A History of Presence

The website for Facebook Reality Labs promises that augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will soon “become as universal and essential as smartphones and personal computers are today.” Facebook is investing billions of dollars to fulfill this prophecy. It acquired the VR headset company Oculus in 2014, and in 2019 it bought CTRL-Lab, a startup developing a neural interface that allows users to control a computer with their thoughts. As part of the push to “build the f