It sounds like Facebook is planning to ramp up its R&D in VR and AR even more.
The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that the company has filed a plans for a 650,000 square foot site holding two new office buildings in Redmond, Washington. According to the report, these will house the Facebook Reality Labs team, which is the new name for the Oculus Research division headed up by Michael Abrash. The project has been given the elusive labeling of ‘Building X’ and could get underway in May. The report claims Facebook is looking at opening in late 2021.
If true, it looks like Facebook isn’t backing down in its R&D work for both VR and AR. Reality Labs has been hiring staff for years now and in 2018 showcased its work on a new Oculus Rift-style PC VR prototype named Half Dome. The experimental headset pushes beyond the limitations of its predecessors with a 140-degree field of view (FOV), varifocal displays and eye tracking.
Facebook Reality Labs currently has 67 jobs listed in Redmond, many of which concern both VR and AR. In his talk at Oculus Connect 5 last month, Abrash detailed the latest progress the company had made in several areas including new display innovations, reproducing humans virtually and creating even more realistic audio for VR.
Much of this work won’t be seen in a consumer product for years to come but, as these new plans suggest, Facebook looks to be in it for the long-term.
Tagged with: Facebook Reality Lab
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via Mint VR