VR Teleportation, artificial brain for Facebook As It Hits Over a Billion Users Daily

Facebook now has over 1.55 billion users - and over a billion of them access the site every day.

The firm revealed the figure as it said its profit in the past quarter jumped 11 percent to $891 million as advertising revenues soared.

The world's biggest social network also said the number of monthly active users hit 1.55 billion, up 14 percent from a year earlier
According to Business Insider, when asked about the company's future plans, Mr Schroepfer said that there was a lot coming up and ' to effectively build a teleporter,' was one of them. 

'Facebook wants to build a device that allows you to be anywhere you want, with anyone, regardless of geographic boundaries,' he added.

While the technology will not quite be able to compete with the transporter from the Star Trek television series and films, which the crew used to teleport themselves around the galaxy, it may at least recreate the feeling by presenting the user with realistic simulated worlds.

FACEBOOK'S THREE STEPS TO VR TELEPORTATION 

• Creating virtual worlds that look just like the real world
• Producing a convincing human interaction experience
• Enabling users to design and explore their own virtual worlds 

However the plans face some serious challenges that need to be overcome before it can become a reality.

First is making the virtual reality worlds appear real. 

Another key step would be coming up with a way to make users see their own hands and feet as they moved around.

Seeing other people in the virtual world would also be another important step.

Mr Schroepfer also said Facebook wants to allow anybody to make and explore their own virtual environments.

+4

While Facebook's 'teleporter' will not be able to physically transport people around the galaxy like in the TV series Star Trek, it will provide users with an ultra-realistic experience that will trick them into thinking they have been to another part of the world

The effort is admittedly still in its early stages, but it is clear that Oculus - a virtual reality headset company that Facebook acquired last year for $2billion - would be a key part of it. 

Oculus will release its first commercial product, a VR-visor named Rift, in 2016. 

Oculus Touch, a set of controllers that enable users to interact with virtual elements and to see their own virtual hands is scheduled to launch in late 2016, together with a software, Medium, that lets people create virtual 3D objects. 

+4

+4

The next teleporter? In sci-fi TV series Star Trek, Captain James Kirk (pictured, left) used special beams to travel instantly around the galaxy. The plan of Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg would only involve virtual reality headsets...well...

Last May, Oculus also acquired Surreal Vision, a computer vision start-up that focuses on creating  ultra-realistic virtual worlds - a skill that could be useful when it comes to creating the teleporter.

Whereas Oculus was born almost solely as a gaming company, Facebook's long-run plan is bringing virtual reality to as many fields as possible.

In 2014, the Information revealed Facebook had approached Hollywood film companies to discuss the possibility of creating  'Oculus experiences.' The teleporter could be the next step on the road to mainstream VR. 

Meanwhile, Facebook is also developing an artificial brain that it hopes to turn into a virtual personal assistant that can also sort through a mountain of photos, videos and comments posted by its next billion or so users.

Called M, it is believed to have been named after James Bond's secretary, Moneypenny.  

Facebook's artificial intelligence team revealed their work at an industry conference this week.

Among its accomplishments: the development of software that can analyze a photo and answer questions about what it shows, or study a picture of toy blocks and predict whether they will fall over.

Sure, you could pay a human expert to examine a photo and answer those questions, but mustering an army of such organic brains wouldn't be cheap.

Facebook recently began limited testing of an online personal assistant, called 'M,' that uses a combination of human workers and software to answer questions and carry out tasks like ordering food or flowers for a friend. 

Mike Schroepfer, the firm's chief technology officer, said Facebook is using artificial intelligence software to assist and study those interactions, so it can learn the best responses and eventually perform tasks that now require human assistance.