SNEAK PEEK
- Horizon Home feature enables friends to come to visit you in your virtual home.
- Meta plans to roll out functionality for users to create their environments without third-party apps.
- Meta has prioritized shipping products over ensuring user safety.
Founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced that Meta will add a more social-oriented home space to Quest 2. Horizon Home will appear when users slip on the VR headset. Users can do everything by inviting friends, hanging out with them, watching videos, and playing games. This is part of Meta’s vision of the metaverse, a virtual space where users can do several things together, along with Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms.
When a user puts on their headset, it’s their home they find themselves, which can be chosen from already made options like a Japanese inn, a space station, or a patio overlooking a mountainous sunset. Users can upload their environments as well.
Zuckerberg shared a video on Facebook with free climber Alex Honnold, demonstrating the new feature. Meeting in Zuckerberg’s home environment, they jump into a 360-degree video uploaded by Honnold while free climbing 1,000 feet up a cliff in the Dolomites.
According to a Meta spokesperson, Meta will roll out the v41 Quest update, which includes Horizon Home, more broadly next week. Furthermore, it will add additional customization options for the home space later. If users feel comfortable accessing the Public Test Channel, they can check out Horizon Home and its dull virtual home office.
Talking about the safety measures of Horizon Home, a Meta Spokesperson said:
Party leaders can unilaterally remove guests from both the Party and Meta Horizon Home.
Users can use the system-level block option or submit a report option. Moreover, guests can exit a social situation in one click to instantly disconnect from voice chat and the general environment.
The spokesperson also said:
Additionally, Meta Horizon Home utilizes hotspot locomotion versus free locomotion to reduce the likelihood of users’ VR avatars colliding with one another.
