Facebook Opens ‘Horizon Workrooms’ for Business

The World's Top Social Media Platform Has Launched Its VR Metaverse App for Team Collaborations

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Facebook Workrooms
Mixed RealityInsights

Published: August 19, 2021

Demond Cureton

US social media giant Facebook announced on Thursday it had launched the open beta version of its Horizon Workrooms platform for the Oculus Quest 2.

The Menlo Park-based firm’s platform was built to facilitate companies and collaborators working remotely in virtual spaces.

People using both virtual reality (VR) and internet browsers can join the platform for meetings, working on documents, socialising, and other activities, Facebook said in its blog post.

Technologies such as mixed reality (MR) desktops, keyboard and hand tracking, video conferencing integration, remote desktop streaming, spatial audio, and Oculus Avatars are featured on Workrooms.

Users can join meetings in virtual spaces as an avatar using a Quest 2 headset, or video calls by computer, and stream physical computers for collaborations with Oculus’ Remote Desktop companion app on Windows and macOS via compatible devices.

Workrooms supports up to 16 people in VR conferences and up to 50 for video and dial-in calls.

Spatial audio allows users to immerse in enviroments, based on where teammates are seated, for smoother and more realistic conversations.

Workrooms also supports infinite whiteboards for brainstorming ideas in real time, sharing files from personal computers, and saving or exporting previous whiteboards for viewing at a later time, as well as additional integration for Outlook and Gmail.

People joining the platform can sign up at workrooms.com to download and install the programme from the Oculus Store.

Regarding safety and privacy, Facebook has said Workrooms will not track work activities to trigger ads, store audio meeting contents on its servers.

The app’s Passthrough augmented reality (AR) feature will also process physical environments from local device sensors to protect privacy.

The news comes after Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and Chief Executive, boldly stated in an early August interview his enterprise would shift to become a ‘Metaverse company’ to build collaborative tools for businesses following disruptions from the height of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic last year.

Andrew Bosworth, Facebook Head of Reality Labs echoed Zuckerberg’s comments and posted over 700 open positions to build the firm’s Metaverse division.

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