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Yes, Teleporters Are Coming Soon! Facebook Spearheads Technology That Will Take People ‘Anywhere’ They Want To Go

By Val Powell
Published on: 14:13 PST, Nov 5, 2015

The announcement was made at the Dublin Web Summit this week, where Schroepfer revealed what the social media giant wants to build in the near future.

“Facebook wants to build a device that allows you to be anywhere you want, with anyone, regardless of geographic boundaries”

However, the device will not exactly be a teleporter per se where people can take their physical selves to other places at the touch of a button. Instead, it will serve as “an extension of virtual reality.”

Facebook, who owns Oculus VR, plans to launch it next year. It acquired Oculus for $2 billion last year, and is definitely playing a major role in the company’s future goals. However, the social media giant has other plans for the virtual reality device. The company reportedly wants the device to be able to “trick” its users’ minds into thinking that they are somewhere else, thereby fulfilling its function as a “teleporter.”

Unfortunately, the Facebook officer said there would be a number of challenges that the company has to overcome in order to make the coming teleporter feature even more successful.

First, a question is raised whether the user can see his body parts when inside the virtual reality. It would also be a unique experience if he can see his friends.

Two friends can use the teleporter at the same time, and then they see each other in the created virtual reality.

The second challenge is placing an actual environment into the VR and allowing that environment to be the setting of the virtual reality.

This would entail extensive data gathering in certain locations, probably tourist destinations around the world. These would then be included in the list of possible “virtual realities” to be loaded by the user.

It would also be interesting if Facebook lets the user interact with the objects in the virtual reality.

Lastly, Schroepfer talked about content creation, saying that sufficient resources should be available for people in order for the technology to progress quicker.

While developing the teleporter is a task that Facebook may or may not finish within the next 10 years, the company should also prepare resources for other developers to support it.

Meanwhile, in another report, the Menlo Park, California-based company is developing artificial intelligence technology to serve as users’ personal virtual assistant.

The AI will reportedly be able to sort out through a user’s pictures and videos, and will be named “M,” which is allegedly based on James Bond’s assistant Moneypenny.

On the other hand, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said that even before the PC VR becomes popular, mobile virtual reality would already become popular among users.

In the report, Luckey said that there are a variety of apps that will be available for RIFT when it launches. This includes virtual cinema with friends, games, and other applications.

“You’ll wear it all the time or carry it around with you all the time,” he said.

However, he also pointed out the challenges that Facebook will need to overcome if it wants to expand Oculus’ potential as a mobile device, and even “absorb the function of today’s smartphones.”

“It is important to design both hardware and software with those limitations in mind,” said Luckey, who developed Oculus over the past years, but was bought by Facebook last year.

Aside from the Oculus VR, other related devices that would be used in developing the “teleporter” coming in 2025 are the Oculus headset and Oculus Touch controllers.

[Image by Axel Schmidt, Getty Images]

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