Facebook planning ‘virtual reality app for smartphones’

The new app is said to work on Android as well as iOS platforms. The spherical videos will allow smartphone owners to change their viewing perspective by simply tilting the phone. “It doesn’t just stop with videos… what we see happening in the next couple years is bringing augmented reality and virtual reality to the experience that is on Facebook”.

The effort follows Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of VR firm Oculus VR past year .

Facebook has declined to comment on any development of virtual reality app for smartphones. It’s unknown if any details regarding the new app will be revealed at the conference, reports PC Magazine.

Over the last three decades, the publicity around virtual reality has been removed and decreased.

While not in any way surprising, it looks as though Facebook is poised to fire another shot at YouTube with which it has been increasingly competing for video-viewing eyeballs and advertisers who want to spend money reaching them.

In the not too distant future, virtual reality videos will fill a user’s Facebook feed as often as a photo or a status update.

That being said, dabbling in immersive video seems like a no-brainer for Facebook.

The video app would apparently be an extension of the virtual reality side of things, expanding the technology to an audience that may not yet be interested in VR.

Oculus Rift handset which was launched as part of the 2012 Kickstarter project by the company is expected to start shipping the Ruft handset to consumers in the first quarter of 2016.

More recently, Facebook confirmed plans to spend more of its cash on extending further into the VR market, so it’s likely that some of that has been ploughed into the upcoming app. It’s unclear whether Google or these other companies will release an expensive virtual reality headset in the near future. A user can place their phone inside the $20 cardboard headset and experience VR through a phone. “Now we have a chance to create the most immersive experience of all – the feeling of “presence” – that you’re actually there”.