Mark Zuckerberg backs Apple in encryption debate

Beyond virtual reality video, Facebook is also now looking to bring the technology to social, creating a new team dedicated to that cause. “We believe in encryption; we think that that’s an important tool”, Zuckerberg said on stage at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

To achieve its goal, Zuckerberg announced during the Samsung event that Facebook has created a dedication “Social VR” team. His theory: Lightweight virtual or augmented reality glasses that can transport us into virtual worlds or project virtual objects onto the real world will one day be as common as smartphones. By doing this, we’ve quadrupled the resolution quality of 360 streaming video in VR by reducing the amount of required network bandwidth by 4x – so videos look clearer and play faster. Apple’s dispute with the USA government is just the latest clash between a tech firm and authorities, and numerous sector’s biggest names have sided with the iPhone maker.

Facebook also says that more than 200 games and apps are available in the Oculus store – with hundreds of new titles, including Minecraft, to come. Already massively multiplayer online (MMO) video games (like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) provide alternate-reality socialization for millions of players in 3D worlds on 2D screens.

Facebook was long accused of brushing aside users’ privacy concerns, and although Zuckerberg has strived to win back trust with a flurry of features, the social network is still in the eye of the storm. People have watched more than 1 million hours of video on the Gear VR – a mobile virtual reality device Facebook launched alongside Samsung in November 2015.

What is certain though is that Zuckerberg’s appearance means exciting times ahead for VR and a strong indication of who will be generating the content for the headsets in the future – users themselves. It takes 360 degree photos and videos that can be uploaded to Facebook and YouTube, or viewed as immersive experiences on Samsung’s virtual reality headsets.

“Facebook has always had a love-hate relationship with carriers”, Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said after Zuckerberg’s comments. It collaborated with Samsung on the popular Gear VR headset (which needs a Samsung Galaxy Phone to work) and ported 360 videos to the Gear VR. Chat programs such as Second Life, IMVU and Habbo Hotel are even more examples of where Facebook could expand not to mention the social powerhouse that is Disney Infinity.