Facebook's Zuckerberg eager for virtual reality but sees a slow uptake

rk Zuckerberg says smartphones and tablets have cleared the way for consumer-oriented virtual-reality devices. PB/Newspix/Corbis 

Mark Zuckerberg can't wait for the day he'll watch a replay of his daughter's first steps while he wears a screen strapped to his head.

That's the future the Facebook co-founder said is coming soon, in part because technology has advanced so far, and gotten so cheap, that it's possible to build a headset that puts a wearer in a computer-generated world. For Zuckerberg, that world includes 360-degree video, through which he could relive his as-yet-unborn daughter's first steps in a wraparound virtual realm. Virtual reality, he said, is the next major computing trend.

But like smartphones and tablets, which took up to a decade to catch on with consumers, VR will take time. "There's a lot of hype, people are very excited," he said Wednesday at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco. "People say there are going to be millions of units. Look at smartphones to see that curve."

Zuckerberg is just the latest tech industry VIP to voice support for virtual reality, the notion of computer-generated worlds we can explore and learn from. The technology has long been a popular trope of science fiction, through movies such as "The Lawnmower Man" and "The Matrix." In the real world, though, the nascent tech has been in development for decades, its history sprinkled with failed efforts to sell devices to consumers.

Zuckerberg believes that's all changed, thanks to smartphones and tablets, whose ubiquity have pushed the industry to create more-powerful mobile devices while driving down manufacturing costs for parts like screens and sensors. Zuckerberg first drew the world's attention to VR last year when he purchased Oculus, a virtual-reality startup, for $2 billion.

Samsung plans a November release for its first entrant in the field, a $99 device called Gear VR, created in partnership with Oculus. Others, including tech giants such as Sony, HTC and Microsoft are joining in with their own takes on the technology.

Facebook is set to release its Oculus Rift headset for PCs by March of next year, and it's already doing research for future advancements, including augmented reality -- where computer information is layered on top of real-world images. Zuckerberg said Facebook already has a form of that now, which can offer to read out what's in a photo if a blind person clicks on the picture.

Within 15 years, Zuckerberg said, we'll likely see billions of units sold. But today it will start with gamers and tech enthusiasts.