9/26/2019 Facebook Horizon Poised To Rival Roblox and Minecraft With 2020 Launch

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Facebook Horizon Poised To RivalRoblox and Minecraft With 2020Launch

Martine Paris ContributorCOGNITIVE WORLD Contributor Group

Mark Zuckerberg introducing Facebook Horizon at OC6 FACEBOOK

In a stunning reveal at Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) this week, Mark Zuckerberg presented first look at Facebook Horizon, a social VR experience coming to the Oculus Quest andRift platform in 2020.

With Pixar-like graphics, the Horizon trailer showed a sunny wonderland of endlessadventure for exploring one’s authentic self. “In Horizon, you’re going to be able to builyour own worlds and experiences, explore and hangout with your friends and of coursemeet new people,” Zuckerberg explained. Not a new concept to gamers who already

9/26/2019 Facebook Horizon Poised To Rival Roblox and Minecraft With 2020 Launch

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Mark Zuckerberg introducing Facebook Horizon

at OC6 FACEBOOK

Physical model and mockup drawings of

Facebook Horizon on display at OC6 MARTINE

PARIS

enjoy the fantasy realms of massively multiplayeonline worlds, but what is new is Facebook’sreadiness to layer a deeper, more immersiveexperience on top of its vast social network. Withits ongoing investment in AI and growing globalfootprint, Facebook has the potential to createtrue social presence within Horizon, one whereyou can experience a sense of being with lovedones in an alternative reality even if you’re

physically apart in the real world.

One ring to rule the metaverse

Roblox and Minecraft, each with more than 100million players, might have something to worryabout if Facebook, with its 2.7 billion users, isable to find a fast and frictionless way to driveusers into the Horizon experience. That’s a big if,but if Facebook can pull it off, the monetizationpotential is huge.

Fortnite, which is currently the largest game inthe world with 250 million players, has beenestimated to make more than $2.5 million a day.Additionally, Libra, the global cryptocurrencybeing developed by Facebook, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and otherleading brands, is also planning a 2020 launch and could serve as Horizon’s in-gamecurrency and blockchain for collectible items. I asked Facebook’s Head of ProductMarketing for AR/VR content, Meaghan Fitzgerald, if monetization was being built intothe game design and she told me that they’d be announcing details closer to release.

9/26/2019 Facebook Horizon Poised To Rival Roblox and Minecraft With 2020 Launch

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Mark Zuckerberg showing off Hand Tracking at OC6 FACEBOOK

The promise of AI

An ardent supporter of VR since its $2 billion acquisition of Oculus in 2014, Facebookhas stood by the fledgling technology for years despite slow adoption. But with robustsales of their untethered headset, Oculus Quest which launched in May, Facebook justcrossed a major milestone of $100 million of Oculus Store sales that is giving them causto celebrate. 

Heralding VR as the next major computing platform, Michael Abrash, Head of FacebooReality Labs (FRL), Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, Facebook’s VP of AR VR, and Zuckerbergshowed off a number of advancements in computer vision:

Hand tracking which allows for real time mobileprocessing of hand gestures without the need forcontrollers applies deep neural networks to forma 26 degree-of-freedom reconstruction of handsas seen by Oculus Quest’s four monochromatic

9/26/2019 Facebook Horizon Poised To Rival Roblox and Minecraft With 2020 Launch

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Quest’s monochromatic cameras mapping the

surface geography of the hand FACEBOOK

Head of FRL Mike Abrash showing off codec

avatar reconstruction live on stage at

OC6 MARTINE PARIS

cameras. This feature will begin shipping in early2020 on the Oculus Quest.

Full body codec avatars which allows for real time 3D rendering of a person’s likeness,movements and voice from measurements taken by camera sensors inside the headsetand bodysuit. Still in development, these codec avatars will allow people to experiencephotorealistic social presence within the virtual world.

Live Maps, a shared virtual map of Earth with realtime reconstruction of photorealistic 3D spacesthat will allow avatars to teleport anywhere andwill provide a virtual assistant for the physicalworld. According to Facebook, Live Maps usesmachine perception to construct multilayerrepresentations of the world, showing where youare in space, recognizing what things look like,and understanding the intrinsic meaning ofobjects. Connected devices such as smartphones and AR glasses (which Facebook hasannounced it’s building) will scan surroundings to create a live dynamic index ofcrowdsourced data. 

Avatar at family dinner via Live Maps FACEBOOK

9/26/2019 Facebook Horizon Poised To Rival Roblox and Minecraft With 2020 Launch

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Martine Paris

Silicon Valley freelance tech reporter covering AI,

robotics, autonomous vehicles, connected home,

consumer tech, gaming, crypto, blockchain and emergin

markets. She writes for Fast Company, VentureBeat and

other top outlets, is a frequent speaker at leading tech

conferences and serves on the programming committee

for the CES 2020 Digital Money Forum. Follow her on

Twitter @contentnow. Read Less

Oculus CTO John Carmack predicting that AR

will replace phones FACEBOOK

Addressing Facebook’s September 23rd acquisition of CTRL-labs rumored to have beenvalued at $500 million to $1 billion, Zuckerberg shared excitement over its top team ofcomputational neuroscientists joining FRL and the key role that neural interfacetechnology will be playing on Facebook’s product roadmap going forward, “In the futurwe want to get to an input where we just think of something and it happens.”

“A lot of the technologies that we're working onhere are our foundation, not just for virtual realibut also for the future.” said Zuckerberg, “Tobetter connect people, we need to buildtechnology that's going to help advance anddeliver this feeling of presence.”