Nearly a month after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced their Facebook "Metaverse," the social media giant is introducing Horizon Workrooms. Using virtual reality to bring people together in collaborative spaces, the new experience allows people to meet up no matter where they are.
The space is fitted with anything you might need while meeting up with your colleagues.
What Is Facebook Metaverse?
Facebook's Reality Labs is creating the Metaverse. The digital world is meant to be where people can move between different devices and communicate in a virtual environment.
Executive Andrew Bosworth wrote on Facebook about the metaverse endeavor, noting how in order to achieve their full vision, Facebook needs to build the connective tissue between the spaces of the physical and virtual worlds. The goal is to remove the limitations of physics and move between the spaces with "the same ease as moving from one room in your home to the next."
Facebook aims to build a maximalist, interconnected set of experiences with the Metaverse, spanning social presence, office work, and entertainment. Employing virtual reality will realize this vision, Zuckerberg said in a remote address to his employees.
Zuckerberg believes the metaverse will bring immense opportunity to individual creators and artists. He also considered the people who live in places where opportunities for education or recreation are limited.
A month after Sckerberg's remote address, Facebook was able to introduce Workrooms as part of its Metaverse.
trying out Horizon Workrooms, aka Facebook’s “Metaverse for Work” pic.twitter.com/E2GKqNOMT7
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 21, 2021
Facebook Horizons Workrooms
Horizons Workrooms is a virtual meeting space where "you and your colleagues can work better together from anywhere," Facebook said in their press release.
People can join meetings in virtual reality as an avatar or dial into the virtual room via video call on the computer. The 3D virtual office can be accessed with Oculus VR headsets and can replicate a multitude of activities that can normally be done in an actual office, per No Jitter.
Users can bring their desk, computer, and keyboard into VR with them for a mixed reality experience. Combined with the new Oculus Remote Desktop companion app, users have access to their entire computer while inside the Metaverse's Workplace. Note-taking during meetings, file sharing, and even sharing screens with colleagues become seamless and easy.
Facebook and Oculus worked on new and improved Oculus Avatars and spatial audio technology for a more lifelike experience. The high-quality, low-latency spatial audio allows users to hear their colleagues around them based on where they're seated, just like they'd sound in a real room, making conversations flow smoothly, Facebook explained.
For those who want to sketch out their thoughts in real-time, a virtual whiteboard is also available in the 3D space. The whiteboards can also be pulled in and out of the workspace whenever it is or isn't needed.
The rooms themselves can be configured to meet the team's individual needs. The layout can change to fit a more collaborative setting or have it be optimized for a presentation, or simply have it set up to have a conversation in. The whole room also scales up and down to fit the size of the group.
How to Sign Up for Facebook Workrooms
Interested users can sign up and create Workrooms teams at workrooms.com. If a colleague has already set up a team, then an email invite can be given out to join the existing Workrooms team.
Aside from creating an account, users can also download and install Horizon Workrooms from the Oculus Store on their Quest 2. The instructions in the app walk the user through pairing the headset to the Workrooms account and get started working in the Metaverse.
