Earlier this summer, Mark Zuckerberg detailed his aspirations for Facebook, anticipating that peoples’ perspectives on the platform will evolve. “I expect people will transition from seeing us primarily as a social-media company to seeing us as a metaverse company,” he said, defining the “metaverse” as “a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces.”
“[It’s] an embodied Internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at,” he continued. “We believe that this is going to be the successor to the mobile Internet.”
Well, Facebook has finally unveiled a glimpse of its innovative “metaverse” technology — and it’s about as underwhelming as your average Zoom happy hour. Because that’s basically all it is, but even worse: Zuckerberg’s avant-garde vision for the world is just a future of virtual reality work meetings.
Called “Horizon Workrooms,” Facebook’s latest VR venture allows coworkers to meet in virtual conference rooms while wearing the Oculus Quest 2 headset. CNN reports that each workroom allows up to 16 VR headset users to “physically” meet as their customised digital avatar, while 50 users total can attend the meeting as audio.
Participants in headsets can use their hands to gesticulate, and their avatar’s allegedly make realistic expressions while speaking. Each room also contains a virtual whiteboard for taking notes, sharing pictures, and/or presenting.
“The pandemic in the last 18 months has only given us greater confidence in the importance of this as a technology,” Andrew Bosworth, VP of Facebook Reality Labs, told a (virtual) room on Tuesday. Bosworth said that Facebook has actually been using the app for about a year.
As expected, the internet has…thoughts…on Facebook’s cutting-edge conference calls. And those thoughts are that: We hate it.
LOL, FB can’t even keep secure that I like Dunkin Donuts iced tea but we should hold private meetings with their technology
— Dan Ryan (@pennstatedan) August 19, 2021
imagine looking at the humble zoom meeting and thinking that what it really needs is expensive hardware, a third party with an egregiously poor track record on privacy and data, and a soupçon of nausea
— Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) August 19, 2021
I don’t know what this says about me darth but I think the bottom halves look like upside down poos https://t.co/2sZZ2ksK3Y
— Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) August 19, 2021
"Virtual reality can take you anywhere in the universe. So we're taking you...back to a work meeting that could have been an email."
— Brendan Keefe (@BrendanKeefe) August 19, 2021
Guessing you thought google glass and segways would also change the world
— Wood (@howbouttomorrow) August 19, 2021
Something like that 😀 #VirtualReality #Metaverse https://t.co/zf95Kks6vu
— Mollejuo Software (@mollejuos) August 20, 2021
THIS SHIT SO LAME. JUST NO. LETS NOT GO DOWN THIS ROAD PLEASE. https://t.co/XBnhLB0yxz
— Tolan Franklin (@tdfrank6) August 20, 2021
No. HARD no.
— Brooklyn Decker (@BrooklynDecker) August 20, 2021
Should people be able to work from anywhere? Sure. Is this weird ass solution the future? No.
(I’ll be eating crow in 3 years) https://t.co/njXE8MKr5X
V funny to me that everyone is like “we have zoom fatigue!” and Facebook was like “ok strap this computer to your face and step into the metaverse, baby!”
— Ryan Mac🙃 (@RMac18) August 19, 2021
