8 ms·

Spaces: A New Way to Connect with Friends in VR

129 points by kilimchoi 9y ago

squiggy22 9y ago
oh great. now my kids have even less of a reason to go outside. thanks fb!
acchow 9y ago
Second Life v2?
- numo16 9y ago
  Seems more like it is heading towards the ideas behind the metaverse[0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse
  - yinkpress 9y ago
    Not really. This is more like Messenger v2. Second Life / High Fidelity are much closer to the ideas behind the Metaverse than this.
- LarryMade2 9y ago
  More like v.3... from the look of it you are not moving around much in spaces.
- mintplant 9y ago
  The company behind Second Life is already working on a VR-centric "Second Life v2", with what seems to me a more interesting vision of the metaverse than Facebook Spaces. http://www.wsj.com/video/creating-virtual-reality-worlds/E180E596-4DBA-4F53-B2D2-7A3A3D702D0D.html http://www.wsj.com/video/creating-virtual-reality-worlds/E18... There's also High Fidelity, an open source, distributed VR metaverse started by the founder of the same company. https://highfidelity.io/ https://highfidelity.io/
  - a_t48 9y ago
    It's not called "Second Life v2" it's called Sansar.
    - mintplant 9y ago
      I didn't mean that literally, although it was originally announced as "Second Life 2".
      - DonHopkins 9y ago
        Not "Third Life"?
aresant 9y ago
If there's a bull case on FB to me it starts with the release of this Facebook Spaces beta. Spaces - or something like it - along with an eventual great set of AR glasses or contact lenses - is the end game. There's no question the long goal for corporate AR is to digitize the entire physical world, catalog it, and then sell outrageously effective ad inventory / flair against everything that we see. Using a fairly controlled VR environment as the beta case for this to get us all hooked is a huge step in the right direction and they already own the entire social graph to execute in this direction. I don't know whether I should be excited or terrified that it's FB leading this effort. They have the scale to execute, they have the technology to support the crucial relationships but they are SO FUCKING INVASIVE into our lives as a company. Raph Koster's lecture at GDC got some fairly broad attention on this concept, although his was geared more to the potential negative consequences, but it's still 100% worth a watch for anybody interested in the space. https://www.raphkoster.com/2017/03/05/slides-for-still-logged-in-my-gdc-talk/ https://www.raphkoster.com/2017/03/05/slides-for-still-logge...
- stagbeetle 9y ago
  > There's no question the long goal for corporate AR is to digitize the entire physical world, catalog it, and then sell outrageously effective ad inventory against everything that we see. That's too far away to be able to predict accurately and it all rests on the lynchpin of the masses being interested in augmented reality. Although slightly different, this was the case when computers were brought to the mass market. People didn't drop their real lives to become fully immersed in the digital world. Sure there is the minority of societal outcasts that spend their entire waking lives immersed, but that's all they are: a minority. Of course, most things are on the uptrend to becoming "digitized" in the sense that everything you could ever need is online, but it's been a very slow course. The average Joe barely even comes close to using the internet to its fullest potential. What makes you think something as complex and convoluted as AR (not to mention expensive) will be any different?
  - aresant 9y ago
    "The average Joe barely even comes close to using the internet to its fullest potential. What makes you think something as complex and convoluted as AR (not to mention expensive) will be any different?" I think that AR will become as ubiquitous as our phones because all of the core functionality on a phone will be better on AR. Instant alerts in my peripheral vision (again a non-obtrusive display is crucial)? Call up directions while driving with cortana / siri and have lay over unobtrusively? Watch TV on a 100" screen anywhere? All things that I've done / played with in Hololens demos, all amazing, all "no question" will be massively adopted when they get the form factor correct. Heck just look at a current app like SNAP - already on 50%+ of phones of 18-24 year olds - is a perfect app use case. Camera, stories, sharing - all better and more accessible in AR. And they're already demonstrating the desire / utility of AR via "filters" and their new "World Lenses" release today. Want that bunny rabbit filter on all day as your "look"? Done. Want it only accessible to your co-workers and not your boss, cool set it and forget it as long as the device knows your social graph.
creaghpatr 9y ago
>We want Facebook Spaces to be a comfortable place for everyone. You have control of your experience, including the ability to pause at any time. Pausing moves you into a quiet space where you can take a break away from other people and activities. You can also choose to mute your friends or remove them from your space. Facebook Spaces is all about connecting with friends and family that you know and trust, and we’re committed to making VR a positive place for all. The psychological implications my goodness...
- unknown2374 9y ago
  umm the muting part reminds me of the black mirror episode "white christmas". Hopefully it doesnt come to that
  - tpolischuk 9y ago
    Muting is absolutely necessary. Play any online video game for 5 minutes and you'll understand it's a necessity.
    - AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
      As a general concept I agree, but this is limited to your facebook friends. This isn't randomly joining a multiplayer server, this is intentionally adding friends to a space. Ostensibly, you should know them. Adding muting capabilities seems like some weird power play that'll just lead to bullying. If you don't want someone there, just remove them. Hell, unfriend them.
      - joshuamorton 9y ago
        And you've been able to mute people in various group voice chat programs (made for talking with friends) since forever.
    - EJTH 9y ago
      But muting your own friends while gaming with them? Nah.
dougmwne 9y ago
This is a pretty clever way to avoid the uncanny valley for VR videoconferencing. I assume we're a long way from photorealistic avatars based on the holoportation demo from MS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0
- jameslk 9y ago
  The Holoportation video feels a lot less cringe worthy and cheesy to me. At least there's a lot more body language that's being captured, which feels more natural. Their example of being able to record real life in 3D, play it back, and walk around in the experience also seems more innovative. But of course it's much further away from being ready to use unlike Spaces.
- jameshart 9y ago
  The challenge VR videoconferencing faces is that by its nature, the people who are participating are wearing headsets that cover their faces. Even hololens headsets are going to get in the way of eye contact. Avatars get around this by projecting a person who isn't wearing a headset.
excalibur 9y ago
This looks exactly like every other social VR app, and is probably ripping off elements from several. (Of course, one could argue that social VR has been borrowing from Facebook all along.)
return0 9y ago
> Be Yourself in VR If second life shows anything, people want to be someone else in VR.
- news_to_me 9y ago
  If anonymous Youtube comments show anything, some people want to be complete assholes in VR.
  - mysterydip 9y ago
    So are they being themselves, or someone else? :)
    - username223 9y ago
      It was named "iD Software," after all...
rosalinekarr 9y ago
This looks like it will have the same problem as early bluetooth headsets: you look crazy using them. As well as they can get it to work and as popular as it becomes among early adopters, it will never really catch on with the general public because most people are too afraid of looking like an idiot to use it in public.
- news_to_me 9y ago
  I dunno, this seems to be more useful when you're chilling at home chatting with your friends on Facebook Messenger. It doesn't matter how it looks if it's just you in the living room. I'd say the real problem is that chat is good enough - it's why Google Hangouts never really took off as a place to "hang out"
meheleventyone 9y ago
I'd really like them to offer their avatar system for other applications. Identity is so much part of social VR and it would be great to share it between apps.
elvinyung 9y ago
I can't wait until cyberspace literally becomes a consensual hallucination.
__mp 9y ago
I can definitely see some usecases of these experiences. Not wanting to sound too negative, I would prefer to meet the people in person and drink a beer, eat a meal than to lounge around in some virtual room. I see the allure of it if you are staying in a place that is hard to reach. But travel itself is also an experience that can be enjoyed - even more so if it is far away and exotic.
- _pius 9y ago
  Not wanting to sound too negative, I would prefer to meet the people in person and drink a beer, eat a meal than to lounge around in some virtual room. Sure. But once you've had the experience of your circle of friends dispersing to different cities, the appeal becomes immediately obvious.
  - __mp 9y ago
    Actually I am in this position. I rather visit the people and enjoy a weekend with them than put on a VR headset. Also it's a great excuse to go away for a weekend. And if it has to be something interactive I found video conferences quite practical. Also if a meeting is important I prefer to be present than remote because it is easier to gauge reactions of people.
    - Applejinx 9y ago
      I've got a circle of friends I see more often than anyone else, but only on TeamSpeak whilst gaming. I would absolutely love to visit them, but we are all without exception too poor to do any such thing, so it's impossible. I suspect this will play into the success or failure of Facebook Spaces. How many people are on Facebook with enough tech to do this (in its crude low-poly way) but who are also far too poor to flit about physically visiting those they love?
- swalsh 9y ago
  You may not like it... but your kids will love it.
gallerdude 9y ago
I mean (besides it being Facebook), this is all well and good, but I don't see this being mainstream until VR headsets see some sort of mainstream. I guess this is some kind of chicken and egg problem, and Facebook wants to be at the forefront either way, but I can only see this being a very niche blend of Skype.
JBReefer 9y ago
This is super, super weird but could be huge. It's very Black Mirror, it sort of makes me uncomfortable but I can't explain why. I think it could be a much better version of what Facebook is trying to be, but .... something's off.
DavidBachmann 9y ago
I hope I'm wrong but I think we'll look at this in 5 years and laugh.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  I don't think it'll take that long.
stagbeetle 9y ago
It's a cool gimmick -- and bordering on being a SecondLife spin-off -- but it won't ever replace face-to-face interaction, with digital models.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> It’s easy to create an identity that represents the real you in Facebook Spaces. This helps people recognize you and makes VR feel more like hanging out in person. Can someone remind me if they still require you to go by your full legal name, or do they let you identify yourself the way you prefer to?
snickerbockers 9y ago
Wow, those avatars actually look more obnoxious than the Nintendo Miis.
accountyaccount 9y ago
These avatars creep me out.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  I'm surprised they are so creepy looking. You'd think Facebook could afford a decent illustrator to mock up the avatars? But knowing Facebook they're probably algorithmically generated avatar images...
  - Applejinx 9y ago
    Not much creativity plus low-poly gives you that creepy look. They can't be particularly creative without alienating subsets of the audience. What you're seeing is basically committee-approved art: many layers of approval given the ability to veto stuff that's 'weird', leading to a bland pablum that offends everybody equally.
    - pyre 9y ago
      In other words, the "Greendale Human Being"[1][2] effect. [1] http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/Greendale_Human_Being http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/Greendale_Human_Being [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-F40mnul8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-F40mnul8
  - spyspy 9y ago
    "Uncanny valley" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
    - gman83 9y ago
      https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/living-with-robots https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/living-with-robots Interesting discussion re: the uncanny valley.
    - RugnirViking 9y ago
      Uncanny valley is not the explanation for all creepy looking models. It is specifically a problem with very realistic looking models and textures not being quite right, for a variety of reasons. These models are not attempting to be realistic, nor are they particularly close.
aphextron 9y ago
Available now on the Oculus Store™ with Oculus Rift®!
hunta2097 9y ago
I see Facebook are still pretending the HTC Vive and SteamVR is not a thing. Oculus need to support other headsets or they are going to fall even further behind. Win the mindshare where you can, because you are certainly not anywhere near winning the PC-VR space.
- gman83 9y ago
  Or Daydream
- t0mbstone 9y ago
  Yep. All they have to do is release Facebook Spaces for the HTC Vive. Why not? Why tie themselves to only one VR platform? That would be like Facebook only supporting iPhones. My guess is that the higher-ups are suffering from the sunken cost fallacy, and think that they have to stay exclusive to the Rift to justify their Oculus purchase. After all, if they support the Vive, why did they need to purchase Oculus in the first place?
  - DonHopkins 9y ago
    To get Carmack.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    Why not an open API for that matter? What if I want to use my Virtuality HMD, hacked PowerGlove and surplus Ascension Flock-of-Birds rig to drop into a VR world? Why shouldn't I be able to do that if I have the equipment and skills to get it to work? BTW - I actually do own all of that equipment (collecting older VR gear is a side hobby of mine). An open API will allow for any VR gear manufacturer to participate. Think about it this way - what if in the beginning, Facebook only supported Dell branded PCs - or more realistically, only Mozilla on Linux - back when they started? Do you think they'd have been as successful? No way to know, of course, but only supporting one (or a few) manufacturer's devices doesn't seem like the best way forward for quick market saturation. Whereas an open api would allow for far more people to get into the game; and if things started to take off, you would also see new independents spring up to sell lower cost HMDs, VR rigs, tracking systems, etc as demand heated up.
bronz 9y ago
the seriousness that vr and vr social apps are addressed with is dumbfounding to me. watch the video at the bottom of the page -- this is a huge joke. nobody will ever put on a headset and grab their controllers when they could just use skype. skype, which is much less hassle and gives you a real face to face experience with the other persons actual face. vr/ar contact lenses are never coming within a window of time that any of us care about. vr in general will remain a useless gimmick for longer than any of us are willing to wait, probably well past all of our deaths. im sick and tired of vr hype.
- swalsh 9y ago
  I disagree with you. I work remotely, I've had a lot of brainstorming meetings... and they almost always suck, to me the holy grail of remote work would be VR. I really want to have a meeting in VR where I can stand at a whiteboard (or an even better VR version) and show my ideas. The traditional tools REALLY suck.
  - vlunkr 9y ago
    How does VR improve that? As opposed to some other form of virtual whiteboard.
    - TuringTest 9y ago
      Laying objects and documents in 3D space is way more expressive than on a flat screen.
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  I've always found Skype/Facetime/etc. to be off-putting - if only because by looking at the person I'm talking to forces me to appear to look under them (looking at the screen vs looking the camera). During interviews, I make the conscious effort to look at the camera so as to present a more normal eye contact for my viewer, but this undercuts my ability to read their physical responses. If I had true-to-size representation of a person, either in VR or with a 2D screen, that allowed me to use natural eye contact and body language I would use it far more often.
Svexark 9y ago
It's like those services that popped up in the 90s that tried to translate things into the internet age. Like the service that would use your printer to print an entire newspaper for you ever morning.
rl3 9y ago
While this probably is the future some day, I suspect that it will flop in the interim—creating a sort of Google Glass effect that turns people off to VR. I'm sure they don't have many choices from a technical perspective, but the cartoon avatars are kind of creepy if not cringe-inducing.
throwaway29292 9y ago
Very interesting. At this point, there may be many smaller startups that are more innovative or have higher quality VR apps, but if they are competing against FB's massive hold on all aspects of everyday life, there isn't much doubt who the winner will be. More experienced peers, who lived in times when IBM or Microsoft seemed to be all-pervasive (like FB/Google are today): Do you think these companies will fade away in the next few decades? Or they will go on to be 100-year old companies, like today's car/oil companies.
- drewmate 9y ago
  I'm maybe not that experienced, but I do think that FB/Google are fundamentally different. Microsoft and IBM's 'products' depreciated very quickly. 5-year old software just isn't worth as much as brand new software (especially during that era.) Data, on the other hand, is like a wine that just gets better with age. FB's info about you only gets more valuable the longer they keep getting it. As long as FB/Google have active users, the moats around their businesses will likely seem impenetrable.
  - username223 9y ago
    People age and die, though. I doubt FB will implode like MySpace, but oldsters like me, who got tangled up in its webs back when it was only open to ".edu" addresses, will die off. Then FB will have lots of data on corpses, which can no longer click on ads. It can frantically copy rivals for awhile, but once the first generation of kids stops bothering to sign up, it's on its way to the nursing home.
peterchon 9y ago
This would be a great way for people with mobility issues to be included in activities.
wonderwonder 9y ago
Facebook is an advertising platform, their main goal is to get new accounts and usage. They are going to get a lot of mileage with this via the API. Developers will create useful and unexpected applications with this and in order to use the new apps you will need a facebook login. It generates new users for them and helps to prevent someone else from stealing their user base.
swalsh 9y ago
If you want to try it out, but have a Vive... apparently ReVive works.
synaesthesisx 9y ago
Increasingly relevant: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/23/virtual-reality-allows-the-most-detailed-intimate-digital-surveillance-yet/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/23/virtual-reality-allows-t... Emotion detection as a service? I'll pass.
jumpkickhit 9y ago
So avatars are limited. Makes sense, but it could also open up a way to sell premium avatars. Or really, rent their use. If I could design my own avatar, then pay $10 a month for it to be approved and then available to just myself in various online spaces, that would be very cool.
- philsnow 9y ago
  straight out of neuromancer
pmontra 9y ago
I watched the presentation. The most striking feature is that the avatar is created automatically from profile photos. It's probably possible to game the system, but the default is an avatar that looks like the real person. Compare this with Second Life avatars, if you've been there 10 years ago: they defaulted to some different 20-25 yo person. Not that the avatar of the speaker didn't look younger than she was, but it was still her. I think this has to do with making Spaces a "comfortable place for everyone", where you recognize your friends and don't mingle with strangers. It means it's an extension of the real world and actually many of the Spaces in the video were overlays over the real world. It goes more in the direction of augmented reality than virtual reality. They also presented some interesting stuff in the areas of object recognition, 2D pics to 3D scene transformations, interacting with objects in those scenes, simultaneous localization and mapping (setting virtual objects precisely at a position). Technologically they were the most interesting announcements, in my opinion. The news about Messenger were somewhat underwhelming: smart replies, M suggestions, game challenges, chat extensions. Interesting but not ground breaking. I'm still waiting for end to end encryption to chatbots (encryption is granted on the network but FB's servers see the messages in clear) and for WhatsApp bots.
- shostack 9y ago
  That also removes a layer of anonymity which, in theory isn't needed because you would be conversing with family and friends. But the second you get other people in the mix, you'll really wish you had the ability to NOT look like yourself.
Existenceblinks 9y ago
Do they have psychologists or psychology department in VR team/department? After facebook era, I don't really buy what facebook is building. That doesn't seems to be a right social network (driving people crazy, lonely, unhealthy addicted, etc.) If we are going to go full healthy virtual world, please think carefully. I used to live in a city (Bangkok) that has most active facebook users in the world. The society is sick. When everyone is psychopathic, no one knows who is. That's bad to me, then I moved out to a peaceful city in the northeastern, closed facebook account. Life is going normal now.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > The society is sick. When everyone is psychopathic Can you elaborate on what you mean here? In what way is the society of Bangkok "sick and psychopathic"?

129 points by kilimchoi 9y ago

squiggy22 9y ago

oh great. now my kids have even less of a reason to go outside. thanks fb!

acchow 9y ago

Second Life v2?

numo16 9y ago
Seems more like it is heading towards the ideas behind the metaverse[0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse
- yinkpress 9y ago
  Not really. This is more like Messenger v2. Second Life / High Fidelity are much closer to the ideas behind the Metaverse than this.
LarryMade2 9y ago
More like v.3... from the look of it you are not moving around much in spaces.
mintplant 9y ago
The company behind Second Life is already working on a VR-centric "Second Life v2", with what seems to me a more interesting vision of the metaverse than Facebook Spaces. http://www.wsj.com/video/creating-virtual-reality-worlds/E180E596-4DBA-4F53-B2D2-7A3A3D702D0D.html http://www.wsj.com/video/creating-virtual-reality-worlds/E18... There's also High Fidelity, an open source, distributed VR metaverse started by the founder of the same company. https://highfidelity.io/ https://highfidelity.io/
- a_t48 9y ago
  It's not called "Second Life v2" it's called Sansar.
  - mintplant 9y ago
    I didn't mean that literally, although it was originally announced as "Second Life 2".
    - DonHopkins 9y ago
      Not "Third Life"?

aresant 9y ago

If there's a bull case on FB to me it starts with the release of this Facebook Spaces beta. Spaces - or something like it - along with an eventual great set of AR glasses or contact lenses - is the end game. There's no question the long goal for corporate AR is to digitize the entire physical world, catalog it, and then sell outrageously effective ad inventory / flair against everything that we see. Using a fairly controlled VR environment as the beta case for this to get us all hooked is a huge step in the right direction and they already own the entire social graph to execute in this direction. I don't know whether I should be excited or terrified that it's FB leading this effort. They have the scale to execute, they have the technology to support the crucial relationships but they are SO FUCKING INVASIVE into our lives as a company. Raph Koster's lecture at GDC got some fairly broad attention on this concept, although his was geared more to the potential negative consequences, but it's still 100% worth a watch for anybody interested in the space. https://www.raphkoster.com/2017/03/05/slides-for-still-logged-in-my-gdc-talk/ https://www.raphkoster.com/2017/03/05/slides-for-still-logge...

stagbeetle 9y ago
> There's no question the long goal for corporate AR is to digitize the entire physical world, catalog it, and then sell outrageously effective ad inventory against everything that we see. That's too far away to be able to predict accurately and it all rests on the lynchpin of the masses being interested in augmented reality. Although slightly different, this was the case when computers were brought to the mass market. People didn't drop their real lives to become fully immersed in the digital world. Sure there is the minority of societal outcasts that spend their entire waking lives immersed, but that's all they are: a minority. Of course, most things are on the uptrend to becoming "digitized" in the sense that everything you could ever need is online, but it's been a very slow course. The average Joe barely even comes close to using the internet to its fullest potential. What makes you think something as complex and convoluted as AR (not to mention expensive) will be any different?
- aresant 9y ago
  "The average Joe barely even comes close to using the internet to its fullest potential. What makes you think something as complex and convoluted as AR (not to mention expensive) will be any different?" I think that AR will become as ubiquitous as our phones because all of the core functionality on a phone will be better on AR. Instant alerts in my peripheral vision (again a non-obtrusive display is crucial)? Call up directions while driving with cortana / siri and have lay over unobtrusively? Watch TV on a 100" screen anywhere? All things that I've done / played with in Hololens demos, all amazing, all "no question" will be massively adopted when they get the form factor correct. Heck just look at a current app like SNAP - already on 50%+ of phones of 18-24 year olds - is a perfect app use case. Camera, stories, sharing - all better and more accessible in AR. And they're already demonstrating the desire / utility of AR via "filters" and their new "World Lenses" release today. Want that bunny rabbit filter on all day as your "look"? Done. Want it only accessible to your co-workers and not your boss, cool set it and forget it as long as the device knows your social graph.

creaghpatr 9y ago

>We want Facebook Spaces to be a comfortable place for everyone. You have control of your experience, including the ability to pause at any time. Pausing moves you into a quiet space where you can take a break away from other people and activities. You can also choose to mute your friends or remove them from your space. Facebook Spaces is all about connecting with friends and family that you know and trust, and we’re committed to making VR a positive place for all. The psychological implications my goodness...

unknown2374 9y ago
umm the muting part reminds me of the black mirror episode "white christmas". Hopefully it doesnt come to that
- tpolischuk 9y ago
  Muting is absolutely necessary. Play any online video game for 5 minutes and you'll understand it's a necessity.
  - AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
    As a general concept I agree, but this is limited to your facebook friends. This isn't randomly joining a multiplayer server, this is intentionally adding friends to a space. Ostensibly, you should know them. Adding muting capabilities seems like some weird power play that'll just lead to bullying. If you don't want someone there, just remove them. Hell, unfriend them.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      And you've been able to mute people in various group voice chat programs (made for talking with friends) since forever.
  - EJTH 9y ago
    But muting your own friends while gaming with them? Nah.

dougmwne 9y ago

This is a pretty clever way to avoid the uncanny valley for VR videoconferencing. I assume we're a long way from photorealistic avatars based on the holoportation demo from MS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0

jameslk 9y ago
The Holoportation video feels a lot less cringe worthy and cheesy to me. At least there's a lot more body language that's being captured, which feels more natural. Their example of being able to record real life in 3D, play it back, and walk around in the experience also seems more innovative. But of course it's much further away from being ready to use unlike Spaces.
jameshart 9y ago
The challenge VR videoconferencing faces is that by its nature, the people who are participating are wearing headsets that cover their faces. Even hololens headsets are going to get in the way of eye contact. Avatars get around this by projecting a person who isn't wearing a headset.

excalibur 9y ago

This looks exactly like every other social VR app, and is probably ripping off elements from several. (Of course, one could argue that social VR has been borrowing from Facebook all along.)

return0 9y ago

> Be Yourself in VR If second life shows anything, people want to be someone else in VR.

news_to_me 9y ago
If anonymous Youtube comments show anything, some people want to be complete assholes in VR.
- mysterydip 9y ago
  So are they being themselves, or someone else? :)
  - username223 9y ago
    It was named "iD Software," after all...

rosalinekarr 9y ago

This looks like it will have the same problem as early bluetooth headsets: you look crazy using them. As well as they can get it to work and as popular as it becomes among early adopters, it will never really catch on with the general public because most people are too afraid of looking like an idiot to use it in public.

news_to_me 9y ago
I dunno, this seems to be more useful when you're chilling at home chatting with your friends on Facebook Messenger. It doesn't matter how it looks if it's just you in the living room. I'd say the real problem is that chat is good enough - it's why Google Hangouts never really took off as a place to "hang out"

meheleventyone 9y ago

I'd really like them to offer their avatar system for other applications. Identity is so much part of social VR and it would be great to share it between apps.

elvinyung 9y ago

I can't wait until cyberspace literally becomes a consensual hallucination.

__mp 9y ago

I can definitely see some usecases of these experiences. Not wanting to sound too negative, I would prefer to meet the people in person and drink a beer, eat a meal than to lounge around in some virtual room. I see the allure of it if you are staying in a place that is hard to reach. But travel itself is also an experience that can be enjoyed - even more so if it is far away and exotic.

_pius 9y ago
Not wanting to sound too negative, I would prefer to meet the people in person and drink a beer, eat a meal than to lounge around in some virtual room. Sure. But once you've had the experience of your circle of friends dispersing to different cities, the appeal becomes immediately obvious.
- __mp 9y ago
  Actually I am in this position. I rather visit the people and enjoy a weekend with them than put on a VR headset. Also it's a great excuse to go away for a weekend. And if it has to be something interactive I found video conferences quite practical. Also if a meeting is important I prefer to be present than remote because it is easier to gauge reactions of people.
  - Applejinx 9y ago
    I've got a circle of friends I see more often than anyone else, but only on TeamSpeak whilst gaming. I would absolutely love to visit them, but we are all without exception too poor to do any such thing, so it's impossible. I suspect this will play into the success or failure of Facebook Spaces. How many people are on Facebook with enough tech to do this (in its crude low-poly way) but who are also far too poor to flit about physically visiting those they love?
swalsh 9y ago
You may not like it... but your kids will love it.

gallerdude 9y ago

I mean (besides it being Facebook), this is all well and good, but I don't see this being mainstream until VR headsets see some sort of mainstream. I guess this is some kind of chicken and egg problem, and Facebook wants to be at the forefront either way, but I can only see this being a very niche blend of Skype.

JBReefer 9y ago

This is super, super weird but could be huge. It's very Black Mirror, it sort of makes me uncomfortable but I can't explain why. I think it could be a much better version of what Facebook is trying to be, but .... something's off.

DavidBachmann 9y ago

I hope I'm wrong but I think we'll look at this in 5 years and laugh.

pavel_lishin 9y ago
I don't think it'll take that long.

stagbeetle 9y ago

It's a cool gimmick -- and bordering on being a SecondLife spin-off -- but it won't ever replace face-to-face interaction, with digital models.

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> It’s easy to create an identity that represents the real you in Facebook Spaces. This helps people recognize you and makes VR feel more like hanging out in person. Can someone remind me if they still require you to go by your full legal name, or do they let you identify yourself the way you prefer to?

snickerbockers 9y ago

Wow, those avatars actually look more obnoxious than the Nintendo Miis.

accountyaccount 9y ago

These avatars creep me out.

magic_beans 9y ago
I'm surprised they are so creepy looking. You'd think Facebook could afford a decent illustrator to mock up the avatars? But knowing Facebook they're probably algorithmically generated avatar images...
- Applejinx 9y ago
  Not much creativity plus low-poly gives you that creepy look. They can't be particularly creative without alienating subsets of the audience. What you're seeing is basically committee-approved art: many layers of approval given the ability to veto stuff that's 'weird', leading to a bland pablum that offends everybody equally.
  - pyre 9y ago
    In other words, the "Greendale Human Being"[1][2] effect. [1] http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/Greendale_Human_Being http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/Greendale_Human_Being [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-F40mnul8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-F40mnul8
- spyspy 9y ago
  "Uncanny valley" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
  - gman83 9y ago
    https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/living-with-robots https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/living-with-robots Interesting discussion re: the uncanny valley.
  - RugnirViking 9y ago
    Uncanny valley is not the explanation for all creepy looking models. It is specifically a problem with very realistic looking models and textures not being quite right, for a variety of reasons. These models are not attempting to be realistic, nor are they particularly close.

aphextron 9y ago

Available now on the Oculus Store™ with Oculus Rift®!

hunta2097 9y ago

I see Facebook are still pretending the HTC Vive and SteamVR is not a thing. Oculus need to support other headsets or they are going to fall even further behind. Win the mindshare where you can, because you are certainly not anywhere near winning the PC-VR space.

gman83 9y ago
Or Daydream
t0mbstone 9y ago
Yep. All they have to do is release Facebook Spaces for the HTC Vive. Why not? Why tie themselves to only one VR platform? That would be like Facebook only supporting iPhones. My guess is that the higher-ups are suffering from the sunken cost fallacy, and think that they have to stay exclusive to the Rift to justify their Oculus purchase. After all, if they support the Vive, why did they need to purchase Oculus in the first place?
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  To get Carmack.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  Why not an open API for that matter? What if I want to use my Virtuality HMD, hacked PowerGlove and surplus Ascension Flock-of-Birds rig to drop into a VR world? Why shouldn't I be able to do that if I have the equipment and skills to get it to work? BTW - I actually do own all of that equipment (collecting older VR gear is a side hobby of mine). An open API will allow for any VR gear manufacturer to participate. Think about it this way - what if in the beginning, Facebook only supported Dell branded PCs - or more realistically, only Mozilla on Linux - back when they started? Do you think they'd have been as successful? No way to know, of course, but only supporting one (or a few) manufacturer's devices doesn't seem like the best way forward for quick market saturation. Whereas an open api would allow for far more people to get into the game; and if things started to take off, you would also see new independents spring up to sell lower cost HMDs, VR rigs, tracking systems, etc as demand heated up.

bronz 9y ago

the seriousness that vr and vr social apps are addressed with is dumbfounding to me. watch the video at the bottom of the page -- this is a huge joke. nobody will ever put on a headset and grab their controllers when they could just use skype. skype, which is much less hassle and gives you a real face to face experience with the other persons actual face. vr/ar contact lenses are never coming within a window of time that any of us care about. vr in general will remain a useless gimmick for longer than any of us are willing to wait, probably well past all of our deaths. im sick and tired of vr hype.

swalsh 9y ago
I disagree with you. I work remotely, I've had a lot of brainstorming meetings... and they almost always suck, to me the holy grail of remote work would be VR. I really want to have a meeting in VR where I can stand at a whiteboard (or an even better VR version) and show my ideas. The traditional tools REALLY suck.
- vlunkr 9y ago
  How does VR improve that? As opposed to some other form of virtual whiteboard.
  - TuringTest 9y ago
    Laying objects and documents in 3D space is way more expressive than on a flat screen.
germinalphrase 9y ago
I've always found Skype/Facetime/etc. to be off-putting - if only because by looking at the person I'm talking to forces me to appear to look under them (looking at the screen vs looking the camera). During interviews, I make the conscious effort to look at the camera so as to present a more normal eye contact for my viewer, but this undercuts my ability to read their physical responses. If I had true-to-size representation of a person, either in VR or with a 2D screen, that allowed me to use natural eye contact and body language I would use it far more often.

Svexark 9y ago

It's like those services that popped up in the 90s that tried to translate things into the internet age. Like the service that would use your printer to print an entire newspaper for you ever morning.

rl3 9y ago

While this probably is the future some day, I suspect that it will flop in the interim—creating a sort of Google Glass effect that turns people off to VR. I'm sure they don't have many choices from a technical perspective, but the cartoon avatars are kind of creepy if not cringe-inducing.

throwaway29292 9y ago

Very interesting. At this point, there may be many smaller startups that are more innovative or have higher quality VR apps, but if they are competing against FB's massive hold on all aspects of everyday life, there isn't much doubt who the winner will be. More experienced peers, who lived in times when IBM or Microsoft seemed to be all-pervasive (like FB/Google are today): Do you think these companies will fade away in the next few decades? Or they will go on to be 100-year old companies, like today's car/oil companies.

drewmate 9y ago
I'm maybe not that experienced, but I do think that FB/Google are fundamentally different. Microsoft and IBM's 'products' depreciated very quickly. 5-year old software just isn't worth as much as brand new software (especially during that era.) Data, on the other hand, is like a wine that just gets better with age. FB's info about you only gets more valuable the longer they keep getting it. As long as FB/Google have active users, the moats around their businesses will likely seem impenetrable.
- username223 9y ago
  People age and die, though. I doubt FB will implode like MySpace, but oldsters like me, who got tangled up in its webs back when it was only open to ".edu" addresses, will die off. Then FB will have lots of data on corpses, which can no longer click on ads. It can frantically copy rivals for awhile, but once the first generation of kids stops bothering to sign up, it's on its way to the nursing home.

peterchon 9y ago

This would be a great way for people with mobility issues to be included in activities.

wonderwonder 9y ago

Facebook is an advertising platform, their main goal is to get new accounts and usage. They are going to get a lot of mileage with this via the API. Developers will create useful and unexpected applications with this and in order to use the new apps you will need a facebook login. It generates new users for them and helps to prevent someone else from stealing their user base.

swalsh 9y ago

If you want to try it out, but have a Vive... apparently ReVive works.

synaesthesisx 9y ago

Increasingly relevant: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/23/virtual-reality-allows-the-most-detailed-intimate-digital-surveillance-yet/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/23/virtual-reality-allows-t... Emotion detection as a service? I'll pass.

jumpkickhit 9y ago

So avatars are limited. Makes sense, but it could also open up a way to sell premium avatars. Or really, rent their use. If I could design my own avatar, then pay $10 a month for it to be approved and then available to just myself in various online spaces, that would be very cool.

philsnow 9y ago
straight out of neuromancer

pmontra 9y ago

I watched the presentation. The most striking feature is that the avatar is created automatically from profile photos. It's probably possible to game the system, but the default is an avatar that looks like the real person. Compare this with Second Life avatars, if you've been there 10 years ago: they defaulted to some different 20-25 yo person. Not that the avatar of the speaker didn't look younger than she was, but it was still her. I think this has to do with making Spaces a "comfortable place for everyone", where you recognize your friends and don't mingle with strangers. It means it's an extension of the real world and actually many of the Spaces in the video were overlays over the real world. It goes more in the direction of augmented reality than virtual reality. They also presented some interesting stuff in the areas of object recognition, 2D pics to 3D scene transformations, interacting with objects in those scenes, simultaneous localization and mapping (setting virtual objects precisely at a position). Technologically they were the most interesting announcements, in my opinion. The news about Messenger were somewhat underwhelming: smart replies, M suggestions, game challenges, chat extensions. Interesting but not ground breaking. I'm still waiting for end to end encryption to chatbots (encryption is granted on the network but FB's servers see the messages in clear) and for WhatsApp bots.

shostack 9y ago
That also removes a layer of anonymity which, in theory isn't needed because you would be conversing with family and friends. But the second you get other people in the mix, you'll really wish you had the ability to NOT look like yourself.

Existenceblinks 9y ago

Do they have psychologists or psychology department in VR team/department? After facebook era, I don't really buy what facebook is building. That doesn't seems to be a right social network (driving people crazy, lonely, unhealthy addicted, etc.) If we are going to go full healthy virtual world, please think carefully. I used to live in a city (Bangkok) that has most active facebook users in the world. The society is sick. When everyone is psychopathic, no one knows who is. That's bad to me, then I moved out to a peaceful city in the northeastern, closed facebook account. Life is going normal now.

cr0sh 9y ago
> The society is sick. When everyone is psychopathic Can you elaborate on what you mean here? In what way is the society of Bangkok "sick and psychopathic"?