Virtual reality meetings may be future of home working

OFFICE workers of the future could have a virtual version of themselves to attend meetings while they are at home, according to Facebook’s latest plans.

Colleagues would appear as realistic virtual characters and home workspaces would include “floating screens”, viewed through a virtual reality headset.

Andrew Bosworth, the head of virtual reality at Facebook, tweeted a glimpse of what working from home might look like as more companies move to allowing the practice on a permanent basis.

He said Facebook was “supercharging remote work and productivity” with a “mixed reality environment”, or the merging of real and virtual worlds.

A video accompanying the tweet showed floating displays that could be repositioned using hand gestures, as well as the user typing on a keyboard with a virtual taskbar hovering over it with internet shortcuts.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, earlier said that half of its 45,000 staff will work from home permanently, and hinted at a slew of hi-tech home working innovations.

The avatars would move and almost exactly like the humans they represent. The Facebook “Tech Blog” showed two colleagues wearing virtual reality headsets controlling the facial expressions of their digital avatars.

“Today, much of the human nuance we experience every day is lost while working remotely,” said Facebook. Its avatars would mimic human expressions and speech in the virtual world.

Questions over the use of virtual and augmented reality technology remain, however, primarily concerning “cyber sickness”, which occurs because of the “sensory conflict” between what users see and what movement their body feels, said Prof John Golding, of the University of Westminster.

Too much lag or flickering can lead to nausea. “Modern systems can get around that, but not always,” he said. Guidance for Facebook’s Oculus headsets suggest a break every 30 minutes.

Mr Zuckerberg added that Facebook was looking at fully remote hiring to add employees away from its main offices in Silicon Valley and London.

“A place of work is not going to be just your desk now,” said Robert Newry, founder of Arctic Shores, a remote hiring technology start-up. “It is not going to happen that in January everyone just goes back to the office.”