By carefully mapping a user’s face and facial characteristics, Facebook can synchronize facial movements and expressions in real life with the photorealistic avatar in VR. We learned from demos that the company is using motion-capture technology to map facial images from photographs to capture various points on a user’s face. Creating a photorealistic avatar is a logical next step for Facebook’s VR journey, as the company hopes that advancing technologies will help blur the borders between the real and virtual worlds.įacebook didn’t detail much about its work with photorealistic avatars. The result is still a cartoon-like representation of an individual, and it is not dissimilar to Snap’s personalized Bitmoji or Samsung’s AR emoji. Facebook originally represented avatars as a simple blue face, but the technology eventually allowed users to personalize their virtual selves with more details and lifelike features. The company has made progress over the years to evolve its avatar creation technology to make digital representations more lifelike and emotive. The technology was unveiled by Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer during the second day of the company’s developer-centric F8 conference in Silicon Valley, California. Well, at least not beyond Mark Zuckerberg’s office.Facebook wants to transport your physical self into the virtual world by allowing you to create photorealistic avatars for virtual reality headsets. We know we’ve harped on about this but considering how long a work day is and the fatigue we’ve experienced using VR for 30 minutes at a time, we don’t see Workroom taking off in any meaningful capacity. We don’t think that bringing everybody into a virtual room to work is a solution to that, however, especially when -once again – they are doing it with 503g of weight strapped to their face. Facebook says that working alone can feel isolating at times and we agree. We can say that this is a cool idea in an age of remote working but it all just feels so odd. Considering the cost of the Quest 2 ( we see prices starting at R9 799 locally) as well as the hardware needed to drive the headset, we suspect multinational enterprises might find this appealing, if they have deep enough pockets. Users and entire Workrooms can also be banned if a user feels they are not following Facebook’s policies.īut we have to wonder who is going to implement Workrooms. The social network goes on to say that it won’t use conversations and materials within Workrooms to inform advertising on Facebook. Once again we need to reiterate, that this is all done with a 503g weight strapped to your face with displays right in front of your eyes. The firm adds that, with the Oculus Remote Desktop app, users will be able to access their computer from within VR. Users will be able to access compatible peripherals which are tracked into virtual reality so that they can continue typing and answering emails. It works across both virtual reality and the web and is designed to improve your team’s ability to collaborate, communicate, and connect remotely, through the power of VR- whether that’s getting together to brainstorm or whiteboard an idea, work on a document, hear updates from your team, hang out and socialize, or simply have better conversations that flow more naturally,” explains Facebook.Īlternatively, the solution can be summed up as: making everybody a Wii avatar and translating them and your workspace into a VR space.įacebook says that it will blend the real world with virtual reality to create a mixed reality experience. “Workrooms is our flagship collaboration experience that lets people come together to work in the same virtual room, regardless of physical distance. Look, we’re as fatigued by Zoom calls and Teams meetings as much as the next person but if you asked us if we’d prefer to have a VR headset stuck to our face eight hours a day, we’d take a lifetime of Zoom calls instead.įacebook, however, believes that this is the future of work and has launched Horizon Workrooms for the Oculus Quest 2.
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