When social networking giant Facebook purchased virtual reality (VR) specialist Oculus VR back in 2014 fans immediately started to wonder what a combination of the two platforms might look like. What many haven’t really considered is the possibility of collaborations with other Facebook-owned companies. Photo sharing service Instagram, for example, seems like it could be an ideal partner for the Oculus Rift head-mounted display (HMD) with 360 degree photos. In fact, Instagram itself agrees that this would be ‘amazing’.
Co-founder Mike Krieger recently said as much when speaking with CNN Money. “One of the things I was prototyping was the ability to just teleport anywhere in the world,” he said. “So to say like ‘What’s going on right now in Paris? And what are people posting about there?”
When asked if that meant the Instagram team would be interested in work with Oculus VR, Krieger replied: “Yeah, that would be amazing as well. We have 80 million photos uploaded every day from all around the world. To be able to say ‘Oh, what is it actually like to be able to actually stand on the street corner and get a sense of the world from there from sights and sounds.’”
Facebook itself has already started taking small steps towards VR integration. Earlier in the year the company introduced 360 degree videos into its news feed with help from the likes of Star Wars: The Force Awakenes. Such content will at some point be viewable from within the Oculus Rift. In fact, CEO Mark Zuckerberg hopes to one day share his daughter’s first steps with friends and family in VR. It’s not clear when Facebook will become fully integrated with HMDs like the Oculus Rift, but it’s certainly coming.
VRFocus will continue to follow Facebook’s work in VR closely, reporting back with the latest updates from the company.
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