In an interview with the Gaming Business Review, an online site ran by M2 Publishing, Tim Sweeney detailed recent developments in Epic Games, as well as his visions of the future.

The interview obviously took place during Game Developer’s Conference 2015, which is traditionally held in San Francisco, CA. We highly recommend that you head there and read the whole interview, but we could not miss out on a question that is shaping the industry right now:

GBR: How big do you see virtual reality becoming over the next five to ten years as a business?

TS: Virtual reality and Augmented Reality will literally change the world. They will be the next computing platform.  There’s a market for billions of these devices because everybody who has a smartphone today will — perhaps in as much as decade from now — much prefer entertainment in a completely immersive experience that takes advantage of your entire field of view and has full body input through miniaturized cameras and other technologies.  But we’re in the early days of it now.  Let’s be clear, everything is in the development kit stage.  It is for early adopters and what we’re seeing now is really just the Palm Pilot to the platform that will evolve into something iPhone-like in its quality.

There’s no point in denying it, after seeing billions of dollars earned by 3D movies which rely on ‘cheap tricks’ to achieve depth (try finding animated feature movies without 3D being the ‘default’ option), next step will bring us technologies such as Microsoft Hololens, production versions of Facebook-owned Oculus VR (John Carmack keynote) and second-generation Google Glass, which is developed in near-secrecy by the search giant and a practical monopoly in glasses, Italian giant Luxottica.

After operating for almost 20 years as an independent studio, Epic Games made waves across the gaming and development community when they accepted an investment from Tencent Holdings (HKG:0700) last June (2014). The Chinese powerhouse paid up $330 million for 48.4% of the company, setting the valuation just a bit below $680 million.

Tim Sweeney continued to be the CEO, while his lifelong business partner Mark Rein still continues as in his role of Vice President.  Not selling themselves outright like idSoftware did with ZeniMax Media, Epic Games continues to be independent studio, consisting out of product (games) and technology development units. Their recent announcement about making Unreal Engine ‘free’ opens a path for even more ‘premium freemium’ titles which base their revenue model on microtransactions.

The post Tim Sweeney: Virtual Reality will Literally Change the World appeared first on VR World.

Internet.org, the brainchild of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has the ambitious goal of “connecting the next 5 billion” Internet users by focusing on the emerging economies — the lower tiers of mobile users whose primary means of getting online is via mobile devices.

With a goal of having a presence in 100 countries within 2015, Internet.org sets foot in Southeast Asia through PLDT (NYSE:PHI), which operates the Philippines’ biggest mobile and fixed line network by subscriber base. According to estimates, only 38% of the country’s population had Internet access as of mid 2014. Meanwhile, mobile penetration rate has surpassed 100%, although only a minority are on smartphones.

Facebook’s effort to connect the otherwise underserved sectors of society is done in partnership with public and private organizations in its target countries. Internet.org vice president Chris Evans said in a keynote at the recently-concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the effort will essentially provide basic Internet services like access to educational and health information. But it also aims to be a feeder to other mobile services, as well, envisioning to “see more people coming online, buying data and voice and SMS bundles.”

Internet.org launched initially in countries like Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia, Ghana and India. The Philippines launch marks the first Southeast Asian country that carries free basic Internet access through the initiative.

Through Internet.org, users can access a curated set of websites, currently numbering 24, which include sites like Wikipedia for news, Inquirer for news, Accuweather for meteorology and Jobstreet for job hunting (the list of services differs by market). As expected, the service will also provide free access to social networking staples Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

Access will be available to users within PLDT’s mobile brands, which includes SMART, Sun Cellular and Talk n’ Text. The biggest mobile network by subscriber base, the group counts about 71.2 million prepaid subscribers, which comprise about 90% of its cellular business.

Prior to the local Internet.org launch, PLDT already initiated its “Internet for All” campaign, which provided free access to mobile users, with 50MB daily allocation. While this is decidedly a small amount for most, it was deemed enough for basic access like instant messaging and light social networking.

“Smart’s partnership with Facebook is a big boost to our ‘Internet for All’ campaign, an advocacy we have been strongly pushing for,” says Smart president and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno. “By launching Internet.org app with Facebook in the Philippines, we are making useful information within reach of millions of Filipinos.”

Earler this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared some statistics on Internet.org, saying about 7 million people used the Internet for the first time through the service. In addition, the carriers involved also saw an upsurge in data subscriptions and usage of basic services, an indication that Internet.org does not only serve to enhance access to the underserved, but it also contributes positively to carriers’ business. Other companies, such as Nokia, are also finding ways to enable Internet access with inexpensive Internet-enabled devices for the emerging markets.

The post Internet.org Launches in SEAsia With Free Access to Essential Online Services appeared first on VR World.

Earlier today, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)  unveiled Facebook Payments to allow friends to send free friend-to-friend payments over the social network messages. This service can be seen as the direct response by the largest social media network in the world, all to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, unveiled a few months earlier. It also shows how the financial sector is developing rapidly, all without much input from the older well-established companies in the sector recently.

The first time you send or receive money in Messenger, you’ll need to add a Visa or MasterCard debit card issued by a US bank to your account. Once you add a debit card, you can create a PIN to provide additional security the next time you send money. On iOS devices you can also enable Touch ID. As always, you can add another layer of authentication to your account at any time. The payment system lets you just tap a “$” button to send some of your friends money on iOS, Android, and desktop messenger applications, all with zero fees. Facebook Messenger payments will roll out first in the U.S. over the coming months.

European and Asian users will have to wait for Facebook to roll out the service to them. In accordance to recent developments in the sector, this serves as a reminder how quickly things can revolutionize in certain areas overall. This Facebook payment system will undoubtedly have a great argument for a choice between similar payment systems worldwide.

If Facebook can work out an agreement with European Union law makers, this could very well mean the payment system becomes one of the most popular money transfer systems out there. The zero fee approach is offset by companies paying a certain fee when payments are made with this system. Facebook may have a different approach to this aspect, but we believe this will be what the social network does in the future for this issue. While intended for friends, we can see a great deal of use by possible client to client transfers, but more importantly later we can expect this payment system to roll out for companies too.

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Virtual reality is undoubtedly an immersive feast for the eyes, and accompanied by surround sound headphones that pump in realistic high-def sounds to our ears, users are pulled into a digital world.

But what about our other senses? What about those who actually want to smell their digital universe?

The attachment is a novel idea, but as you can see it’s a rather bizarre piece of hardware that traps your visage in a claustrophobic mask that looks quite uncomfortable.

The FeelReal Mask is a curious VR peripheral that aims at injecting more “reality” into your virtual reality sessions by simulating the sense of smell to virtual reality (yes, really). It will also deliver minor temperature fluctuations to simulate hot air, wind and even water mist.

It’s rightly labeled as a “mask” considering when you strap it on to VR hardware you’re pretty much obscuring your entire face, trapping your features in a bizarre claustrophobic contraption for the sake of “total immersion”.

The FeelReal Mask as showcased at GDC 2015. (Photo Credit: The Verge)

Since you’re mouth will be completely covered up, the mask features a Bluetooth microphone to ensure you’re not completely vocally cut-off from the outside world.

It seems like a novel concept from the start, but once you see what you have to go through to get your senses doused in the “full VR presence”, the FeelReal Mask will most likely scare everyone off. Smell is an inherently important sense, and is more closely tied to memory than any other of our five senses, so successfully tapping this reservoir could lead to potential interactive gold.

But how does the mask work? Loaded with a cartridge that produces seven unique smells that waft through “odor generating vents”, the oddity is tethered to the headset by Bluetooth and powered by a battery with a four-hour life cycle.

Hot and cool air are funneled through dual-sided vents along your upper cheekbones to simulate wind and the like, whereas the water mist lightly sprays at separate dual-sided vents along your cheeks.

The “odor generator” is right under your nose–like literally right under your schnozz while wearing the headset–and delivers the following scents:

• Ocean
• Jungle
• Fire
• Grass
• Powder
• Flowers
• Metal

The mask is attachable to just about every piece of VR tech out there including the Oculus Rift, Project Morpheus, Valve’s Vive headset and even Zeiss VR One.

The Verge tried out the hardware at GDC 2015 and likened it to “smell-o-vision” for VR.

The publication described it as “strapping a foam block over your mouth and nose, putting yourself at the mercy of its air vents,” and saying that it’s basically a “gas mask arranged into a little smiling face.”

While the FeelReal Mask is certainly a unique specimen in terms of adding smell to VR, we’ve seen other peripherals that aim to bring total immersion to the virtual world.

Hardware like the Dexmo exoskeleton from Dexta Robotics and the mo-capping CyberGlove are helping bring the sense of touch to virtual reality, laying the framework for technologies that could very well introduce hardware of Lawnmower Man-like proportions.

But I think senses like smell (and taste for that matter) are best left to the real world.

The post FeelReal Brings Sense of Smell To Virtual Reality appeared first on VR World.

Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) announced on Jan. 29 that a small team for better support business will be launched in Taipei.

“Taiwan is a priority market for Facebook. We want to help local businesses, both big and small, to grow locally and regionally,” said Dan Neary, Facebook’s vice president for Asia-Pacific.

Facebook said that the small team was designed for rolling out workshops and roadshows, and targeting specifically at advertising and media agencies, small and medium-sized business, brands and developers, throughout the year. Facebook, however, did not elaborate how many employees they will recruit in Taipei office and when this office will be launched.

“We have seen small business like online seafood retailer i3fresh grow their market share and experience a three-fold increase in sales through their campaigns on Facebook. Brands like Estee Lauder (FRA: ELAA) were also able to leverage Facebook to reach specific target audience groups,” Neary said. “They ran a campaign around its Resilience Lift Diamond product in Taiwan and found the Facebook platform to be 40 times more efficient at reaching the target audience than TV.”

Jayne Leung (梁幼莓), head of Greater China for Facebook, said that the establishment for the Facebook Taiwan office will increase the level of support available to Taiwanese clients and agencies.

“We recognize the potential and opportunities that Taiwan presents and are looking forward to working closely with Taiwan businesses, partners and the government to help local businesses grow,” she said.

Taiwan’s Vice Premier Simon Chang (張善政) visited the new office privately on Thursday morning (Jan. 29) and said that in addition to the office, he is also hoping that Facebook will set up a data center in Taiwan.

“Of course I hope so. Who wouldn’t want that?” Chang said.

Chang, a former executive for Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), said that Facebook plays a crucial role in the daily lives for Taiwanese people. He said that Facebook’s Taiwan office will introduce more innovative marketing tools and business models for local e-commerce operators and help encourage young app developers in the country.

In response, Facebook said that all kinds of proposals remain possible, but no specific decision is made as of now.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs said that Taiwan Facebook Ltd was established in Taipei’s Xinyi District on Dec. 24 last year, with capital of US$95,400. Leung, head of Greater China for Facebook, serves as the representative of the local branch. Facebook said in an email statement that it has a few key areas of focus in Taiwan, with the top priority being educating and helping business understand and reap the benefits of the Facebook platform. Data from Facebook indicated that there are approximately 15 million active Facebook users in Taiwan, while 13 million of them log on via mobile devices.

The post Facebook Plans to Launch a Taipei Office appeared first on VR World.

It’s no question that social networking has had a significant impact in the way people communicate today. While email had been the killer app of the Internet in the mid-1990s, and thereafter search and then user-generated content, we live in an era in which connectedness plays a highly significant role in both online and real-world economies.

Such is the case with Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), which recently claimed it has generated $227 billion in economic impact globally in 2014, with 4.5 million jobs attributed to activity arising from Facebook use. This is, of course, distinct from the actual business that the company reports on its own. The economic impact is cited as activity borne out of using Facebook as a platform for commerce, or at least as an enabler of business and business activities.

This figure is reported by a Deloitte study commissioned by Facebook itself. Indicators included the value of “Likes”, and the business generated by events organized through the platform, among others. The study even made a correlation between Facebook activity and smartphone sales. In fact, Deloitte attributes a sixth of the value of smartphone sales worldwide in 2014 to users’ desire for mobile access to the social network. “[I]t is assumed that 16% of the value from unique devices purchased in the given year which are used to access Facebook may be attributable to Facebook,” the study says.

Correlation vs. causality

Economists do agree that Facebook — and social networking in general — do have a positive economic impact to some extent. However, it is argued that the $227 billion figure may be overstated. Attributing smartphone sales figures to Facebook usage alone may likewise be unfair. There is a difference between correlation and causality, of course. While Deloitte (or Facebook) might argue that people want to buy smartphones to access Facebook, the reverse could also be the case — that more people are able to access Facebook due to the prevalence of cheap smartphones and data plans.

Causality is a point of contention here. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Stanford economist Roger Noll attributes Facebook’s meteoric rise as an effect of the growth in Internet usage, and not a cause. “Facebook is an effect, not a cause, of the growth of Internet access and use,” he says. Still, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says the social network is one of the primary reasons people buy smartphones today, citing that Facebook access is “one of the main drivers of why people buy phones, particularly in the developing world.”

There is no question that Facebook is now a viable platform for B2C and even B2B marketing for anyone from small businesses to large enterprises. Businesses pay for sponsored listings. Facebook pays for wages, utilities and services. Facebook-owned startups and companies account for their own activities. Individuals get to use the platform to market their small businesses. Employers use Facebook to check out job applicants. It’s quite complicated to peg a value to all the business and economic activity arising from the social network itself.

Value added?

One thing that Facebook and Deloitte forgot to account for is the productivity loss that can be attributed to unnecessary Facebook and social network usage in the work setting. How many aggregate man-hours are lost from sharing viral cat videos, incessant selfie-posting, and falling victim to clickbait headlines and personal chats on company time? How much bandwidth do companies unnecessarily consume (and often pay for) with such activity? How many students waste valuable time stalking exes instead of studying for potentially better grades and subsequently improved earning potential in future? By some rough estimate, productivity loss can be estimated at around $28 billion annually. This is an un-scientific estimate, but the logic follows — there are both benefits and losses.

If anything, then the net economic impact of Facebook may be closer to neutral than the hundreds of billions a year that the company claims. There is increase in consumption and activity, but one might question the value added of these activities. Are we using Facebook to build things, or are we wasting our time on trivial pursuits through the platform?

The post Facebook Claims $227B Global Economic Impact, but Doubts Prevail appeared first on VR World.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been playing catch-up with Android and iOS in terms of smartphone platforms, with Windows Phone trailing the top mobile OSes as a distant third wheel. The Redmond company has so far shifted its strategy to focus on the emerging and entry-level markets in pushing Windows Phone, as evident with the Lumia 535, the first Microsoft-branded handset to launch after the company’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset division.

There’s more to the company’s focus on the low-end market, it seems. Even before Microsoft’s acquisition, Nokia had been moving at least 200 million feature phones annually, mostly in emerging markets around the globe, with success. Banking on the strong Nokia brand and the design philosophy that has been attached to it, Microsoft has announced a sub-$30 feature phone with Internet connectivity, aimed at bringing the mobile Internet to the masses.

The Nokia 215 is limited to 2G connectivity, but users aren’t expected to be heavy data consumers. The device will ship with the Opera Mini browser, Bing search, MSN Weather, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) apps for the Nokia Series 30 platform. The 215 will also ship with Facebook Messenger, which is supposedly capable of instant notifications. This could be a game changer in markets where SMS is still the dominant means of exchanging text messages. Facebook has been heavily promoting its standalone Messenger app, and the Nokia 215 would contribute to Messenger’s market share.

Like many entry-level Nokias, the device has a built-in flashlight, FM radio and MP3 playback capability. The Nokia 215 also comes with a front-facing VGA camera. All this comes in a candybar package with a 2.4-inch QVGA display. Microsoft will also ship two variants of the 215: one with single-SIM capacity and another with dual-SIM, which is a popular feature in emerging markets.

The specs are not to die for, but this means the device can last very long even with its paltry 1,100 mAh battery. The single-SIM variant can last for 29 days on standby, while the dual-SIM variant has a 21-day standby rating.

“The Nokia 215 is perfect for people looking for their first mobile device, or those wanting to upgrade to enjoy affordable digital and social media services, like Facebook and Messenger,” says Jo Harlow, corporate vice president of Microsoft Devices Group. Perhaps for people who already own more expensive and more capable smartphones, the 215 will be a novelty item or a great backup phone for when your iPhone, Android or Lumia runs out of battery in the middle of your commute.

With the Nokia 215, Microsoft may have found the best recipe for connecting people (which is Nokia’s tagline and even its mission statement, by the way) without breaking the bank. While Nokia has been shipping sub-$30 devices for years now, it is only now that the brand will have an Internet-capable device at this price point. According to Microsoft, it will start shipping the Nokia 215 in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and certain European markets starting Q1 of 2015. However, the 215 will notably be missed in the Americas.

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Facebook users have long wanted a way to express negativity about posts on the site, but so far they are limited to giving a thumbs up. This might soon change, however, as Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that his company is “considering” adding the much-wanted thumbs down.

At an open Q&A session at the company’s Menlo Park, California headquarters Zuckerberg was asked about the possibility of including the button. Zuckerberg said he’s “considering” the button but it’s not yet a sure thing.

“There are things in people’s lives that are sad, or that or tragic, and people don’t want to Like them,” he is quoted as saying. “We’ve talked about for a while how can people express a wider range of emotions like surprise.”

But Zuckerberg also said that such a button wouldn’t be there just to ‘down-vote’ comments that people don’t like.

“Some people have asked for a dislike button so they can say something isn’t good, and we’re not going to do that. I don’t think that’s good for the community,” he said.

This isn’t the first time the possibility of a dislike button has been brought up. Ever since the like button was first introduced speculation has been rampant that Facebook was on the verge of introducing a thumbs down.

However, Facebook brass have long been concerned about the negativity.

In an interview earlier this year, former Facebook CTO Brett Taylor, who is credited with the introduction of the like button in 2009, said that the very act of disliking was too complex to manifest into a single button. A dislike button would have to include everything from disapproval to sympathy.

“[The dislike button] came up a lot. In fact even the language of the word like was something we discussed a lot as well,” Taylor said to TechRadar. “But regarding the dislike button, the main reason is that in the context of the social network, the negativity of that button has a lot of unfortunate consequences.”

The post Facebook to Finally Add ‘Dislike’ Button? appeared first on VR World.

The new Samsung (KRX:000830) VR headset add-on for use with only its Galaxy Note 4 has arrived for sale on Samsung’s store for $199.99.  The device is power by Oculus-driven software to provide an immersive virtual reality experience using the Note 4 Super AMOLED display and the device itself to run the software.

Samsung stirred up a lot of talk earlier this year with the announcement that it was going to have an add-on for the Galaxy Note 4 that would make the pair a VR headset.  The Samsung Gear VR Innovator edition just popped up on the store for sale at Samsung’s website.  The good news is that this is only a $199.99 investment for those who already have a Galaxy Note 4.  The bad news for those who want to try it out and do not already own a Galaxy Note 4, is that the Gear VR  will only work with the Note 4.  This add-on most definitely will help to get more people buying the Note 4 than would if there wasn’t the Gear VR add-on.  This is a good move by Samsung for not only helping to drive VR innovation, but also to help its bottom line.  The Gear VR has access to Oculus store to have access to a fresh supply of ever growing content.

The Gear VR Innovator Edition comes with the headset, a carrying case, a replacement face cushion, a lens cloth, 16GB microSD memory card with the starter content pre-loaded, SD card adapter, user manual, and the warranty statement.  The controls that the headset has are a touchpad, a dedicated back button, focus adjustment wheel, volume keys, and a phone lock button.

Right now for those who purchase the Gear VR Innovator Edition there is two coupon codes to help get a discount for accessories.  The Samsung Gamepad is $30 off with the coupon code STAVR1, and the Samsung Gear Circle headset is $20 off with the coupon code STAVR2.

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Schiit Audio, a US manufacturer of high end headphone amps, DACs, and preamps rolled out its newest creation today: the new “Fulla”.  The Fulla is a USB dongle DAC/AMP is an inexpensive high quality way for users to upgrade their audio from their computers or portable devices.

Schiit Audio is a good-humored US manufacturer of high end audio components which prides itself.  As such it tries to reduce costs for consumers by selling direct and cutting dealers out of the equation.  Yesterday the company introduced the Fulla USB DAC/Amp via its Facebook page.

The $79 Fulla is one of the company’s most affordable items and combines its experience with their previous DACs and Amps.  The dongle is plug and play with both PC and Mac computers that have a USB port, without the need for any additional drivers to be installed.  The Fulla can also be used with Android devices that support USB host function and allow USB DACs.

The Fulla employs a CM6631 USB 2.0 receiver and a very high quality AK4396 digital to analog converter, which is commonly found in equipment much more pricey than the Fulla.  The gain stage uses thin-film resistors and film capacitors that filters and boosts the output, up to 300mw into 32ohms.  Schiit Audio states that the Fulla would be great for IEM (in-ear monitor) usage due to the very low noise floor and low ouput impedence.

The Fulla is covered by a 1 year limited warranty that covers both parts and labor.  Schiit Audio also says that if in the situation where the user does not like the Fulla that they can send it back for a refund, minus a 15% restocking fee.  The customer has 15 days in which to decide to send it back for a refund.

The post Schiit Audio Introduces The Fulla USB DAC/Amp appeared first on VR World.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is about to challenge technology incumbents in a whole new game, and these may include the likes of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). With an upcoming feature called Facebook at Work, the social network wants to make itself more relevant to the workplace, offering collaboration, professional networking and other enterprise- and business-oriented functionalities.

Facebook is today’s biggest social network, with more than 860 million daily active users on both mobile and desktop platforms. There is one catch, however. While popular as a means to connect with friends, relatives and family, Facebook is widely shunned in the workplace, what with the abundance of time-wasting memes, videos and viral hits.

There’s no questioning the potential of social networking platforms for collaboration, however. This is where Yammer hit gold last year. Prior to being acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion, Yammer had raised $142 million in venture capital and had 8 million enterprise users. Staying agile after acquisition, the team still focuses on being a fast and simple platform for enterprise collaboration.

LinkedIn, meanwhile, has about 330 million registered users, although the stark difference is that these users connect with each other on a professional level, which means more sober discussions and tame status updates. LinkedIn can be a rich source of network leads for headhunters and job seekers. Users also connect to widen their professional contacts.

With Facebook already running its own private networks and chat platform (Groups and Messenger), it can easily overrun Yammer as the platform of choice for colleagues for conferencing, chatting and sharing documents. Likewise, Facebook’s social graph might lead to a richer professional networking experience. Facebook employees are already using the network to collaborate with co-workers, so why shouldn’t everyone else be able to do the same?

Facebook for Work, which is being beta-tested by several companies, will provide collaborative tools for the workplace, according to sources cited by the Financial Times (paywall). The advantage that Facebook at Work provides is that it lets users easily switch across personal and professional profiles, to safely separate work and personal lives. This is likely to reduce incidences of getting into trouble with the bosses after unwittingly posting drunken weekend photos. And with Facebook already putting a big premium on its mobile efforts, a collaborative tool for the workplace will also play well with those who work while on the go.

With Facebook being considered a time-wasting productivity killer at the workplace, will Facebook at Work finally change HR departments’ perception of the social network and eventually unblock it from their office firewalls?

Featured image credit: Twin Design / Shutterstock.com

The post Can 'Facebook at Work' Play Well With Enterprise HR? appeared first on VR World.

The consumer version of the Oculus headset is closer to reality than ever before, but it’s still not on the immediate horizon according to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe.

“It’s months, not years away, but many months,” Iribe said at the Web Summit 2014 in Dublin according to The Next Web. “We’re getting very close. We’re all hungry for it to happen.”

Iribe also said that the Crescent Bay version of the headset is “largely finalized for a consumer product.”

Until now and when the product launches Iribe says that one of the big challenges is creating an input device that as immersive as the headset itself. Traditional game controllers or a keyboard and mouse setup just won’t cut it as it would ruin the immersive experience.

But Oculus has yet to commit to a solid timeline for release. Under the banner of “we have to get it right”, the company refuses to set a definite release date — even year.  With Facebook  (NASDAQ: FB) now backing Oculus, the company has no shortage of funds to draw upon for research and development. There isn’t an incentive to get the headset out the door prematurely, so it may be late 2015 or early 2016 before it sees a commercial release.

The post A Retail Version of Oculus is Still a Long Way Off appeared first on VR World.

Virtual Reality is the future of computing. At least that’s what Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) thinks. In Facebook’s Q3 2014 earnings guidance call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the company’s big push to build and develop VR and augmented reality technologies as part of what it believes will be the major evolution in computing platforms in 10 to 15 years’ time. “Every 10 to 15 years, a new major computing platform arrives and we think that virtual and augmented reality are important parts of this upcoming next platform,” he said.

Oculus, the VR company that Facebook acquired for $2 billion, started out as a crowdfunded campaign for the VR goggle Rift and its attendant games and apps. That particular business model — raising money and validating market interest through crowdfunding campaigns — has met with mixed reactions amongst the investor and entrepreneur community. While sought as a means to determine the viability of a product, it has also drastically affected the investment environment for startups. Because crowdfunding backers are not investors that take stake in a company, nor angels who infuse money for the sake of development, the dynamic in starting a product-based company has changed. Questions like accountability have arisen, for instance.

We have sought insights from Murray Newlands, a San Francisco Bay Area-based entrepreneur and PR strategist who has also written for Entrepreneur, INC, VentureBeat and India-based YourStory. Murray has collaborated with Forbes contributing writer Drew Hendricks in a book called How to Get PR for Your Startup: Traction, in which they detail how to deal with the media in pitching products and companies, as well as building a brand image that can take one’s early-stage startup into success.

Murray Newlands

VR World: Can you share some trends among startups today? What particular habit or focus do successful startup founders/teams share?

Murray Newlands: Lean startups are a big trend right now. Funding is moving later in the cycle and investors now expect to see some traction with customers before they are willing to invest in an idea.

VRW: Are there any particular industries that we should be watching out for? For instance, in recent times, messaging apps have been hot. If I were an entrepreneur, is there any field or market you would recommend that I should be focusing on?

MN: Wearable technology has been very popular for the last year; however, I think the internet of things more generally is taking off. Smart home devices are starting to come to the forefront with things like NEST and other home connected devices.

VRW: What are the trends amongst the VC community in the Valley? How is this affecting entrepreneurs in that part of the world and elsewhere? Do you think there is still a disparity between the Valley and other regional startup hubs, in terms of availability of capital, or is this gap shrinking?

MN: VC’s are not investing at later stages than they have been. This is causing angel rounds to be bigger and more prominent. Right now VC’s are raising large rounds, which is increasing the valuations in the Bay area. Increasingly VC’s are looking globally for great investment opportunities.

The post Will VR Be the Next Big Thing in Computing? An Interview With Murray Newlands appeared first on VR World.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has published its third quarter 2014 results, in which its revenues, growth and earnings have surpassed analyst expectations for the period. Notable in its report is a stark change in how the company monetizes its advertising network. First, ad impressions have fallen, but revenues per impression have increased, signifying improvements in quality and engagement. Second, mobile is on the rise, growing from almost 50% in Q3 2013 to 66% in the recent quarter. With an established collection of assets like WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook is likewise set to make a big push for its cross-platform ad network throughout 2015.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg detailed the company’s near-, medium- and long-term strategies in an investor guidance call, and he says the company expects a drastic shift in computing platforms in 10 to 15 years’ time. Facebook is banking on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to play a big part. “Every 10 to 15 years, a new major computing platform arrives and we think that virtual and augmented reality are important parts of this upcoming next platform,” says Zuckerberg. He cites how Facebook is working closely with developers and device-makers like Samsung in order to shore up support for Oculus, the Rift and its VR platform.

Much work has to be done, however. “It needs to rich a very large sale — 50 million to 100 million units — before it will really be a very meaningful thing as a computing platform,” Zuckerberg says, regarding the traction that AR and VR needs in order to be considered relevant.

Read the full story on VR World’s sister site, Bright Side of News*.

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Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has published its third quarter 2014 results, beating analyst expectations for revenue, earnings per share and growth. However, with executives advising during guidance that 2015 will be a year for investment, stock price dropped 10% in after-hours trading in anticipation of said period of big expenditure.

In Q3 2014, Facebook’s revenue of $3.2 billion, well past analysts’ expectation of $3.12 billion. This comes mostly from advertising revenue of $2.96 billion and payments and other fees of $246 million. Ad revenue grew by 64% compared with the same quarter last year, while payments grew 13% compared to the same period. EPS is $0.43, beating the expected $0.40.

During this quarter, 66% of ad earnings are from mobile, compared with 49% in Q3 2013, signifying growth in Facebook’s ability to monetize its mobile assets.

Facebook counts 1.35 billion users to date, up from 1.32 billion in the second quarter and up 14% year-on-year. According to the company, daily active users (DAU) grew 19% year-on-year to 864 million this quarter. Mobile DAU, meanwhile, grew 39% to 703 million.

Moving out of the box

Notable in this quarter is a stark change in advertising figures. Fewer Facebook ad impressions are reported, with impressions falling 56%. However, the company has earned more per ad, mostly due to the improvement in ad quality.

Earlier this year, Facebook expanded its advertising initiatives to applications outside of Facebook’s own assets, which enabled third-party app and software developers to monetize their apps and content through Facebook. This is actually in line with the company’s medium-term strategy of expanding its reach as a platform, rather than simply a walled-off social network.

This quarter, Facebook also shared figures from WhatsApp, the chat application it acquired for $22 billion. The chat network lost $138.5 million during the quarter and earned $10.2 million. However, with 600 million monthly active users, WhatsApp will be part of Facebook’s mid- and long-term strategy of building a persistent platform for user engagement.

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Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) has published its report for third quarter 2014, and with a growth slowdown, the microblogging company seems to be at odds with how it will reap profits from its advertising network. During the quarter, revenue actually grew 114% year-on-year to $361 million, although loss has widened, resulting in a diluted loss of $0.29 per share. Non-GAAP diluted EPS is at $0.01.

Twitter’s revenue exceeded analyst expectations of $351 million for the quarter, and EPS is at par with expectations. This quarter is marked with a plateauing of user growth, and the company faces concerns about future growth, in terms of users and audience. During the quarter, monthly active users rose to 284 million, a 23% growth over the previous quarter, compared with Q3 2013, during which sequential growth was at 24%. Also, engagement per user — measured with Timeline views per MAU — declined 7% year-on-year from 685 to 636, and remained flat sequentially.

With this outlook, Twitter’s stock price was down 10% in after-hours trading.

The issue here stems from the microblogging service’s need to reach out to as wide an audience possible, in order to effectively monetize its advertising network. In the company’s earnings call, however, CEO Dick Costolo explained the three-tiered focus of the company, in terms of reaching out to its audience. The first “circle” includes the active users, which consume and share content on Twitter itself. Second includes casual or logged-out users who access content on Twitter or owned properties. The third circle includes users who access content through third-party publishers or services.

According to Costolo, the company is focusing on improving the first circle, but is also actively finding ways to better engage casual users who may be accessing the Twitter feed from elsewhere. The company is focusing on “improving the new user experience and getting new users a high quality timeline the moment they sign up for the service,” Costolo says. For casual users, another aim is “providing much better rich media creation and consumption tools and experiences to drive more breadth and depth of content.” Twitter is also geared toward “adding functionality to our direct messaging service to enable users to move fluidly between the public conversation and private conversation all on Twitter.”

In gist, there is a big push for Twitter to be considered not just as a microblogging service for real-time feeds and updates. Rather, the company is gearing to establish itself as a platform for developers to build upon. In fact, Costolo has stressed Twitter’s launch of Fabric, which is a software development kit “all about providing services to developers, mobile app developers across platforms from the day they start developing their applications to the day they launch those applications and want to measure growth to the day they need to monetize and want to monetize usage at scale.”

Fabric is all about embedding Twitter — and Twitter’s own ad network — into third-party applications in exchange for a smoother user experience across different devices and operating systems. This means that users do not necessarily have to be active on Twitter or its applications, but can still interact with the feed actively through other access points.

Analysts have pointed out this marked difference in strategy, in which Twitter’s coverage is more expansive than its own walled garden. This means a greater potential for Twitter, compared with contemporaries like Facebook, which showcase a simpler metric of active users.

To date, Twitter’s average revenue per 1,000 timeline views is at $1.77, which is up 84% year-on-year and 10% up sequentially. However, Costolo himself admits that Twitter needs about $10 average revenue per user, in order to “reach the monetization levels of industry peers,” implying social networks like Facebook. Still, this rising metric is indicative that Twitter’s ad network is making a positive impact on the company, and will likely continue to do so once the company sees positive uptake of the Fabric SDK.

Feature image credit: laughingsquid.com

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The world renowned theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has finally joined the world of social media and posted his first status about joining the social network. Do keep in mind that Dr. Hawking is not on any other social media platform and has not been well known for being social media savvy. His Facebook page already has over 1 million likes and will hopefully be one of the go-to places for space discussions and posts.

Stephen Hawking

Pictured above is Stephen Hawking’s own Facebook profile picture, which was carefully chosen as it appears many of the images on his account were actually uploaded to the account ahead of the announcement yesterday of his presence on Facebook. The important thing is that now Stephen Hawking has a more direct channel to communicate his views to his fans and critics. It is interesting, though, that he chose Facebook over Twitter or Google Plus, especially considering how short each tweet can be for Twitter, only requiring 140 characters per message.

Either way, this will hopefully give science and technology another proponent who can communicate with the broader population about space, space exploration and theoretical physics. While not everyone may agree with Stephen Hawking’s beliefs, the important thing is that there are more and more voices in the scientific and astrophysics communities talking with the public about their theories and trying to educate the public about space, science and physics.

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As a part of Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPU Technology Conference (GTC) the company holds a parallel track of presentations and events called the emerging companies summit (ECS). The ECS for next year’s GTC 2015 is coming with an even bigger bonus with the fact that the company with the best GPU technology startup will get $100,000 on the spot at GTC 2015’s ECS.

Nvidia has always been one to promote emerging companies and to support startups in the best ways that they can. In fact, some of Nvidia’s most famous attendees of their GPU Technology conference include GAIKAI which was sold to Sony (TYO: 6758) for $380 million. Don’t forget there’s also Oculus who makes the Oculus Rift VR headset which was sold to Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) for $2 billion as well as Natural Motion who was acquired by Zynga for $527 million.

Obviously Nvidia’s GTC attracts a decent amount of successful companies that want to get involved with Nvidia and GPU technologies and there’s clearly no end in sight. This is especially true now that Nvidia’s GPU technologies have finally found their way into mobile. In fact, we spoke with Nvidia and were informed that companies utilizing either discrete or SoC GPU graphics are eligible to apply for this prize, so there’s no reason to think too narrowly of what’s possible.

Nvidia states that it is looking for seed-funded companies, which have raised no more than $1 million and use GPU technologies in areas such as computing, visualization, analytics, entertainment, automotive, cloud or mobile. But I wouldn’t necessarily limit myself to those categories if you’ve genuinely got a novel idea and think that Nvidia might find it interesting how you utilize its GPUs. If you’d like to have your company enter, just follow this application and get your application in before January 19th, 2015.

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Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) today announced that it would be adding a Buy Now button to Twitter, specifically on mobile.

This is yet another move by Twitter to increase their profitability through finding more revenue making opportunities, this follows its partnering with Amazon to tag purchases on Twitter back in May for adding to an Amazon cart. If anything, this Buy Now button is an evolution of that idea, making Twitter the direct point of sale instead of trying to send you somewhere else to buy the item. Twitter has hundreds of millions of users and if it makes this work right, it may actually have figured out eCommerce through social media before another social media company, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB).

What this also does is give Twitter easier access to consumers’ credit cards, which could in turn allow Twitter to effectively become their own marketplace where bands, brands and other companies looking to sell something could sell direct through Twitter and use it as a marketplace in addition to a social media marketing platform. By incorporating Buy Now into Twitter as a whole, the company could effectively start to compete with the likes of Amazon and other etailers that generally have to wait until a consumer is referred to their site through Google or some other form of social media like Pinterest or Facebook. What will be interesting to see is whether or not Facebook and Pinterest will follow Twitter’s lead with this move and add similar Buy Now features to their websites as well. Even though, Pinterest technically already does this with many of its links, it is not directly selling the products, it’s merely a referral platform.

Twitter Buy Now

Twitter’s shares are currently up over 2.5% on this news, clearly indicating that investors are happy with the direction that Twitter is moving, and its really hard to argue with because it makes sense and doesn’t appear to be very intrusive at all. I suspect that consumers will welcome this feature and won’t have much backlash at all. Obviously, this Buy Now button isn’t some sort of wild innovation, but it is a way for social media to become more serious and Twitter to become more profitable.

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Clickbait comes in many forms, but Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is trying to kill it all.

Some publishers use loaded, inflammatory headlines on Facebook posts or pictures requesting the user like or share it to try and build traffic and engagement. According to a post by Facebook research scientist Khalid El-Arini and product specialist Joyce Tang, Facebook will now no longer reward publishers that don’t provide meaningful content or engagement with traffic.

“Over time, stories with ‘click-bait’ headlines can drown out content from friends and Pages that people really care about,” wrote the Facebook staffers in the blog post.

With Facebook’s previous algorithm, the number of likes a page and a story had would dictate how high it would appear in a user’s timeline. This thus created an incentive for publishers to bait users into liking the page, or clicking on meaningless content.

Facebook now will prioritize links to stories higher in a user’s news feed than pictures with captions embedded in them. Many publishers moved to this style of posting, as traditionally it had yielded many more clicks for them.

“If people click on an article and spend time reading it, it suggests they clicked through to something valuable. If they click through to a link and then come straight back to Facebook, it suggests that they didn’t find something that they wanted,” El-Arini and Tang wrote.

Many media publications have built their business plan on capturing traffic via link bait tactics. Even legacy publishers have begun to adopt these tactics, writing SEO and social media friendly pieces to encourage sharing and traffic. Recently, The Onion launched a blog entitled Clickhole which spoofs the tactics employed by these publications.

Facebook said in a recent poll of users, 80 percent were annoyed with clickbait links from publishers.

No word yet on what the Buzzfeeds of the world plan to do.

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