Facebook may unveil new hardware in April (FB)

Facebook’s secretive hardware division, Building 8, is reportedly developing four products, some of which could be unveiled during the company’s F8 developer conference in April, according to Business Insider citing sources familiar to the matter.

Building 8 was established roughly a year ago as an R&D center, like Alphabet’s moonshot division X. The news signals the social network’s efforts to take on competitors including Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, and stay ahead of the next technology shift.

Technology developed within Building 8, headed by former DARPA executive Regina Dugan, will play a key role in Facebook’s future. During F8 2016, CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined the company’s 10-year roadmap, identifying three key technologies that it was working toward: connectivity, artificial intelligence, and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) — all of which are thought to under development right now:

And although Facebook successfully transformed from a primarily desktop company to a mobile one, the next transition will likely be more jarring for users. That's because it's likely the next interface will be fundamentally different from the screens consumers are used to today. Thus, it's imperative that Facebook stay ahead of the market, or it could follow in the tracks of companies like Nokia, which famously missed the smartphone boat. For example, AR and VR are touted as potentials for the next major computing platforms. And while Facebook has a horse in the VR race, its AR efforts are yet to see the light of day. The company could be working on a Google Glass-esque device to address the gap in its product offerings. Apple is also reportedly working on an AR wearable.

The virtual reality (VR) market has made significant strides throughout 2016.

New VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive debuted amid great consumer anticipation, while VR content launches kept pace, with Batman: Arkham VR and Chair In A Room garnering encouraging download totals.

At the same time, industry groups and conferences brought developers, investors, and content producers together, helping to further ramp up buzz in this nascent space.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, forecasts shipments of VR headsets to spike by 1047% year-over-year (YoY) to 8.2 million in 2016.

Jessica Smith, research analyst for BI Intelligence, has compiled a detailed report on virtual reality that explores the highly fragmented and volatile VR market that emerged in 2016, lays out the future growth potential in numerous key VR hardware categories as driven by major VR platforms, and examines consumer sentiment and developer excitement for VR, presenting which headset categories and platforms are most poised for success in the near- to mid-term.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

In full, the report:

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Facebook may unveil new hardware in April (FB)

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