Facebook teases the future of remote workspaces using mixed reality

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday announced that employees would embrace work from home even after the lockdown restrictions ease out in various parts of the world. Shortly after, the company augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) head Andrew ‘Boz’ Bozworth teased how the future of remote workspaces would look like.

“As we think through supercharging remote work and productivity, we've been working on mixed reality concepts that builds on existing technologies like Passthrough to allow people to switch between real and virtual worlds,” he wrote in a tweet that was accompanied by an eight-second long video which demonstrated how remote workspace would look like in mixed reality, which essentially is a mix of AR and VR.

The video shows an individual typing and switching between three screens in a mixed reality working space. The video, the Facebook executive explained, is a ‘real footage’ from a prototype headset, possibly one from the company’s Oculus business.

Boz’s tweet was complimented by a blog post by the company wherein it detailed how remote workspaces would look like in future. The company also announced its plans of building a super-powered augmented workspace that would leverage various technologies to deliver a more flexible working environment to users.

“In the future, we could create a super-powered augmented workspace with multiple customizable screens in VR, unbounded from the limits of ​physical monitors. It would leverage technologies like Passthrough to create a mixed reality productivity experience that allows people to switch between real and virtual worlds at any time, improving spatial awareness while offering the flexibility we’re accustomed to with laptops and other common devices,” the company wrote in the blog post.

“This new concept demo shown here gives you a taste of what this could look like. With seamless desktop integration and networked social features, you could be productive from anywhere in the world and sit alongside colleagues virtually — a new way to get things done,” it added.