San Francisco

FACEBOOK showed the world its first commercial version of virtual reality- and offered tantalising hints of how it hopes to turn three-dimensional goggles into a new kind of computing and communications device.

On Thursday, Facebook executives discussed the goggles, called Oculus Rift. While the device is initially designed to be tethered to a high-end gaming computer, Facebook said the product would in time employ microphones for communication, voice recognition software to recognise computing commands and laser-based high-speed wireless data transfers.