Mark Zuckerburg Reveals Glove Prototype for Oculus VR

When the Nintendo Power Glove came out in 1989, every kid on earth realized that the future had finally arrived. No more did they have to succumb to those blocky, two-button controllers jabbing into their palms every time they squeezed to get Mario to jump that extra inch; that was for suckers. Using your entire hand to control a game opened a whole new world of interaction, engagement and immersion. It was so bad.

Turns out, they were pretty bad. If you remember them at all, they were clunky, rarely worked and were discontinued just months after their release. It was an innovative effort by Nintendo, but the world wasn’t quite ready for the future just yet.

Now, almost 30 years later, Facebook has officially decided to try its own hand at futuristic interaction with some truly exciting (and powerful) virtual reality gloves. In a status update Thursday, Mark Zuckerburg posted pictures from Oculus Research lab in Redmond, Washington where the Facebook subsidiary works on “pushing the boundaries of virtual and augmented reality.” The new gloves are just a prototype of what’s to come, but according to Zuckerberg, “Wearing these gloves, you can draw, type on a virtual keyboard, and even shoot webs like Spider Man. That’s what I’m doing here.”

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After Facebook purchased Oculus in 2014, it’s been obvious the social media titan has wanted to use immersive technology for more than just gaming. Earlier this year, Facebook called virtual reality “next computing platform,” and Zuckerberg has said Facebook could be investing billions in the next decade to truly give consumers a quality VR experience. With this new technology, users can interact with an entirely new world, whether that’s across the globe in Syria, driving a race car, or on Mars. It has far more uses than gaming, and companies like Samsung, Sony and Microsoft are all competing for a seat at the table. These new gloves will bring a one-of-a-kind functionality to the Oculus experience that could transform what users do in these spaces.

The Oculus team isn’t just working on gloves. According to Zuckerberg’s post, they’re also building labs for “new kinds of lenses and devices to push the boundaries of virtual and augmented reality,” including a the ability to cut gemstone-quality diamonds. It seems Facebook is placing a lot of attention on immersive tools like this, and we’re sure to see some more announcements in the coming months.