Facebook wants you to next meeting7/2/2023 ![]() Zuckerberg, sitting in cartoon avatar form across the room, also discussed something he said to me before: that virtual VR meetings can have a different impact on memory than flat, grid-based video Zooms and laptop chats. "But I do think that work is going to be one of the key use cases that people try to do in the metaverse." While web app invitees for video chats don't need to log into Facebook, the VR part of Workrooms, like the rest of Facebook'sĮcosystem, needs a Facebook account to use.įacebook's Bosworth says Horizon Workroom's tools have been in development for two years, since before the pandemic, and after extensive internal testing they're ready for the beta. "I don't think that this suggests in any way that we're going to try to become an enterprise company," Zuckerberg said of the new work app. "It's primarily a consumer thing."īut Zuckerberg doesn't see Workrooms as a push to enterprise tools, exactly. and I do think work is going to be a third major pillar of how all this works," Zuckerberg says. "There's hanging out, there's entertainment. And that's a concept that I think will just go across all these things." But we also think that you're going to be able to jump into that from "We think that virtual reality is one platform for accessing it, as augmented reality will be. "I think a lot of people think about the metaverse as really tightly tied to VR. "One way or another, I think we're going to live in a mixed reality future," he says to me from across the virtual room where I'm using my real computer, and can feel my desk surface under my hands.īut also, it's a bridge to where a world of virtual and real things may blend even further, using whatever device you already have to connect. Zuckerberg sees using real tools in VR as a key differentiator: a "fusion of the digital objects and the physical ones," as he puts it, indicating Facebook will keep pushing further in that territory. In VR, I see the virtual versions of those things. My hands reach out for my actual keyboard and touch my desk. It felt like a taste of mixed reality in VR. Facebookįor me, the wildest part was that the app maps to my actual desk, and the keyboard of my computer was able to project into the meeting room, along with my computer screen (which no one else could see but me, unless I chose to share it with others). In meetings, people can see shared information, but personal computer screens are grayed out. Facebook wants it to work on its $300 Oculus Quest 2 device, too. There are even business-focused competitor products like the HTC Vive Focus 3. I've tried prototypes of these ideas with AR glasses and headsets. Eventually, perhaps, these tools will blend into AR. There are already VR companies with office meeting tools, including Spatial, that offer rooms where cartoon-like avatars and Zoom-like video chats can mingle. In March, I had a holographic chat withĪlex Kipman, demonstrating how Microsoft's work tools like its videoconferencing software Teams could evolve. With offices still disrupted and work from home still very much a thing as COVID-19 continues to affect our daily lives, there are plenty of companies aiming to reinvent remote work tools. ![]() Technically this app is the first piece in a larger metaverse puzzle for Facebook: The company aims to reinvent its definition of social media into 3D spaces, and Workrooms is a foot in the door on that strategy. So people can feel present that way if people aren't together in person physically." Zuckerberg sees it as an addition to video chat: a way to brainstorm, chat and collaborate. "What we're trying to move towards is a world where a lot of what we do is in here, and the people who can't be in here can be on video. But I don't know, I can just tell you that as we start planning to go back into the office, I'm not super excited about having most meetings be over video," Zuckerberg says. "I think videoconferencing has taken us pretty far. ![]() That's why they're testing a beta version of Facebook's new Horizon Workrooms - a free app for virtual meetings that will work with its Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and regular computers. Zuckerberg and his team see this as the future of remote work, not five or 10 years from now but now. But for Facebook, it's the doorway to a lot more.įacebook wants its VR headsets to be about more than just games, to be instead a space where we're going to meet in virtual offices. As an office tool you can use on a wireless VR headset, it's pretty fascinating. Facebook employees have been using Workrooms internally for the last six months, something Zuckerberg told me about when I spoke with him in May about how Facebook is expanding its VR visions, five years after the launch of the Oculus Rift.
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