New Delhi: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise appearance at the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016 event on Sunday to announce that the two companies are teaming up to push virtual reality in mobile phones and social networking.
Virtual reality "is now mainly used for gaming, but that is quickly changing," Zuckerberg said. "That is why Facebook is investing so much in VR, so we can deliver these social experiences."
"We want to make Facebook the best video platform for virtual reality and Samsung is the only company in the world that can provide a good experience in terms of virtual reality," he said.
Zuckerberg also told the story of when he was 11 years old and first learning to program computers. He used to sit in his middle school math class, write code in his notebook and sketch images of a world where you could not only navigate to a 2D website, but transport yourself to a completely different place in reality.
"I've been waiting for it to be possible to create this experience, and today it finally is," said Zuckerberg.
Samsung's newest Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge will work with the $100 Gear VR headset that is powered by Facebook's Oculus technology.
Therefore, as Zuckerberg announced, every pre-order of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge will ship with a free Gear VR. "And if you don't pre-order, you can buy it for just $99. This means Gear VR will be in the hands of millions of people this year," he said.
Besides, Zuckerberg also shared a few new stats like people have already watched more than 1 million hours of 360 videos in Gear VR.
Samsung will now also make a 360-degree camera for everyday folks to capture and share VR images.
VR is still in its early days, with much of the interest coming from hard-core gamers and tech pioneers. Samsung wants to make it easier for everyday people to create VR videos — so that friends will buy VR headsets to view them.
I just joined Samsung to launch their new Galaxy smartphones and talk about the future of virtual reality.I told the...Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday, February 21, 2016
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