Facebook’s future: Artificial intelligence, drones and virtual reality

Facebook Inc. plans to eventually make an augmented reality device so small it might one day resemble a pair of glasses.
The company unveiled this Google Glass-like aspiration along with drones, solar-powered planes and bots as part of a 10-year road map for the company on Tuesday.
In a nod to the now-defunct Google Glass, which Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, +0.91% GOOG, +1.09%  is said to be updating behind closed doors, and in an attempt to compete with Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT, +1.35%  Hololens and the not-yet released headset from Alibaba Group Holdings- BABA, +2.36%   and Google-backed startup Magic Leap, Facebook FB, -0.34%   CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday the company is expanding its focus to augmented reality.
During the keynote at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Zuckerberg said Oculus, the virtual-reality company Facebook bought in 2014 for $2 billion, will eventually be able to shrink down the size of its hardware so that it can be viewed through traditional-looking eyeglasses.

Virtual reality, with its large headsets that shut wearers out from the rest of the world while they focus on gaming, is still viewed today as somewhat antisocial. But Zuckerberg sees this technology as one that will connect people and inspire new forms of communication in the not-so-distant future.
Advances will enable virtual-reality technology to be used in a more social way than it is today, Zuckerberg said. He believes virtual reality has the potential to become the most social platform in technology because it lets users meet with other real people, offering a personal experience when catching up with, say, family members abroad.
Virtual reality is one of the three pillars supporting the company’s growth over the next 10 years, in addition to artificial intelligence and devices such as satellites, lasers and drones that will be responsible for providing Internet connectivity to rural regions.
Zuckerberg said artificial intelligence will eventually be able to understand what it intakes, such as content from video or photos, and speak to users using natural language. The company announced the beta launch of Bot Engine on Tuesday, a personal assistant service on Messenger that will help users with tasks such as finding out the weather or making dinner reservations, akin to Apple Inc.’s AAPL, +1.44%   Siri or Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, +1.98%  Alexa .

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