Facebook just announced a new VR product called Facebook Spaces. The whole idea behind Spaces is to let you have a conversation with your friend in Virtual Reality.
With this concept, Facebook wants to make VR more social and interactive as opposed to being a solo experience. The social networking is all set launch the new product so people can chat with another in the world of VR.
To do so, users simply have to create a digital avatar using their Facebook profile picture, put on their Oculus Rift headset and open Spaces and start hanging out with their friends in the virtual world.
Facebook Spaces was announced on Tuesday during the keynote at F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference. The beta version of the product is already rolled out. Facebook is going big on VR. Back in 2014, it splashed $2 billion to acquire Oculus Rift. While in October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced another investment in Virtual Reality worth $250 million.
Spaces was also showcased last year at the Oculus Connect conference, where Mark Zuckerberg was seen in his Facebook avatar taking selfies and sharing photos. And users can soon have the same and hang out with their friends in the virtual world. But to have such an experience, you’ll need to possess Oculus Rift VR goggles, Touch Controllers, along with a high-end PC. Even your friends need to own the same gear to use Facebook Spaces.
Once you enter Spaces, you sit around a digital table with friends where you can interact, share photos and even start a video chat. The experience takes in a world of cartoons and avatars, where you can design and customize to look identical to you.
How does Facebook Spaces work?
Just simply strap on the Oculus Rift headset, grab onto your Touch controllers, and you’re allowed to select from a bunch of avatars that may look identical to you. Facebook will deploy machine learning algorithms and scan your Facebook photos to create a digital avatar. Once your avatar is ready. you can interact wit your friends in a virtual setting. Check out the demo video below and see for yourself how the technology might work when it launches.
Users can also access their Facebook page within the virtual setting such as photos and 360-degree videos. They can also access selfie sticks and take photos of your digital avatar and your friend’s avatar. Users can even draw in Facebook Spaces using a pen. Your touch controller will act as a pen which allows you to draw in the virtual world.
