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HAVING WRAPPED UP social and messaging, Facebook plans to make its mark in two major areas, virtual reality (VR) and developing services needed to deal with rising data usage.
Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance during Samsung’s press event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, as part of Samsung’s Gear VR product. The headset is another VR device that Oculus VR, the company Facebook bought back in 2014, helped develop.
Zuckerberg compared the rise of VR to its other messaging services like WhatsApp and Messenger and views it as another way of connecting people. The company announced the creation of a ‘social VR’ team which will look at the different ways people can use the technology for interaction both today and in the future.
“We’ve already helped people connect in a wide variety of ways on mobile devices – ranging from Facebook and Instagram to Messenger and WhatsApp – and now we want to apply the same approach to the new medium of VR,” the company said in a blog post.
In the future, VR will enable even more type of connection – like the ability for friends who live in different parts of the world to spend time together and feel like they’re there with each other.
Samsung announced that it would include its VR headset, the Gear VR, with any pre-orders of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The device requires recent Samsung smartphones to operate and on its own, it costs $99. Zuckerberg also said that people have watched more than one million hours of 360 video in Gear VR.
It wasn’t the only thing that Facebook announced that would have implications for connectivity. The company announced a major project called the ‘Telecom Infra Project‘ (TIP), a plan to redesign telecom infrastructure so it can deal with increasing data usage around the world.
Since new data-intensive services like video are growing and others like VR are tipped to explode over time, TIP will look at ways to help speed up the development of telecom infrastructure so both users and providers will be able to adapt to this change.
The company is teaming up with the likes of Intel and Nokia to help develop the service. The project is part of Internet.org, its plans to deliver the internet to the developing world, and looks to reduce the cost of building mobile networks across the world.
As far as VR is concerned, the most recognisable headset out there is Oculus Rift but other companies announcing developments with their VR headsets included HTC, which announced the pricing for its own headset Vive.
Since it comes with two motion sensor controllers and a built-in camera (to help wearers navigate the room without bumping into objects), the headset will cost $799, making it more expensive than the Oculus Rift, and pre-orders will open on 29 February.
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This is great news, however if anything happens to the birds we need to full force of the law with the largest possible fines levied on any fool that poisons or shoots them.,
Well don’t be angry if they start picking off slow children
Exactly what I was about to say Barry, couldn’t agree more.
Incredible news, delighted. Magnificent creatures.
Can we reintroduce brown bears and wolves?
Its hard to believe how recently bears were here. Uptill sometime before 1000AD by some accounts.
Would love to see wolves back so much but we really don’t have the habitat for them anymore. Scotland does but can’t see them going for it. Recent coverage on TV of the Yellowstone reintroduction was fascinating. Wild habitats really need apex predators, everything benefits (unless you’re an elk reading this).
PS the last Irish wolf was only killed in 1786.
Great to read this. Hopefully more will also set up nests. A piece of good news for a change :-)
everything crossed that this works! magnificent creatures!
Exactly Barry !
How long before there is the inevitable news story about the birds being shot or poisoned?
In fairness to the people of Clare these birds have been around for a while and by all accounts the locals are delighted with them. Those who oppose reintroduction in this country are very much in the minority so fingers crossed they’ll continue to thrive.
I hope we all feel the same and are happy that these great creatures are here, and not some idiots kill them because they’re “competition” for food
Here is a case of developing a national asset (for long term tourism) while helping the environment. Double win. Lets hope there is more projects like this.
Fantastic news, these are magnificent birds and deserve all the help and protection we can give them. Lets hope this pair are successful and maybe next year there will be additional pairings in other parts of the country.
Great news,at last,a good news story for these fantastic birds
Great news ….but will someone tell them they’re also known as sea eagles and get them to feck off out to sea! It’s hard enough to get a trout out of Lough Derg at the best of times without having to keep an eye out over your shoulder!!
I would have thought losing a trout to an eagle was an honour….
My cat was nearly dinner for a red kite, does that count?? :-D
Yeah red kites are largely non predatory carrion birds. I know you’re joking and all but it’s important not to let myths of what birds of prey eat persist. If you have a pet earthworm you may want to keep him in though…
I am joking, but I dunno about that, I regularly (3 times in the past month anyway) see red kites taking shots at crows – serious air battles, to be honest I’m amazed at how well the crows handle themselves, I’ve yet to see a Kite actually take a crow from the air, but the last couple of battles I saw went on for about 5 minutes each before the crows pulled off some top gun manoeuvres to get away from the kites. Amazing birds (crows and kites).
Crows harass all birds of prey, it’s in their nature and yup, battles can be spectacular, specially in breeding season as kites are defending territory. If you’re seeing a lot of this behaviour you may have a nest nearby. Golden Eagle Trust are always looking for details of sightings on their website, specially at this time as they need to identify nest sites for tagging. if you can give them GPS all the better but don’t go looking for the nest itself as you may disturb them. Here’s a link:
http://www.goldeneagle.ie/portal.php?z=129
Awesome! but I’m in Sweden :-D
Ha! But also yay for multinational kites!
no comments?
Check out our video of the Eagles on Lough Derg on clarevirtually.ie facebook page
Great news. Been lucky enough to photograph them up close in Norway (with an authorised guide) and its something else. Hope that seeing them here becomes as common. Nothin like seeing a flying barn door over the mountains.
It’s an awful shame that so many of our indigenous fauna have gone extinct for one reason or another.
In the case of the wolves I would love to see an animal that’s supposed to be here be reintroduced but I think there would substantial opposition to that and really, it would be hard to argue in favour of it considering it would be adding a potentially dangerous animal into the Irish landscape.
Cant see that Eoin, where zactly is it?
This is brilliant news for everyone in Co. Clare and also Tipperary. There will also be a huge boost for the tourism providers around Mountshannon as people will travel from all over the world to see these chicks. Preparations are already being made for the huge influx of people that these eagle chicks will attract. Anybody who wants can view the eagles with binoculars or telescopes but only from the pier in Mountshannon. There is a 250 metre exclusion zone around the whole island and boat captains are requested to respect this. Otherwise come and join in the celebrations as the locals welcome our newest and most welcome residents. Check out what’s available for visitors to Mountshannon on youtu.be/v9xHDCYrGI
Apologies the link on my comment is wrong. Here is the correct one.
youtu.be/v9xeHDCYrGI
Hope they don’t stray into Donegal
Fantastic news
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