The long anticipated Facebook developer conference has been officially announced, and it will begin on April 30 at 10am Pacific. The first event will be the Keynote.
This is the conference that all should have marked on the calendar. It is anticipated that there will be major VR and AR updates and announcements. We are expecting the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Rift S to be headlining this event. They are set to release this “spring” for $400 each. The Rift S is the next generation Rift, and the Quest is a self contained virtual reality system.
There has been no notion of a second keynote during this conference, so we can expect all and major updates on the opening morning. Everything that this company has worked on in the last year or so regarding AR and VR should be known relatively quickly. The full schedule for this event can be found here. Below we have included some note worthy sessions that will be important to augmented reality and virtual reality.
All times will be on Pacific:
April 30
12:30 pm: Storytelling Across Pioneering Platforms
Yelena Rachitsky will be conducting this form of story telling. In this new era of story telling with the help of augmented and virtual reality, stories are even more personal than ever. They now have a layer of personalization and being immersed that are new to this world. In this panel discussion, you will discover what the top creating story tellers have learned so far, and what is pushing them towards the future.
1:30 pm: Spark AR Outlook
In this session there will be plenty of demos that be showing off the Spark AR studios. These will range from powerful new creation features to new controls for the family of Facebook’s AR applications. This session will also include the new technology that Spark AR is quickly developing for the use of many businesses and consumers.
2:30 pm Spark AR Creators Roundtable
This is a session that you will not want to miss. This panel will feature global experts on augmented reality as they share their insights and tips from building the most viral, entertaining, and leading AR apps. They will explore the best habits and practices for success as well.
3:40: AR Music
Tom Goldsmith will be leading this demonstration on how music and sound can impact the way we express ourselves and understand others inside of augmented reality. There is a plethora of ways to incorporate music with our headsets, and Tom will be helping out with it.
4:30 pm: Getting Things (Virtually) Done: The Measurable Value of VR For Enterprise
This will be the whole Oculus business team discussing how virtual reality is helping countless companies around the world. It helps them with efficient training, employee engagement, and even collaborating. People a part of this session will also receive an inside glimpse of the latest developments, as well as opportunities for new developers and expanding them.
May 1
12:00 pm: Maximizing the Spark AR Engine for Everyone
In this hour you will learn even more about the mechanics and how to optimize the AR experience across a wide variety of consumer contexts and mobile devices. You will learn new techniques that have been put in place for creators to have more control over their content and the quality of it.
2:00 pm: Unlocking the Future of WebXR
This session will feature the working of how Facebook, Oculus, and React 360 are giving web developers and content creators the ability to build more engaging and immersive WebXR experiences. Jacob Rossi will show how to seamlessly reach the VR ecosystem from the mobile Facebook feed.
2:25 pm: Spark AR for Shopping
Dive into the design considerations for AR shopping and commerce. Facebook is quickly expanding and extending it’s social wing of commerce and building stronger and more real AR connections. Consumers can try out, try on, and much more virtually.
