Mark Zuckerberg Shows Off Home Office In Metaverse, As Expected Of A Non-Human

Screenshot via Mark Zuckerberg

Work from home is a fairly new concept for the majority of the workforce. For Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though, “home” may have already upped and left to the virtual world.

In its transition into the metaverse, the company formerly known as Facebook is introducing work environments in the Quest 2’s Horizon Home software, enabling users to convert their digital homes into “something a bit more professional if you’re sitting down to get some work done.”

Zuckerberg announced the update with a 360-degree preview of what a home office may look like in the metaverse. His version, it seems, has a ceiling that welcomes partial sunlight, large windows presenting sweeping views of (artificial) greenery, and a rigid-looking bed/bench that anyone with real flesh on their bones would consider to be uncomfortable.

Screenshot via Mark Zuckerberg

Rather than introducing virtual home offices for mere aesthetics, Zuckerberg says the app will support activities like answering Messenger calls, reading emails, and “[working] on your next big project.”

The concept seems a tad strange to users who have been performing these tasks just fine from their computers for years. “You mean you are building this office for all the Facebook users so that they can be going there to take messenger calls, read emails and chat secretly instead of using their house?” one user questions. “Please, someone should enlighten me.”

The Meta CEO justifies that more and more people are using virtual-reality headsets instead of computers, “and updates like these are making it easier to be productive no matter where you are.”

With Horizon Home’s interiors envisioned to be extensions of their users, Zuckerberg adds that virtual workspaces will soon include multitasking features “so you can customize your workspace as you go between tasks.”

“Your corner of the metaverse should reflect you and your personality. That capability is a little further out, but we hope it gives you an idea of where we see VR heading,” Meta’s Oculus explained in a blog post last October.

[via Engadget and Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook]