Facebook has already deployed AR and VR to destroy smart phones

Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg is looking to end smartphones. Apple and Google defeated billionaire social media giants to create smart phones - the dominant platform for supporting the Facebook network.

When Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, we didn't have Android or iOS, but the cell phone market was already mature - it was BlackBerry, Motorola and Nokia.

"So Facebook didn't really participate in designing operating systems and mobile phones. Companies like Google and Apple have already done so. And in some cases, we can't design what we want to provide for the community," Zuckerberger said. In a recent case between game makers ZeniMax and Oculus, virtual reality (VR) was $2 billion in 2014.

Facebook has already set up a $450 billion business on smartphone platforms owned by Apple and Google. More than half of the users will only be able to log in from mobile devices. This uncomfortable fact is why Facebook is putting its future in virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) - technologies that overlay digital images onto the real world.

At the company's annual developer conference in April this year, Zuckerberg introduced the "Camera Effects Platform", which allows external developers to create AR effects for Facebook-applied cameras, such as sharks swimming in a bowl of cereal milk. In theory, this will allow Facebook to host the next wave of apps, such as AR Game Pokémon Go. But Zuckerberg’s ambition is more extensive.

At the conference, he conceived a pair of Facebook-powered smart glasses that can display information about the objects we see, such as the cost of a bottle of wine. Zuckerberg said in an interview: "Think about the things around us do not actually need physical fitness. "Not the 500-dollar television sitting in front of us, one day, we have what it takes to make it a 1 dollar app? ”

Facebook's AR promotion may be due to the increasing competition of users' attention and the loss of advertising costs. A few hours before the Facebook Developers Conference, Snapchat announced a major VR plan: Use 3D footage in its messaging application. Snapchat also owns glasses that record videos for consumers. This may also be due to the desire to not miss the next big technology trend after the smartphone.

This is why Facebook has already invested VR in billions of dollars through Oculus, the manufacturer of Rift headsets, and why Facebook is building its own AR hardware.

If his bear falls, Facebook can create the next major application ecosystem, such as Apple's App Store, which helps ensure that consumers continue to purchase Apple's smartphones and tablets each year. Facebook can control the platforms that future AR hardware will build, although others who are facing fierce competition are trying to make AR a reality.

Microsoft invested heavily in this technology: it announced its HoloLens AR headset two years ago. Alex Kipman, head of HoloLens, recently stated that the demise of smartphones is a "natural conclusion" of AR and similar technologies. But so far, there have been a lot of AR failures - Google has tried to create digital specifications, known as Google Glass, which is the most spectacular failure.

Facebook also has many failed innovations. In 2012, the company created the App Center, a hub on social networks for consumers to discover applications created by third parties and play directly on Facebook's desktop website. As consumers transition to smart phones, application centers have emerged.

A year later, Facebook again took Apple and Google, this time using a branded smartphone called Facebook Home. For the company, it is embarrassing that these devices were eventually abandoned after poor sales.

Then Facebook may take risks because of AR's gambling, because a wide range of consumers using AR may be within a few years. However, the real threat to Zuckerberg's empire is that if it can't go beyond current technological trends, it's hard to lose the opportunity to be the first to create a leading AR platform, just like using a smart phone.