Facebook創建虛擬現實社交團隊

Facebook has created a new “social VR” team, led by two video gaming executives, ahead of the launch of its Oculus Rift headset next Month.

在即將於下月推出Oculus Rift頭盔之前，Facebook於上週日宣佈成立了新的“虛擬現實社交”(social VR)團隊，由兩位視頻遊戲高管負責領導。

The unit, unveiled on Sunday, is the first time that Facebook has begun to consider how to bring its core social networking service into virtual reality, two years after acquiring Oculus for $2bn.

該部門是Facebook自兩年前以20億美元收購Oculus之後，首次開始考慮如何將其核心社交網絡服務帶入虛擬現實。

The team is led by two executives from the video games industry, Daniel James and Mike Booth, who both have backgrounds in creating 3D multiplayer experiences.

該團隊的負責人是來自視頻遊戲行業的丹尼爾礠姆斯(Daniel James)和邁克布斯(Mike Booth)，這兩位高管都有創建3D多人遊戲的經驗。

That implies that Facebook’s vision for its VR community could look something like Second Life, the online world that saw a brief surge of popularity 10 years ago, or the science fiction concept of the Metaverse, a vast online community where digital avatars mingled on a virtual-reality high street, created by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash.

這意味着Facebook希望其虛擬現實社區能類似於《第二人生》(Second Life)——十年前一度大爲流行的網絡世界，或能類似於科幻小說中的Metaverse概念。Metaverse是一個龐大的網絡社區，用戶的數字化身可以在虛擬現實大街上互動，這一概念來自於作家尼爾斯蒂芬森(Neal Stephenson)1992年的小說《雪崩》(Snow Crash)。

Facebook-owned Oculus has already experimented with bringing communication and social networking features through a “Social Alpha” for its Gear VR headset, which lets small groups of people chat as they watch online videos together on a virtual cinema screen, and with Toybox, a Rift game which lets two people play table tennis and other games in a small room together.

Facebook旗下的Oculus已經嘗試通過“Social Alpha”應用爲Gear VR頭盔帶來通信和社交網絡功能。當一小羣觀衆在虛擬影院屏幕上觀看在線視頻時，他們可以通過“Social Alpha”互相聊天。Oculus還研發了Toybox，這款用於Rift的遊戲能讓兩個人在一個小房間裏一起打乒乓球和其他遊戲。

On stage at Samsung’s press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said that VR was the next step in online communications after text, photos and videos.

在巴塞羅那世界移動通信大會(Mobile World Congress)上，Facebook首席執行官馬克丠克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)在三星(Samsung)的新聞發佈會上表示，繼文字、照片、視頻之後，虛擬現實將是在線交流的下一步。

“VR is the next platform, where anyone can experience and share anything they want,” he said, suggesting that friends and colleagues will gather around virtual campfires, watch movies in a private theatre or hold group meetings using the technology. “VR is going to be the most social platform.”

扎克伯格表示：“虛擬現實是下一個平臺，任何人都可以在上面體驗、分享他們想要的任何事物。”這意味着朋友和同事們可以圍坐在虛擬篝火旁聚會，在私人影院觀看電影，或利用該技術舉行小組會議。“虛擬現實將成爲社交性最高的平臺。”

He added that Facebook had dedicated “hundreds of our best engineers” to VR, to help create experiences that make “you feel like you’re actually there” with friends.

他還表示Facebook已將“數百名我們最棒的工程師”致力於虛擬現實，幫助營造出讓“你覺得就像真的與朋友在一起”的體驗。

Facebook’s social VR team, working closely with Oculus’s engineers and designers, will compete with several start-ups that have already tried to bring videoconferencing and social networking into VR, such as Silicon Valley’s Altspace VR and vTime by UK-based digital studio Starship.

Facebook的虛擬現實社交團隊與Oculus的工程師和設計師有着緊密合作，該團隊將與幾家初創企業展開競爭，這些企業已試圖將視頻會議和社交網絡帶入虛擬現實，比如硅谷的Altspace VR和英國數字媒體Starship開發的vTime。

“We’ve already helped people connect in a wide variety of ways on mobile devices — ranging from Facebook and Instagram to Messenger and WhatsApp — and now we want to apply that same approach to the new medium of VR,” Facebook said in a blog post.

Facebook在一篇帖子中表示：“我們已經幫助人們在多種移動設備上建立聯繫，從Facebook、Instagram到Messenger和WhatsApp，現在我們想將這種方式應用於虛擬現實的新媒體。”