Facebook Horizon: a new social horizon?

Mark Zuckerberg promises big news for the 2020. It will be launched infact the new Facebook Horizon, a platform that integrates the aspects of the famous social to the ones of the virtual reality which are tipical of platforms like Second Life. According to some rumors, moreover, right Zuckerberg is working at the same time to another project with Luxottica: a new model of glasses for the augmented reality.

To close are instead other two spaces of virtual reality already created by Mr Facebook. The first one was Oculus Rooms, where it was possible to experiment many styles of interior design always in virtual reality. The second one to leave is Facebook Spaces, launched only in the 2017, which gave the possibility to interact, even if very limited, in a virtual reality.

Facebook Horizon

The idea remembers a little bit the movie of Steven Spielberg Ready Player One, where it was possibile to have a second parallel life just by wearing the viewer. Like OASIS, Horizon will be a mix between a videogame and a social, where the persons will immerse themselves into a virtual reality where met friends or find a new ones. An ambitious project that provides to create our own world, besides than our avatar, without the necessity to have informatic skills of coding. The same concept which is on the basement of the multiplayer videogame Roblox, that though is dedicated to the users from 7 to 18 years.

On the virtual reality’s social it will be then possible to invite our own friends, both to stay together in the world we created, and to partecipate to games and activities. There is even the possibility to have a space to not stay alone. There are always the settings that allow to report or to ban the molest or unwanted users.

The project was presented during the Oculus Connect, an event that connect developers, creators and experts of virtual reality, which is now on its sixth edition.

How will Horizon work

To enter we will first have to create our avatar and to customize it with the available elements. Now it will be possible to explore the virtual world, to quickly move thanks to doors called “telepods“. There will even be some “attractions” and some games to try alone or together, other activities are instead thought to be played only in group, like Wing Striker, a multiplayer adventure.

The idea of Zuckerberg isn’t though only the one to create a fun space, otherwise. Infact the aspect on which Facebook Horizon focuses is the one to let the user partecipate to the creation of this virtual world, by creating attractions, scenarios and games.

To play we will have to wear the new viewer Oculus Quest 6, which will be equipped of hand tracking, so in the final version we won’t need to use the Oculus Controller to manage the hands’ movements, which will be prompty releaved by the viewer.

The doubts

About the virtual reality one can still having many doubts about its real utility to connect the people. Sure it’s been demonstrated that it’s possible to create bonds of friendship through some socials, but those are anyway rare cases.

Furthermore we might wonder how, passed the initial enthusiasm, Facebook Horizon will be able to keep the users active, especially how it will be able to make them create and evolve this fake world.

Surely we will have to wait for something that will make the audience using it, even because there are already other vr worlds for a while and Horizon might just result a copy.

Currently it’s possible to subscribe to the beta version which is predicted for the beginning of the 2020, afterward it will be available both on Quest and on Rift S.

This post is also available in: Italiano