Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Facebook on Thursday unveiled technology for “workrooms,” allowing remote collaboration for people using its Oculus virtual reality gear.
The “Horizon Workrooms” project allows users to modify back and forth from virtual-reality to web conferencing to adapt to different situations.
“Workrooms is our flagship collaboration experience that lets people come to-gether within the same virtual room, no matter of physical distance,” the corporate said in an Oculus blog post.
“It works across both virtual-reality & therefore the web and is meant to enhance your team’s ability to collaborate.”
This enables participants to hitch a gathering as an avatar in VR or by video calling.
The announcement comes because the social media giant moves to blend its hardware, gaming & VR units to create an immersive digital world referred to as the “metaverse,” borrowing a term coined by sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson.
The project is seen as central to Facebook’s future by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who is seeking to diversify the corporate beyond social networking & digital advertising.
It also comes with more people working remotely during the pandemic & corporations seeking new ways to enable collaboration among scattered employees.
The Oculus division has largely been used for gaming but is gaining traction in other areas as VR is tailored for tourism, remote work and other applications.
