The founder of Facebook said about the company’s AR and VR development that his research on space – from Facebook Reality Labs – is about delivering presence without physical travel.
According to Mr. Zuckerberg, says venture capitalist Josh Constine, that the biggest challenge for these technologies is that they require a form factor that users will expect, such as thick-rimmed glasses. The challenge is to make the technology small enough to fit in that body.
Facebook apparently has a roadmap for the development of VR and AR technologies – which is expected to take four to five years – and that such technology can be used in remote work environments.
Zuckerberg said about the coronavirus pandemic that closures have revealed that there is no reason for employers to recruit employees to physical locations and offices. This is the assumption that VR and AR can unlock people’s ability to live where they want while being ‘present’ where they need to be.
Other benefits include more productive workers, the CEO added, and the reduction of carbon emissions. “We have to teleport and not transport ourselves”, said Mr. Zuckerberg shut down.
Andrew Bosworth tweeted that the company is’ working ‘and increasing productivity remotely’ by creating a blended reality environment.
In the tweet, Mr. Bosworth floating screens that can be moved and resized via gesture control, as well as the user typing on a keyboard with a virtual taskbar over it for shortcuts, including the Windows icon and Facebook.
Mr Zuckerberg predicts that half of his workforce is likely to work remotely over the next decade.
“We have to do it in a thoughtful and responsible way, so we are going to do it in a measured way,” he said.
“But I think it’s possible that over the next five to ten years – maybe closer to ten than five, but somewhere in the range” I think we could reach about half of the company working permanently remotely. ” .
“Write messages the way you want, whether you type it into VR, choose a pre-written conversation starter or use our voice-to-text feature,” Facebook said.