Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, won’t be here until May, but with registration opening today, Facebook and Oculus is teasing some exciting AR and VR news to come.

Update (2/28/18): Algonside Oculus head Hugo Barra’s tease about AR/VR news to come at the F8 conference, the company’s VP of AR/VR also joined in the teasing, stating in a tweet that the company will share the “biggest AR/VR news from Facebook to date,” at the May conference.

Barra stoked the hype flames when suggesting that “4 out of 9” items were correct on a list of guesses tweeted to him, which included ‘More Facebook Spaces, ‘New Interface (mindreading!)’, ‘AR Hardware’, ‘New Oculus’, VR/AR Creation App, ‘More 3D Models’, ‘VR “Platform” (integrating everything)’, and two ‘Question Marks’, as spotted by Redditor Berkis.

Original Article (2/22/18): Hugo Barra took over as head of Facebook-owned Oculus back in early 2017 after CEO Brendan Iribe stepped down to lead the company’s PC VR division. Barra’s background in the mobile space—as former VP at Android and Xiaomi—shone brightly earlier this year when Oculus announced a major partnership with Xiaomi which would see the company bringing its own version of the forthcoming Oculus Go standalone headset to China under Xiaomi’s brand.

Hugo Barra | Image courtesy NDTV Gadgets 360

Now with the approach of Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference, Barra is teasing exciting news to come.

“F8 registration is officially open! We can’t wait to show you all the awesome things we’ve been working on, especially AR/VR,” he wrote in a tweet.

While Oculus has its own annual conference, Oculus Connect, Facebook has offered up plenty of interesting AR and VR news at F8 in the past.

At F8 2017, Oculus’ chief scientist, Michael Abrash, gave a keynote detailing how and when he expects that augmented reality will transform our lives. Facebook also used the conference to reveal its work on new ‘Surround360’ volumetric VR cameras, and launched its first social VR application, Facebook Spaces.

At F8 2018, we expect to hear updates from all of the above, especially about the company’s work with social VR and augmented reality.

F8 takes place on May 1st & 2nd, and we’ll be there to cover all the AR/VR action.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."

  • IMHO they’ll release Facebook Camera and maybe tease the Santa Cruz

  • Eddie Barsh

    Awesome! Hope to see more of the Santa Cruz model

    • Agnes Clark

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  • mellott124

    HTC better release their pro soon.

    • sebrk

      They already did. Shipping has started.

      • mellott124

        Released for consumers. Until there’s a Buy Now button, it’s not released.

        • ymo1965

          Agree, where’s the damn pricing. It would be all over the vr community like a rash if it was known.

  • Rlee

    They will announce another stupid social app. I don’t expect another Rift for a few more years.

    • Who’s this?

      Considering Respawn’s WWII title should be 2019 or around so, it will be a launch title for the Rift 2, so that means the Rift 2 also launches then. It’ll be right on time too considering it’ll be 3 years since the first Rift and it’ll be primed to compete in the 2nd gen of headsets considering Microsoft, Apple, and SteamVR partners will be rolling out their 2nd gen too.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Simple : We need Oculus with better lens, better resolution, wider fov and feet tracking so I can kick in Gorn.

    • jj

      These are the improvements needed across the board of all headsets and not just oculus.

  • Sydney Losstarot

    Foveated rendering, eye tracking in a release candidate?

    • Who’s this?

      Eye-tracking VRChat = <3.

  • dk

    most likely some new features or an app based on arkit/arcore

  • Mark

    Waiting rift gen2 for so long now..only need foveated rendering and better resolution..

    • ymo1965

      I have a vive but worrisome about the possible cost of the vive pro hmd. If there is a new oculus on the horizon with better res and good pricing then I might jump ship. I just hope n’ pray they could give the oculus some bluetooth sensors. I don’t want metres and metres of cabling along my skirting boards.

      • Thomas Van Iseghem

        Dude that would be so perfect, the oculus sensor cables are waaay to short

  • Kenji Fujimori

    Fuck Facebook and Fuck Zuckerdick.. Oculus is DEAD Pimping Facebook ads and stalkbook tools.. yeah virtual head explosion..

    • jj

      I couldn’t agree more. FB was the best and WORST thing that could have happened to Oculus. There is no substance to FB aside from advertising and that is the exact model they will push the oculus towards. It will be more of a tool for them than it will be a tool or toy for any of us the consumers.