Facebook Launches Virtual-Reality Work App for Meetings

California/ Web Desk:

Normally Zoom is used to teach and meet in the global context of the epidemic, but many have described it as an exhausting experience. In response, Facebook has developed a virtual reality app that allows you to chat with friends in a more realistic way.

According to AP News, Facebook is trying to pull in workplace users with a new virtual-reality meetings app called Horizon Workrooms. However, it does require a 300 Dollars VR headset, the most popular of which is the widely used Oculus Quest 2. People without a headset can join with a video call. Up to 50 people can be on the call, but only 16 can be in the VR space with avatars. For the full VR experience, users need to have a Facebook account.

While entering the Horizon workroom, you see cartoon characters of different people sitting around a table in a room, which gives a sense of the real scene. With this app, you can also choose different outfits, avatars, and clothes. People wearing headsets will move their fingers and hands, so their digital avatar will also move their hands and fingers. In addition, the lips of their digital characters will also move whenever they speak. The virtual conference also has a whiteboard where you can share presentations and writings with others.

Facebook aims to enable people to use Oculus for fun as well as serious activities and to have a unique virtual dating experience.

“We’ve been using the app internally for over a year now, but 18 months of epidemics and lockdowns have shown that such platforms are the best for a meeting,” said Andrew Bosworth, vice president of Facebook Realty Labs

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a fan of the “metaverse,” a vague concept that encompasses augmented and virtual reality with new ways of connecting. He expects it to be the next stage of how people experience the internet.

Virtual reality has never really taken off, even during the pandemic, when remote work became the norm for millions of office workers and made the videoconferencing service Zoom a household name.

On the other hand, Facebook staff have said that they can present themselves in a more confident way in the Horizon workroom than in Zoom, and it is much easier to talk to each other thanks to virtual characters.