Facebook on Oculus acquisition: The future ‘sits directly on our face’

Facebook has offered a little more insight into the reasoning behind its surprise acquisition of Oculus VR earlier this year.

Dan Rose, the social network’s VP of content and media partnerships said that Facebook believes the distance between people and technology will diminish even further, resulting in devices such as virtual reality headset.

These comments were taken from a conversation between Rose and Oculus’ head of worldwide studios Jason Rubin during the Paley International Council Summit, according to Business Insider.

"If you think about the trends in computing technology over the last 50 years, we went from mainframe computers – which were very impersonal and distant – to desktop computers that became directly interactive – you can touch and feel and interact with and interface yourself and set on your desk," Rose said.

"[Then] to laptops, which you can now suddenly take with you, [to] now today, everybody has a computer in their pocket.

"The natural progression of that suggests that the next computing platform will move closer to our bodies. And our belief is that means that it will be something that sits directly on our face that we interact with through our eyes."

Rose added that Facebook believes virtual reality will be "the on-ramp to optical computing".