Claims

Factual · Their own work or organisation

“And for the last seven years, our research team has been working on a broad array of technologies that are necessary for these next-generation platforms.”

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, keynote · 28 October 2021 · Meta (Facebook) Connect 2021 Metaverse Event Transcript (Rev)

For the last seven years Meta's research team has worked on a broad array of technologies for next-generation platforms.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

Judge as of 2021-10-28. True: records show Facebook/Meta research (Oculus Research, later Facebook Reality Labs) had been working on next-generation AR/VR platform technologies since about 2014, the year Oculus was acquired, and across a broad range of areas (displays, optics, haptics, neural interfaces, audio, computer vision). Mostly true: the work began within a year or so of 2014, or the breadth is slightly overstated. Mixed: the research effort is real but its start date is wrong by several years, or its scope was clearly narrow. Mostly false: substantial research began much more recently, so the seven years is a large overstatement. False: no such research program existed.

Evidence

1. Oculus beefs up its research arm with two acquisitions and a hire Game Developer · 11 December 2014

   “These additions to the team will beef up the Oculus Research arm the company formally launched earlier this year.”

2. Nimble VR, 13th Lab, and Chris Bregler join Oculus Meta (Oculus blog) · 11 December 2014 Own record

   “Over the last two years, we’ve focused on bringing together the best and brightest in the space to solve some of the hardest vision challenges facing VR.”

3. Inventing the Future Meta (Oculus Research blog) · 11 October 2017 Own record

   “However, we have barely started to realize that potential, and a great deal remains to be done, in areas ranging from optics and displays to computer vision to audio to graphics to user interfaces to experiences, and much, much more.”

4. Facebook's Oculus will locate a virtual reality research division in Pittsburgh NextPittsburgh · 19 January 2016

   “Oculus spokeswoman Tera Randall confirmed that the company is “building a small team in Pittsburgh that will focus on virtual reality research.””

Reasoning

An independent December 2014 report (E1) says Oculus formally launched its research arm in 2014, which matches the claim of seven years of work up to 2021. The same month, Oculus added to its research arm, and its own post described the team as working on vision challenges for VR (E1, E2). An independent 2016 report (E4) shows the research effort growing with a new VR research team in Pittsburgh. The evidence for breadth comes mainly from the research arm's own 2017 blog post (E3), which lists optics, displays, computer vision, audio, graphics and user interfaces. Nothing in the evidence covers haptics or neural interfaces, so the start date is well supported but the full breadth is only partly shown.

Cite this claim

Mark Zuckerberg, “For the last seven years Meta's research team has worked on a broad array of technologies for next-generation platforms.” (said 28 October 2021). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_320f15b95b96, method 0.1.0+3f84d14d. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_320f15b95b96