Facebook has been the parent company of Oculus for a few years now. Their professional relationship has paid massive dividends for each business, and they don’t plan to split up anytime down the road. Facebook is in charge of hiring for Oculus, as they have been since the two companies merged. In its latest announcements of jobs, the AR/VR side of business has over 400 job openings. For all of those to open up at once, this is something that has grabbed the attention of many.
One of the many job openings is the Electrical Engineer for Eye Tracking in AR/VR. There are more than one job openings available for this exact technology, but they are mostly targeting people at the PhD level for their new employees. This doesn’t come as a surprise, as Oculus and Facebook have always been obsessed with hiring the best of the best. What the company is looking for with this Electrical Engineer is someone that can produce “winning prototypes” for them and eye-tracking systems that are “fully hardened” for all of the high-volume manufacturing and shipping that this company does each year.
Another snippet from the job is that the employee will have the responsibility to “productizing highly optimized electrical systems that are core to delivering transformative experiences in next generation Oculus AR and VR products.”
There have been many signs that point to Oculus going towards eye-tracking. We know the base technology has been around for some time now, and VR companies are adding more and more software and hardware to the headsets each year. Vive, Oculus’ biggest competitor, has already been using eye tracking for years with their business-focused headsets. It was only a matter of time until Oculus hopped on the eye-tracking train.
Facebook has been responsible for a number of tracking patents in recent years. Those people who didn’t know about the technology inside of virtual reality headsets, this was a scary moment for them. For those in the know of virtual reality and what the industry has to offer, this was an exciting time to see Facebook getting ahead of the curve. It is great to see Oculus finally using these patents for the employees to make something that the common consumers will be able to use.
Eye tracking is going to become available in many headsets down the road, and there is great reason for that. The social world of virtual reality is only growing. Rec Room has been one of the best social interactions game to come to virtual reality yet, and we haven’t even gotten a sniff of what Facebook is planning to do. With a social platform as successful as theirs, and a virtual reality headset with the power of the Quest and Rift S, the future is bright. Along with new AR and VR headsets this fall, we should be expecting a new virtual platform in which we all communicate. An Oculus exclusive for the Facebook users of the world.
