Working from home never looked so awful: Facebook launches a virtual reality OFFICE where users can host meetings with cartoon avatars of their colleagues, as part of Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to turn the platform into a 'metaverse'
- Facebook has launched a new virtual reality office app where users can host meetings with their workmates
- Horizon Workrooms, launched today as a beta test, transports you to a plush boardroom-style meeting room
- You can see cartoon avatars of colleagues using VR headset such as Facebook's $300 (£219) Oculus Quest 2
- New app is part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to turn the social network into a 'metaverse'It may look like a scene from the two-decade-old video game The Sims, but these brand new clips and images are actually part of Facebook's grand vision of what working from home could look like in the future.
With many companies still operating remotely because of the Covid pandemic, the social network has launched a new virtual reality meeting app that it hopes can one day rival the likes of Zoom and Skype.
It allows users to host boardroom-style get-togethers with cartoon avatars of their colleagues and is part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to turn Facebook into a futuristic 'metaverse'.
The new app, called Horizon Workrooms, has been launched as a beta test and is designed to be used with a VR headset.
Even Zuckerberg has his own avatar, which he debuted today in a demonstration with CBS This Morning host Gayle King, suggesting other users will also be able to self-style what they look like on the app.
With many companies still working from home because of the Covid pandemic, Facebook has launched a new virtual reality meeting app called Horizon Workrooms (pictured) that may one day rival the likes of Zoom and Skype for remote catch-ups
Virtual reality: Facebook's new app has been launched as a beta test and is designed to be used with a VR headset
Meet-ups: It allows users to host boardroom-style get-togethers with cartoon avatars of their colleagues (pictured) and is part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to turn Facebook into a futuristic 'metaverse'
The avatars bear an uncanny resemblance to some of the characters on life simulation video game The Sims, first released in 2000. Pictured is The Sims 3
Inspiration? A Sim home is pictured in the image above. The franchise is one of the best-selling video game series of all time
When you put the headset on and join a meeting you are transported to a plush room with avatars that bear an uncanny resemblance to some of the characters on life simulation video game The Sims, first released in 2000.
You can also choose which virtual laptop you want to work from, which moves if you move your real one, and see your hands typing on the keyboard.
The immersive experience also allows you to doodle on a whiteboard, both in front of the whole group and on a smaller scale on your virtual desk.
Mouths of the avatars move in time with real speech, while people can even make gestures because the app supports hand-tracking.
The audio also offers an impressively realistic experience because sounds come from where a person in the virtual meeting room is speaking from, and can even appear muffled if someone turns away from you to talk.
Up to 16 participants can be hosted in the room, or up to 50 if the extra users are joining via a Zoom-style video chat as opposed to a virtual reality headset.
The app is free through Facebook's Oculus Quest 2 headsets, which cost about $300 (£219).
Zuckerberg unveiled the new technology today in a demonstration with CBS This Morning host Gayle King, calling it an early step toward building his futuristic 'metaverse'.
'I think of the metaverse as the next generation of the internet,' Zuckerberg said, using the app to speak with King remotely, their avatars seated next to each other in a virtual conference room.
'So you can kind of think about it as, instead of being an internet that we look at, right, on our mobile phones or our computer screens, it's an internet that we are a part of, or that we can be inside of.'
He added: 'In five years, people are going to be able to live where they want and work where they want, but get together with a sense of presence.
'It basically gives you the opportunity to, you know, sit around a table with people and work, and brainstorm and whiteboard ideas.
'For people who can't be there through virtual reality, they could just video conference in. So you can include everyone. But it's this pretty amazing experience where, you know, you feel like you're really right there with your colleagues.'
Facebook's vice president of its Reality Labs group, Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, said the new Workrooms app gives 'a good sense' of how the company envisions elements of the metaverse.
'This is kind of one of those foundational steps in that direction,' Bosworth told a virtual reality news conference.
The term 'metaverse,' coined in the 1992 dystopian novel 'Snow Crash,' is used to describe immersive, shared spaces accessed across different platforms where the physical and digital converge. Zuckerberg has described it as an 'embodied internet.'
When you put the headset on and join a meeting you are transported to a plush room with avatars of yourself and anybody else who has been invited
The immersive experience also allows you to doodle on a whiteboard, both in front of the whole group and on a smaller scale on your virtual desk (pictured)
The audio offers an impressively realistic experience because sounds come from where a person in the virtual meeting room is speaking from, and can even appear muffled if someone turns away from you to talk
It has been referenced in several recent earnings calls by tech CEOs including Zuckerberg, Microsoft Corp's Satya Nadella, gaming company Roblox Corp's David Baszucki and Match Group Inc's Shar Dubey, who have talked about how their companies could shape aspects of this futuristic realm.
In July, Facebook said it was creating a product team to work on the metaverse, which would be part of its AR and VR group Facebook Reality Labs.In its first full VR news briefing, the company showed how Workrooms users can design avatar versions of themselves to meet in virtual reality conference rooms and collaborate on shared whiteboards or documents, still interacting with their own physical desk and computer keyboard.
The company said it would not use people's work conversations and materials in Workrooms to target ads on Facebook.
It also said users must follow its virtual reality community standards and that rule-breaking behavior can be reported to Oculus.
Zuckerberg unveiled the new technology today in a demonstration with CBS This Morning host Gayle King, calling it an early step toward building his futuristic 'metaverse'. He is pictured wearing the VR headset
Zuckerberg used the app to speak with King remotely, their avatars seated next to each other in a virtual conference room
The world's largest social network has invested heavily in virtual and augmented reality, developing hardware such as its Oculus VR headsets, working on AR glasses and wristband technologies and buying a bevy of VR gaming studios, including BigBox VR.
Gaining dominance in this space, which Facebook bets will be the next big computing platform, will allow it to be less reliant in the future on other hardware makers, such as Apple, the company has said.
Facebook recently halted sales of its Oculus Quest 2 headsets and recalled the foam face-liners due to reports of skin irritation.
The recall notice said it affected about 4 million units in the United States, providing an estimate of Quest 2 headset sales which have not yet been officially announced by the company.
Facebook reported non-advertising revenue, which comes from the augmented reality and virtual reality part of the business as well as e-commerce, of $497 million (£363 million) in the second quarter of 2021.
Horizon Workrooms allows you to choose which virtual laptop you want to work from, which moves if you move your real one, and see your hands typing on the keyboard
Up to 16 participants can be hosted in the room, or up to 50 if the extra users are joining via a Zoom-style video chat as opposed to a virtual reality headset
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