they built [Glass] instead and kind of thought that that might be a stepping stone,” he said. “But I think getting the stepping stones right is the art in this.” </p>
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<aside id="lILSxa"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/18/15315764/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-augmented-reality-ar-f8-glassesKurt Wagner