Facebook is looking to put its $2 billion purchase of Oculus VR to good use, announcing Tuesday its plans to create versions of its apps to use in virtual worlds.
Chris Cox, chief product officer for the social networking giant, revealed the company's plans for virtual reality in an interview at the Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif., according to Re/code.
"I mean, virtual reality is pretty cool. We're working on apps for VR," Cox told Re/code's Peter Kafka, pointing out the capabilities of several VR film demos like one in which the headset wearer envisions being inside a Blue Angel fighter jet and another where the viewer is put inside a yurt in Mongolia.
"You realize, when you're in it, that you're looking at the future, and it's going to be awesome. When you're in Facebook, you're just sending around these bits of experience- a photo, a video, a thought," Cox said, CNET reported, adding that with VR, users could be "sending a fuller picture."
The interview follows about seven months after the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company bought Oculus, which is responsible for the Oculus Rift headset that lets users enter a variety of virtual envrionments. The startup is also developing VR video games and unveiled its Oculus Story Studio subsidiary last month, which will be used to produce VR movies.
Facebook also wants to provide tools for users to make their own VR apps, with Cox saying that the goal is to have users eventually be able to share virtual experiences with each other the same way they share photos and videos, Tom's Guide reported.
"You'll do it. Beyonce will do it," he said.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time of the Oculus purchase in July that the technology has the potential to be used not just for video games, but for communications, medicine and education, CNET reported.
"Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction," Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post. "But the Internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones."
