SAN FRANCISCO — For years, the idea that virtual reality would
go mainstream has remained exactly that: virtual.
Though tech giants like
Facebook and
Sony have spent billions of
dollars trying to perfect the experience, virtual reality has stayed a niche
plaything of hobbyists willing to pay thousands of dollars, often for a clunky
VR headset tethered to a powerful gaming computer.
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That changed last year in the pandemic. As people lived more of
their lives digitally, they started buying more VR headsets. VR hardware sales
shot up, led by Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2, a headset that was introduced last
fall, according to the research firm IDC.
To build on the momentum, Facebook on Thursday introduced a
virtual-reality service called Horizon Workrooms. The product, which is free
for Quest 2 owners to download, offers a virtual meeting room where people
using the headsets can gather as if they are at an in-person work meeting. The
participants join with a customizable cartoon avatar of themselves. Interactive
virtual white boards line the walls so that people can write and draw things as
in a physical conference room.
The product is another step toward what Facebook sees as the
ultimate form of social connection for its 3.5 billion users.
“One way or another, I think we’re going to live in a
mixed-reality future,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a media roundtable
that was conducted this week in virtual reality using Workrooms.
At the event, the avatars of Zuckerberg and roughly a dozen
Facebook employees, reporters and technical support staff assembled in what
looked like an open and well-lit virtual conference room. Zuckerberg’s avatar
sported a long-sleeve henley shirt in a dark Facebook blue. (My avatar had a
checkered red flannel shirt.) Since Workrooms shows participants only as
floating torsos seated around a wooden desk, no one worried about picking out a
pair of pants.
Facebook was early to virtual reality. In 2014, it paid $2
billion to buy the headset startup Oculus VR. At the time, Zuckerberg promised
that the technology would “enable you to experience the impossible.”
The deal jump-started a wave of acquisitions and funding in
virtual reality. Investment in VR startups swelled, while companies like HTC
and Sony also promised VR headsets for the masses. Microsoft developed the
HoloLens, which were hologram-projecting glasses.
But the hype fizzled fast. The first generation of most VR
hardware — including Facebook’s Oculus Rift — was expensive. Almost all of the
headsets required users to be tethered to a personal computer. There were no
obvious “killer apps” to attract people to the devices. Worse still, some
people got nauseated after using the products.
The next generation of VR headsets focused on lowering costs.
Samsung’s Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Google Daydream all asked consumers to
strap on goggles and drop in their smartphones to use as VR screens. Those
efforts also failed because smartphones were not powerful enough to deliver an
immersive virtual reality experience.
“People would always ask me, ‘What VR headset should I buy?’”
said Nick Fajt, CEO of Rec Room, a video game popular among virtual reality
enthusiasts. “And I’d always respond, ‘Just wait.’”
To adjust, some companies began pitching virtual reality not for
the masses but for narrower fields. Magic Leap, a startup that promoted itself
as the next big thing in augmented reality computing, shifted to selling VR
devices to businesses. Microsoft has gone in a similar direction, with a
particular focus on military contracts, though it has said it is “absolutely”
still working toward a mainstream consumer product.
In 2017, even Zuckerberg acknowledged on an earnings call that
Facebook’s bet on Oculus was “taking a bit longer” than he initially thought.
With Workrooms, Facebook wants to take Oculus beyond just
gaming. The service is intended to provide a sense of presence with other
people, even when they might be sitting halfway across the world.
Zuckerberg sees the project as part of the next internet, one
that technologists call “the metaverse.” In Zuckerberg’s telling, the metaverse
is a world in which people can communicate via VR or video calling, smartphone
or tablet, or through other devices like smart glasses or gadgets that have not
been invented yet.
There, people will maintain some sense of continuity between all
of the different digital worlds they inhabit. Someone might buy a digital
avatar of a shirt in a virtual reality store, for instance, and then log off
but continue wearing that shirt to a Zoom meeting.
For now, that vision remains distant. VR adoption can be
measured in the tens of millions of users, compared with the billions of owners
of smartphones. Facebook has also stumbled, issuing a recall this year on the
Quest 2’s foam pad covers after some users reported skin irritation. The
company has offered new, free silicon padded covers to all Quest 2 owners.
At the Workrooms event with reporters this week, Zuckerberg
spoke but had to leave at one point and rejoin the room because his digital
avatar’s mouth was not moving when he spoke.
“Technology that gives you this sense of presence is like the
holy grail of social experiences, and what I think a company like ours was
designed to do over time,” Zuckerberg said, after the glitch was fixed and his
avatar’s mouth was moving again. “My hope is that over the coming years, people
really start to think of us not primarily as a social media company, but as a
‘metaverse’ company that’s providing a real sense of presence.”
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