Zuckerberg: Oculus Rift will give people power to experience everything


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Mark Zuckerberg



Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has discussed his vision for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, in a wide-ranging Q&A on his personal page.


In the hour-long session Zuckerberg claimed the company’s mission is to give people the power to “experience everything” through the headset.


The social network acquired Oculus for a whopping $2 billion back in early 2014 and touted it as the next great communication medium. However, Zuckerberg said Facebook’s VR ambitions still stretch beyond creating a virtual Second Life experience for social users.


He wrote: “Our mission to give people the power to experience anything.


"Even if you don't have the ability to travel somewhere, or to be with someone in person, or even if something is physically impossible to build in our analog world, the goal is to help build a medium that will give you the ability to do all of these things you might not otherwise be able to do.


"This will be incredibly powerful as a communication medium as well. Just like we capture photos and videos today and then share them on the internet to let others experience them too, we'll be able to capture whole 3D scenes and create new environments and then share those with people as well. It will be pretty wild."



Read more: Oculus Rift vs Project Morpheus: The battle of the VR headsets


Elsewhere in the Q&A, the Facebook founder claimed his Internet.org project will bring free internet access to everyone in Europe “who needs to be connected.”


So far, the initiative has offered web access across India, Zambia and Colombia, with the overall aim to provide access to the two-thirds of the unable to connect.


When called out on the primitive nature of the access Facebook is providing, Zuckerberg added: "Having some connectivity and ability to share is better than none.”


Zuck also claimed that for every billion people Facebook is able to get online, 100 million of them will be lifted out of poverty.