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Facebook's vision for the future is a pair of glasses that's also a computer

Facebook made a $2 billion bet on the future of virtual reality in 2014 when it bought Oculus VR, the company that makes the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

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On Tuesday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on that investment with a sneak peak at the future of Facebook's virtual reality vision.

Let's keep in mind that, right now, this is what the Oculus Rift headset looks like:

Facebook's future of VR
Facebook
oculus rift
The Oculus Rift costs $600, and comes in a bundle as a headset, a camera, a remote, and an Xbox One gamepad. Oculus

It also requires a powerful computer to run, and a separate camera to track your movements while wearing the Rift (seen above, left).

During a presentation at Facebook's annual developer conference, F8, Zuckerberg said his company looks at VR — and it's yet-to-be-realized evolution, augmented reality (AR) — as the next step for computing.

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No more laptops. No more smartphones. Just a set of lightweight glasses that enable immersive virtual reality experiences as well as seamless augmented reality experiences — imagine wearing a pair of lightweight glasses that, in real time, allow you to see information about the world around you.

Facebook F8 2016
Facebook

Better still, that information is broadcast right into your field of view. You could look at the Statue of Liberty, for instance, and see a floating history of Lady Liberty all around her. You'd be the only one seeing it, because the information is only broadcast into your vision

Pretty futuristic sounding stuff, no? That's because it is. There isn't a single company, from Google to Microsoft to Facebook itself, that's come anywhere close to creating Zuck's vision of the future.

Magic Leap
Magic Leap's technology is reportedly capable of projecting stuff like this into the user's field of view. Magic Leap

Google-backed Magic Leap, a notoriously quiet startup that's raised a tremendous amount of money, supposedly has something akin to Zuckerberg's vision right now. Except no one has actually seen the final device, and few have tried prototypes.

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The dream for many, ourselves included, is a lightweight headset that seamlessly integrates into our already heavy computer use. But, like Zuckerberg said on Tuesday, it's a dream that's still (at least) 10 years away.

Facebook Virtual reality Mark Zuckerberg
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