FB launches Horizon Workrooms for remote co-working in Virtual Reality

Facebook on Thursday announced that it is launching the open beta of Horizon Workrooms, available for free to download on virtual reality (VR) system Oculus Quest 2 in countries where it is supported.

Workrooms is a virtual meeting space where you and your colleagues can work better together from anywhere. You can join a meeting in VR as an avatar or dial into the virtual room from your computer by video call.

"Workrooms is our flagship collaboration experience that lets people come together to work in the same virtual room, regardless of physical distance," the company said in a statement.

"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," it added.

Facebook said that Workrooms brings some of best new technologies of the company together for the first time into one experience on Quest 2.

"Using features like mixed-reality desk and keyboard tracking, hand tracking, remote desktop streaming, video conferencing integration, spatial audio, and the new Oculus Avatars, we've created a different kind of productivity experience," the company said.

"We've been using Workrooms to collaborate here at Facebook already, and we think it's one of the best ways to work if you can't be physically together," it added.

According to the company, if you are the first of your colleagues to try Workrooms, you can sign up to create a new Workrooms team at workrooms.com.

And if your colleagues are already using Workrooms, they can send an email invite to join their existing Workrooms team. You'll need to agree to the terms, confirm that you're 18 years or older, and choose a name to display in Workrooms.

Once you've created an account, you can download and install Horizon Workrooms from the Oculus Store on your Quest 2, then follow the instructions in the app to pair your headset to your account and get started.

"We hope that developers are excited to use many of the same features seen in Workrooms in their own apps, and we're working hard to bring them to our platform as well," the company said.

--IANS

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