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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12939159" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="phil-libin" source="Orion">Phil Libin</keyword> is the former boss of Evernote and is now CEO of videoconference company <keyword id="13115586" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mmhmm" source="Orion">Mmhmm</keyword>.</li><li>He told Insider he'd tried out <keyword id="11900295" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="horizon-workrooms" source="Orion">Horizon Workrooms</keyword>, <keyword id="12416504" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="meta" source="Orion">Meta</keyword>'s VR meeting software, and wasn't impressed.</li></ul>When tech founder <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-founder-phil-libin-trades-in-silicon-valley-for-arkansas-2021-4">Phil Libin</a> donned his Oculus VR headset to try out Meta's first <keyword id="11121339" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="metaverse" source="Orion">metaverse</keyword> product, he was hoping it wouldn't be terrible."I had a very, very strong feeling that it would suck, but I went into it with as much hope as possible that I would be pleasantly surprised," Libin said in an interview with Insider.He and his employees at videoconference company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-mmhmm-app-tutorial-2020-11">Mmhmm</a>, where he is CEO, were trying out Meta's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-horizon-workrooms-such-a-bad-idea-it-hurts-2021-8">Horizon Workrooms</a> product. Horizon Workrooms lets people use VR headsets for virtual work meetings in the so-called metaverse.Libin said his gut instinct turned out to be correct. "It was only tolerable for a few minutes," he said.He believes that using VR for meetings is less enticing than familiar technologies such as Zoom, where people can still do real-world things like drinking a cup of coffee. "Can't do that with a giant plastic thing on my face without spilling hot coffee all over myself," Libin said.<div type="image" title="Facebook horizon workrooms model" height="1440" width="1920" msid="89385006" hostid="261"></div>The word "metaverse" is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-term-creator-neal-stephenson-distances-himself-from-facebook-zuckerberg-2021-10">borrowed from science-fiction</a> and refers to a future version of the internet accessed through immersive technologies such as virtual-reality and augmented-reality headsets. It has been pushed in particular by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-the-metaverse-golden-goose-2022-1">Mark Zuckerberg</a>, who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-new-name-meta-rebrand-metaverse-zuckerberg-apps-2021-10">rebranded Facebook as Meta</a> in October.In its fourth quarter earnings report Wednesday, Meta said its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-metaverse-business-completely-misses-wall-street-expectations-reality-labs-2022-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">new metaverse business lost $10 billion</a> and its user base <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-facebook-user-numbers-shrink-first-time-ever-2022-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">shrank for the first time in its history</a>. Meta stock plummeted 26.4% Thursday, erasing nearly $240 billion from the company's valuation in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-q4-earnings-largest-ever-one-day-wipeout-190-billion-2022-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">the largest one-day wipeout in US corporate history</a>.Libin has previously been critical of the hype surrounding the metaverse. In a podcast interview last month, he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-hype-communist-propaganda-evernote-founder-phil-libin-soviet-union-2022-1">compared the hype with communist propaganda</a> he received as a child living in the former Soviet Union.And he remains unconvinced.He says the vision of the metaverse presented by Meta – one of an "interconnected 3D world that we experience for many hours a day, both for fun and for work primarily through VR" – "that package of things is godawful.""It's an old idea," Libin told Insider. "It's uncreative, it's been tried many, many times over the past four decades and it's never worked."Proponents of the metaverse believe we'll have to wait to see its full potential, Libin said, but he doesn't think that's how great technology works."I think great technology starts out being primitive, but it starts out being great immediately," he said. Over time, he said, great technology gets "more polished and more mature and more sophisticated."He gave the example of early video game consoles, and his first ever purchase from Amazon in the mid-nineties."It was my very first ever e-commerce transaction — went to the Amazon website, and Amazon in the mid-nineties was super primitive. It was like a text-based site all you could do is buy books from it. And it didn't have one-click checkout: it was very, very basic. But I bought a couple of books and I remember understanding at that point, 'this is amazing.'"As for Horizon Workrooms, Libin said: "It's not gonna get better because it started bad. It started stupid. It can get more sophisticated, but it'll just be more sophisticated – but still bad."

Meta's vision for the metaverse is an 'old idea' that's 'never worked,' tech CEO says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>When Mark Zuckerberg urged Meta to have virtual meetings, many staff didn't own VR headsets, per NYT.</li><li>Meta staff rushed to buy headsets and set them up before managers realized, a source told the NYT.</li></ul>Mark Zuckerberg pressed teams at Meta to organize and attend virtual meetings when many employees didn't have VR headsets, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/technology/meta-zuckerberg-metaverse.html">The New York Times</a> reported on Sunday.Zuckerberg told employees this year to have their meetings on Meta's Horizon Workrooms app, where people can come together as avatars in virtual workspaces, a person familiar with the matter told The Times.Meta, formerly known as Facebook until last year, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-horizon-workrooms-pushes-for-metaverse-2021-8">launched</a> Horizon Workrooms in August 2021. To access Horizon Workrooms, people need to have the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/how-to-connect-oculus-quest-to-a-pc">Meta Quest 2</a>, the company's VR headset.The source, who remained anonymous, told The Times that many Meta employees didn't have VR headsets this year or hadn't gotten around to setting them up. Those staff then had to rush to purchase headsets and register them before their managers realized, the source told The Times.Meta increased the price of its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/meta-quest-2-price-increase-2022-7">Quest 2</a> by $100 in August, from $299 to <a href="https://www.meta.com/gb/quest/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC05-YVKApPCUDR5UEzdSLIpJXiOa07U85jQhXxd7pd7FTz0UEpOqcS0aAuiBEALw_wcB&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds">$399</a>. Quest 2 was first known as the Oculus Quest 2 when it launched in 2020, but Meta changed its name the following year to Meta Quest 2.Meta didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson, told The Times in a statement that it was easy to be a "cynic about new and innovative technology" but creating it was more difficult."That's what we're doing because we believe the metaverse is the future of computing," Stone told the newspaper.The Times reported that it spoke to more than a dozen current and former staff at Meta who requested to remain anonymous and obtained internal communications for its article.Included in the Times report was inside information from two employees who told the newspaper that some workers call important metaverse projects <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-employees-zuckerberg-metaverse-projects-make-mark-happy-report-2022-10">"make Mark happy,"</a> abbreviating it to "MMH."It comes as internal memos obtained by <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/6/23391895/meta-facebook-horizon-worlds-vr-social-network-too-buggy-leaked-memo?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4">The Verge</a> suggest that employees weren't using Meta's Horizon Worlds app enough."Why don't we love the product we've built so much that we use it all the time," Meta's Metaverse vice president Vishal Shah wrote in the memo, per The Verge. "The simple truth is, if we don't love it, how can we expect our users to love it?"

Mark Zuckerberg urged Meta staff to have virtual meetings when many of them didn't have VR headsets, report says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>I was invited to try Meta's $1,500 virtual reality headset at its Kings Cross office in London. </li><li>I used the device to attend a meeting in Horizon Workrooms — Meta's collaborative work tool in VR. </li></ul>When I was invited to try out Meta's latest virtual reality headset in Horizon Workrooms — a virtual office in its metaverse — I jumped at the opportunity. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-wont-change-office-create-new-ways-earning-digital-assets-2021-11?r=US&amp;IR=T">I had written about the metaverse</a> before and its use in the workplace and I was pretty sceptical. It seemed far-fetched to put on a vision-obscuring device just to meet my colleagues in VR, and even more complicated for those with children or pets at home. But Meta had launched the <a href="https://www.meta.com/gb/quest/quest-pro/#overview">Meta Quest Pro</a> in October — priced at an eye-watering $1,500 — and boasting features like pass-through and spatial audio.The device gives users access to Horizon Worlds, a social universe in Meta's metaverse. Workrooms is one tool in that universe, which can be used to hold meetings in VR."Virtual worlds have the potential to recapture that same sense of togetherness that many of us feel are missing," from remote work, Steve Hatch, Meta's VP for Northern Europe, said at an event Insider attended at Meta's Kings Cross office in London. I wasn't convinced that being in a virtual world with an avatar-like rendering of my colleagues would help me feel closer to them, but Meta's product marketing manager for Oculus, Yuxi Wang, told Insider that the device "surprisingly feels like you're actually right in the same room together."Wang said Meta wants workers to "enjoy more real estate," when working from home so they have greater options for productivity. It was hardly surprising that Meta's own staff would say they enjoyed the company's product, so I was curious to try out the device myself for the first time.<h2>The tech was undeniably very cool </h2><div type="image" title="A circular virtual reality headset on a table" height="1480" width="1974" msid="96569687" hostid="261" sizebytes="80064"></div>I popped on the lightweight and sleek-looking device and was transported into a large office with windows overlooking mountains and the sea. I was stunned by how vivid and realistic everything looked.Looking around at other people's avatars, I was impressed with the diversity of features and clothing options. There was an avatar with a patka, one with a pagri, and another with a bindi. They looked incredibly lifelike with some raising their eyebrows and others laughing — I soon realized that my avatar's facial expressions mirrored my own. The instructor in the meeting changed the location of the office a few times, first to a futuristic city with skyscrapers, and then to a beach — a perk definitely not available in real-life. The layout of the desk was also adjustable and people could be divided into breakout rooms, making collaboration easier. <div type="image" title="Avatars working and talking in an office in virtual reality" height="1559" width="2079" msid="96569688" hostid="261" sizebytes="93902"></div>There were a range of work-specific features like monitors that were blurred to anyone else looking — handy if you're working with sensitive or confidential information. People could also join via video call and we could see them through a monitor. The pass-through option enabled me to see the real world with virtual monitors overlaid. When turned on, I could see my real desk in front of me and my phone on top of it. Wang said this would give people the ability to see their kids or pets or make a coffee without having to take the device off.Another striking feature was spatial audio and teleportation. By pointing my hands towards a particular seat and clicking on it, I could transport my avatar into that seat and the volume and direction of a person's voice would change according to the seat I was in. <h2>I don't see myself using it at work regularly</h2>I and other journalists at the event were thoroughly impressed by the tech, its various work-specific features, and the remarkable fluidity of movement the avatars had, but I don't see myself using it at work on a regular basis.Meta had emphasized the feeling of "togetherness" and connection you feel in VR, but it felt like the opposite. Looking at people's avatars instead of their real faces felt inauthentic and further honed in on the fact that I'm not really there with them. Adi Gaskell, a freelance journalist agreed, saying: "It only seems to be used at the moment as a form of doing meetings, so I wonder is an avatar making facial expressions better than seeing someone either in person or via Zoom et al?" I also started to feel the pressure of the device on my head after 10 minutes and although it was adjustable, I was relieved to take it off after around 20 minutes. Gaskell pointed out that VR "doesn't address" some of the primary concerns about remote work including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-feel-just-as-productive-working-from-home-bosses-disagree-2022-6?r=US&amp;IR=T">proximity bias</a> and networking. He said: "Your avatar is largely tethered to a desk so you don't have the informal 'water cooler' moments you get at work, and it doesn't even seem to be geared towards working full-time 'alongside' your colleagues either.""It doesn't really change the disconnect between on-site and remote workers as they still only come together for meetings," he added.Hatch said that one of Meta's predictions for the future of work is that companies will start investing in VR tech over laptop upgrades, but with the expensive price tag and a global recession on the horizon, I have my doubts.

I tried out Meta's $1,500 virtual reality headset to attend a meeting in the metaverse. The tech was undeniably cool, but after 20 minutes I was relieved to take it off.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11892960" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="facebook" source="Orion">Facebook</keyword> launched Horizon Workrooms, a <keyword id="11896065" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="vr" source="Orion">VR</keyword> workspace for team meetings, on Thursday. </li><li><keyword id="11896062" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mark-zuckerberg" source="Orion">Mark Zuckerberg</keyword> said he sees Facebook's future in the <keyword id="11896066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="virtual-reality" source="Orion">virtual reality</keyword> "<keyword id="11121339" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="metaverse" source="Orion">metaverse</keyword>."</li><li>But Facebook has tried - and failed - to create workspace products in the past.</li></ul>Mark Zuckerberg wants us all to <keyword id="11896063" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="work" source="Orion">work</keyword> in virtual reality.Zuckerberg announced the launch of Horizon Workrooms, a virtual reality workspace that lets employees mimic team meetings and socializing, on CBS Morning <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">News</keyword> on Thursday. Using the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-connect-oculus-quest-to-a-pc">Oculus Quest 2</a>, Facebook's virtual reality headset, users can create avatars that would access their work laptop and interact with colleagues in a virtual "metaverse." The technology also allows for socializing with coworkers, real-world experiences which Facebook said cannot be replicated with current remote work tech."Without the right connective tools, remote work still has plenty of challenges," Facebook said in a <a href="https://www.oculus.com/blog/workrooms/">release</a>. "Working without colleagues around you can feel isolating at times, and brainstorming with other people just doesn't feel the same if you're not in the same room." Facebook's new tools coincide with a COVID-19 pandemic-era shift in how we work. Employees are pushing for remote work options, and a significant number are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/in-war-over-work-from-home-remote-wfh-is-winning">willing to quit their jobs</a> if employers can't provide flexible options. And though leisure travel made a comeback this summer as vaccinations picked up, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/leisure-travel-coming-back-experts-business-travel-recovery-years-out-2021-7">business travel did not</a>. <div type="image" title="avatars look at charts inside Facebook's Horizon Workrooms metaverse" height="2160" width="2880" msid="85458699" hostid="261"></div>Facebook has tried - and failed - to create popular work products in the past. Few companies use <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-use-the-facebook-at-work-enterprise-tool-2016-5">Facebook at Work</a>, an internal messaging platform, over Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Chat, per Mio Industry Trends.Facebook's push beyond social media also reflects its slowing growth. Though the site has the most total monthly users of all other platforms, Insider Intelligence expects Facebook to experience its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-will-experience-its-slowest-growth-ever-in-2021-2021-6">slowest year for user growth in 2021</a>. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg told The Verge's Casey Newton he intends to transform Facebook to a "metaverse company" from the existing social media platform. Last year, the company began inviting some people to use <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-testing-horizon-social-virtual-reality-app-2020-3">Facebook Horizon</a>, an app that allows users to interact in a virtual reality world."I think of the metaverse as the next generation of the internet," Zuckerberg told <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-launches-horizon-workrooms-virtual-reality-app/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab8d&amp;linkId=1282302590259">CBS's Gayle King</a>. "So you can kind of think about it as, instead of being an internet that we look at, right, on our mobile phones or our computer screens, it's an internet that we are a part of, or that we can be inside of."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/areas-salesforce-focused-on-competes-with-microsoft-slack-automation-2021-8">The 4 most important areas Salesforce is focused on as it competes with and fends off Microsoft</a>Facebook isn't the only company trying to stake claim in the metaverse. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-roblox-roblox-direct-listing-2021-3">Roblox</a>, a gaming platform that allows users to build their own metaverse, went public in March with a nearly $44 billion valuation.<div type="image" title="a user accesses his work email on Facebook's Horizon Workrooms metaverse" height="2160" width="2880" msid="85458700" hostid="261"></div>But Roblox missed on its most recent earnings after bookings, or the virtual currency users spend on clothes and avatar accessories, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/roblox-stock-price-today-2q-earnings-revenue-user-growth-2021-8">showed slower than expected growth</a>. "All these tools, whether it's video conferencing, or eventually being able to collaborate better in the metaverse, in products like Workrooms, what we built here, I think is all just part of this progression of giving people more freedom to live where they want," Zuckerberg said on CBS.

Mark Zuckerberg's bet on the future of Facebook is virtual reality meetings with your coworkers

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Companies are spending millions to get their workers into virtual workspaces to try and recreate the office environment on the computer even if that doesn't help people do more work.</li><li><keyword id="6354576" type="General" weightage="60" keywordseo="facebook" source="Orion">Facebook</keyword>'s Horizon Workrooms is another piece of unnecessary software that brings the worst of the office to <keyword id="6380951" type="General" weightage="60" keywordseo="vr" source="Orion">VR</keyword>.</li><li>There's an identity crisis being caused by "work from home" around whether people are paid to do a job, or work a specific set of hours, and the metaverse could be used as a form of surveillance to make sure people are working.</li><li>Ed Zitron is the CEO of EZPR, and a contributing <keyword id="6356002" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="opinion" source="Orion">opinion</keyword> writer for Insider.</li><li>This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.</li></ul>Facebook has entered the realm of the metaverse with their new "<a href="https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2514011888645651/?intern_source=blog&amp;intern_content=workroomsooms">Horizon Workrooms</a>" product, a virtual reality-based office workspace where you and a bunch of your workmates can recreate the feeling of being in a room and talking. You can see where people are looking, and even see their arms and hands moving, as well as write on a whiteboard in a virtual world, all of which apparently is good for "cohesion" or "collaboration." It looks categorically awful - an awkward, buggy and unsettling professional version of Max Headroom, and more importantly does absolutely nothing to help with the experience of doing work. It's all part of Zuckerberg's plan to make Facebook into "<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/28/zuckerberg-is-turning-trillion-dollar-facebook-into-a-metaverse-company-he-tells-investors/">a metaverse company</a>," a meaningless statement that has now been saddled up and rode to the doorstep of venture capitalists, with the meaning ranging from "it's a virtual world we work in" to "uhh, it sort of involves social media." Facebook's very specific stab at the professional workspace world is a step beyond <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/18/virtual-hqs-race-to-win-over-a-remote-work-fatigued-market/">the concept of virtual headquarters</a>, and is clearly being sold to the companies that don't like remote work because it means that they can't see their people working. It may seem as if it's a company giving their workers physicality and space, but if anything it's a chance for these companies to take away individuality and introduce more means of control. It's a return to what the real point of the office is - to trap people and make them work as long as humanely possible, and to make sure they're actually working - framed in the spurious language of "collaboration" and "closeness" to your colleagues. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/30/work-from-home-surveillance/">The Washington Post's Drew Harwell</a> wrote a piece that reflects on the more worrying side of digitized work - the onset of surveillance software, and these virtual worlds being willing accomplices to micromanagers whose existence is predicated on tattling. Similarly, he speaks of "tattlewear" - the popular term for software that logs your keystrokes, takes photos of you as you're working, and even assigns a "productivity score" to make sure you're using all eight of those hours productively. It's a truly insidious industry, one that continues to grow its tendrils into the lives of employees. <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90666970/employee-surveillance-monitoring-tools-study">A recent study</a> found that over half of employee monitoring tools monitor your keyboard and mouse movements, with three quarters of them measuring your activity in real time, including what websites you're viewing. Nearly half of these tools can take these measurements without you knowing, and a worrying 43.75% of these programs can track your keystrokes. Business is booming in the snitching software industry, and it's a concerted effort to introduce paranoia and misery into the world of the remote worker - <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90509420/surveilling-employees-who-work-from-home-could-do-more-harm-than-good">even though these types of software tools have proven to be a drain on productivity and morale</a>. In my mind, these exist to give managers that have no actual purpose beyond being hall monitors in the office something to do now that they can't huff dramatically and pretend they're busy in the office. A great deal of these problems stem from an identity crisis within employment - are we paying for labor, or people's time? When we had people in the office, we had the ability to say "okay, they're present, they look busy," and that played an outsized role in whether we thought someone was good at their job. Without it, companies are having to start evaluating people based on what it is they actually do, and are terrified that - even if the person is doing their job! - they're not getting the "full time experience" from that person. This is where I think the growth of these virtual worlds is coming from. I don't think that they're bad by default - I spent the best part of a decade playing online multiplayer games that take place within virtual worlds, making lasting friendships in EverQuest and World of Warcraft - but I worry that some virtual worlds may become virtual offices for the sake of taking attendance. In the same way that these dysfunctional companies are demanding people always have their camera on, they may demand that people are always "in their virtual office," a truly bizarre yet inevitable way that people will be judged. If handled properly, these could resemble fun online hangout spaces that also double as places you visit to get work done - if done poorly, they will embrace the flaws of the in-person work standard, leveling bias against people based on their race, gender and ability. This is part of the reason I find Horizon Workrooms so utterly loathsome. Facebook has simply created another way to return to the office - an office that benefits those who "speak up" and "look engaged," an optics-driven environment that vastly benefits white men, who are <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-post-pandemic-offices-could-be-whiter-and-more-male/">coincidentally the most excited to return to the office</a>, according to research from FiveThirtyEight - in part because office culture was created to aid white, able-bodied men. If the next virtual worlds are simply finding ways to do the same things we did in the office but on the internet, the internet will do what it always does - compound and agitate those problems while making them portable and cloneable. And on some level, do we really want to be "immersed" in work? Is that necessary? Should we aspire to a point where our mind and body are entirely, inseparably trapped in the computer to make someone else money? It all comes down to why people are investing in these metaversal offices - is it because they truly want people to hang out, and find a way to get closer? Or is it because they want to get everybody in one place, and keep an eye on them in case they decide to stop praying to the almighty gods of business? Judging on the ambitions of enterprise, I fear the latter is far more likely.

The tech industry is blowing millions of dollars to make work from home into a worker-surveillance dystopia

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11892960" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="facebook" source="Orion">Facebook</keyword> said it would create 10,000 jobs in <keyword id="11897120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="europe" source="Orion">Europe</keyword> over five years to make a "<keyword id="11121339" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="metaverse" source="Orion">metaverse</keyword>."</li><li>The metaverse is a theoretical virtual space where people can access the internet.</li></ul>Facebook plans to create 10,000 jobs across the European Union (EU) over the next five years in pursuit of CEO <keyword id="11896062" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mark-zuckerberg" source="Orion">Mark Zuckerberg</keyword>'s vision of a "metaverse," the company announced in a press release Monday.Zuckerberg first told <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview">The Verge</a> in July that he wants Facebook to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zuckerberg-said-facebook-will-eventually-become-a-metaverse-company-2021-7?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">eventually become a "metaverse company."</a> The word <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-metaverse-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-roblox-animal-crossing-2021-8?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">metaverse</a> refers to a theoretical virtual space where people can access the internet, for example using virtual-reality or augmented-reality headsets.The first concrete example of a Facebook metaverse product is Horizon Workrooms, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-horizon-workrooms-pushes-for-metaverse-2021-8?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">VR workspace for team meetings launched in August</a>.Facebook said the jobs it creates in the EU would be highly skilled, including specialized engineers roles. "This investment is a vote of confidence in the strength of the European tech industry and the potential of European tech talent," Facebook said in a statement shared with Insider.A Facebook spokesperson told Insider the company's recruiters would target countries including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, and Ireland.The announcement came the same day <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-whistleblowers-frances-haugen-sophie-zhang-profit-2021-10?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">whistleblower Sophie Zhang</a>, a former Facebook data scientist who went public with her criticisms of the company in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/12/facebook-fake-engagement-whistleblower-sophie-zhang">April</a>, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/14/facebook-whistleblower-sophie-zhang-testify/">due to give testimony to a UK parliamentary committee</a>.Another whistleblower, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/highlights-from-facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-senate-testimony-2021-10?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Frances Haugen</a>, is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58870495">due to give testimony to the committee</a> next week.

Facebook says it's hiring 10,000 people in Europe to help build Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse'

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11892960" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="facebook" source="Orion">Facebook</keyword>'s <keyword id="11896066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="virtual-reality" source="Orion">virtual reality</keyword> office is the dreary-looking beginnings of the "<keyword id="11121339" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="metaverse" source="Orion">metaverse</keyword>" - <keyword id="11894135" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="silicon-valley" source="Orion">Silicon Valley</keyword>'s new buzzword. </li><li>Recent investments into developing immersive digital spaces signal the Valley has given up on our shared reality. </li><li>Zuckerberg and others have traded in real-world problems like climate change and inequality for their tasteless virtual world. </li><li>Kelly Pendergrast is a writer, researcher, and media artist based in San Francisco.</li><li>This is an <keyword id="11905565" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="opinion" source="Orion">opinion</keyword> column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author. </li></ul>When Facebook revealed the first public glimpse of Horizon Workrooms last Thursday, it didn't look like the future I want.Workrooms, currently in open beta, is Facebook's first attempt at a VR product for meetings. Facebook <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/08/introducing-horizon-workrooms-remote-collaboration-reimagined/">describes Workrooms</a> as a "collaboration experience that lets people come together to work in the same virtual room, regardless of physical distance." In other words, it's an immersive virtual conference room with digital avatars and graphic versions of the technology you'd expect from an online meeting like screenshare, smartboards, and document collaboration. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22629942/facebook-workrooms-horizon-oculus-vr">Screenshots</a> from the recent press briefing show a virtual Workroom all too similar to the brick and mortar offices familiar to many of us - a wood veneer table arranged in the round, overhead fluorescents (or maybe energy-efficient LEDs), and dreary gray carpet. The avatars of the casually-dressed meeting attendees were seated in front of laptops, some looking engaged and others typing away distractedly. None of them had legs, but who needs legs in virtual reality?To be fair, Workrooms is currently in beta. I can imagine that future versions might have more varied options for the workspace environment, or at least avatars that don't cut off abruptly at the waist. Still, I wasn't sold on this first glimpse of what Zuckerberg might be imagining when he talks glowingly of the "metaverse" he's planning to build out at Facebook. The company's focus on the metaverse is one more way that Silicon Valley leaders are more focused on abstract futures and pie-in-the-sky solutions - from space travel to the <a href="https://futurism.com/singularity-explain-it-to-me-like-im-5-years-old">singularity</a> - than the material conditions of our shared world today.<h2>For most people, reality sucks </h2>The "metaverse" is currently a hot buzzword with digital creators, venture capitalists, and investors looking to sign on to the next big thing. Depending on who you listen to, the metaverse is the virtual world described in Neal Stephenson's dystopian novel "Snow Crash", or "<a href="https://www.matthewball.vc/all/themetaverse">the gateway to most digital experiences, a key component of all physical ones, and the next great labor platform</a>." Zuckerberg is today's most visible metaverse booster, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview">describing it as</a> an "embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content - you are in it." Let's get real for a second - the metaverse idea isn't anything new or interesting. It's a catchy sci-fi name for an interactive digital environment where people and companies can hang out, build apps, make money, and extract data. It is <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/24/4698382/second-lifes-strange-second-life">Second Life</a> with portable IP, or <a href="https://www.polygon.com/22326123/what-is-roblox-explainer-public-offering">Roblox</a> with more meetings. However, what is worth paying attention to is the recent massive <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/announcing-a-1-billion-funding-round-to-support-epics-long-term-vision-for-the-metaverse">glut</a> <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/roundhill-investments-and-matthew-ball-launch-metaverse-etf-nysemeta-301322633.html">of</a> <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/04/facebook-buys-studio-behind-roblox-like-crayta-gaming-platform/">investment</a> and interest in so-called metaverse companies and technology. This recent cash infusion and spate of think pieces are the symptom of something much more disturbing than any specific digital conference room: Some of the biggest brains and deepest pockets in Silicon Valley are giving up on our shared reality.Well, not for themselves. Their reality is mostly just fine - plenty of money, flexible schedules, and ample opportunities for cultural enrichment. But for the rest of us plebs, <keyword id="6358815" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tech" source="Orion">tech</keyword> CEOs and VCs can see that life is pretty hard. Marc Andreessen of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz calls this disconnect "reality privilege," paraphrasing <a href="https://medium.com/@beaucronin/unbundling-reality-fa406f66ab7">an idea from</a> technologist Beau Cronin. "Reality has had 5,000 years to get good, and is clearly still woefully lacking for most people," <a href="https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-dubrovnik-interviews-marc-andreessen">Andreesen said</a> earlier this year. This sentiment isn't new - books like Jane McGonigal's "Reality is Broken" contrasted a disappointing "reality" with the exciting worlds of online back in 2011. While the privileged few "live in a real-world environment that is rich, even overflowing, with glorious substance" - as Andreessen puts it - everyone else has to deal with crappy jobs, crappy pay, and various overlapping environmental crises. On this point, he's not wrong. While the looming threat of climate change is coming for us all - even those with escape bunkers or mountain retreats - all the advances of the modern world <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-broken-out-of-truly-transformative-tech-ideas-2021-7">have done little to improve the lives</a> of anyone sweating away in an Amazon warehouse or digging through piles of e-waste for scraps of precious metal. But to assume that the lives of everyday people are universally hopeless and miserable is its own kind of privilege. The distinction between "reality" and online space is a false one - it's all the same world, and we all have to live here.While many in tech (including Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos) blame onerous state regulation and a fusty federal government for preventing innovation and corporate-facilitated "progress", a full acknowledgement of today's inequality should lead to a massive rethinking of how the <keyword id="11893570" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="economy" source="Orion">economy</keyword> is structured and how companies are regulated. This needs to include divestment from fossil fuels, investment in equitable infrastructure, and a massive reallocation of wealth away from billionaires and towards everyday people. Of course, this isn't the future that Zuckerberg or Andreessen are working towards - why would they, when they benefit from the current inequality? Instead, they're dumping money and time into more immersive and all-encompassing digital spaces. Andreessen advocates for building online worlds that make life enjoyable for everyone, "no matter what level of reality deprivation they find themselves in." <h2>Tech's virtual "solution"</h2>During last year's wildfire season, entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan <a href="https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1304159808661061633">tweeted</a> that "as the physical world fails, the digital world offers a seeming workaround." Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview">describes</a> how he sees the metaverse helping solve inequality by "flattening out distance," making geography obsolete and allowing coders from Bogotá to have the same opportunity as someone in Palo Alto: Just teleport in! The end goal of metaverse companies may indeed be to develop a rich, varied, immersive digital environment where people lacking "reality privilege" can find some pleasure and early investors can make a boat load of money. But the dreary contours of Facebook's new foray into "intense VR" for collaboration shows that even metaverse work spaces - where truly anything is possible - are likely to be grim, banal replicas of already-depressing physical work spaces, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-industry-facebook-making-work-from-home-worse-office-surveillance-2021-8">with added data extraction</a>. Despite the hardships of COVID, endless Zoom meetings, and smoke-filled summer skies, the thought of wearing VR goggles to attend a morning standup meeting inside what might as well be Wolfenstein 3D leaves me cold. If immersive virtual meetings are to be the future, there are other examples of collaborative digital environments that are far more interesting, surprising, and equitable than Facebook's Workrooms. Since the early 2000s, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2004/09/campus-life-comes-to-second-life/">educators held college classes</a> and built creative workspaces like UC Davis' <a href="https://youtu.be/qOFU9oUF2HA?t=222">Virtual Hallucination Site</a> inside Second Life, "Linden Lab's 3D metaverse." During the peak of the pandemic last year, a group of artists and researchers from New York University <a href="https://newpublic.substack.com/p/they-needed-a-virtual-world-so-they">collectively developed</a> an open-source live, 3D virtual space for online gatherings inspired by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsUfmDKc_P3gB0oW3y9VUZhZZ2vjHkTSv">an eccentric 1990s public access TV show</a>. There are myriad ways that people can build online workspaces - or playspaces - for themselves along parameters they choose, as a way to forge relationships and solidarity with their colleagues, friends, and strangers across the globe. VR and digital spaces are just as much a part of "reality" as anything else, and we need to ensure they aren't fully captured and exploited by the same companies that already mediate so much of our daily life.

Silicon Valley has given up on reality - and now they want us all to use their terrible new alternative

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12048103" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="khaby-lame" source="Orion">Khaby Lame</keyword> promoted <keyword id="11892960" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="facebook" source="Orion">Facebook</keyword>'s <keyword id="11121339" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="metaverse" source="Orion">metaverse</keyword> in a new video with CEO <keyword id="11896062" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mark-zuckerberg" source="Orion">Mark Zuckerberg</keyword>.</li><li>The video features Lame teleporting to different locations as Zuckerberg narrates.</li></ul><a href="https://www.insider.com/khaby-lame-tiktok-most-popular-creator-charli-damelio-2021-7">Khabane "Khaby" Lame</a>, the second-most-popular TikToker in the world, promoted Facebook's metaverse in a new video with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO.<a href="https://twitter.com/Meta/status/1454499897151934464">The 21-second video</a> features the Senegalese-Italian TikTok star appearing to teleport to different locations - in front of a game of chess, outside of a picturesque house, in a room with people cycling, on a tropical beach - by simply pressing his fingers to his forehead. For months, Zuckerberg has been touting the idea of establishing a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-metaverse-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-roblox-animal-crossing-2021-8">metaverse</a> - a digital world where people can perform real-life activities using virtual avatars. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-google-ceo-expresses-concerns-about-facebook-metaverse-2021-10">Zuckerberg said</a> at the company's Oculus Connect event that he wanted the company to be "metaverse first, not Facebook first." In August, the company announced a virtual-reality program called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-horizon-workrooms-pushes-for-metaverse-2021-8">Horizon Workrooms</a>, in which people from across the globe could interact and meet to work inside virtual worlds using pixelated avatars."Your home is your personal space, from which you can teleport to anywhere you want," Zuckerberg said in the promotional video. "Teleporting around the metaverse is going to be like clicking a link on the internet."The video was uploaded on Saturday to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CVqSKgoAPDB/">Lame's account</a> on the Facebook-owned Instagram, which has 54 million followers. "Teleportation station," Lame wrote in the caption of the post, which had received over 3.3 million likes at the time of writing.It was also published the same day on the official Twitter account for Meta, which was known as Facebook until <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-new-name-meta-rebrand-metaverse-zuckerberg-apps-2021-10">Zuckerberg announced</a> the name change on Thursday."No one makes jumping around the metaverse look easier than <a href="https://twitter.com/KhabyLame">@KhabyLame</a>," said the caption of the tweet, which had about 1.7 million views, 23,000 likes, and 7,000 retweets at the time of writing.Lame, 21, blew up on TikTok when he started posting clips on the platform after he lost his job as a factory employee at the start of the pandemic, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/style/khaby-lame-tiktok.html">The New York Times</a> reported. At the time of writing, he had over 117 million followers and 1.8 billion likes under the handle <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@khaby.lame?lang=en">"khaby.lame."</a> He's known for his deadpan reaction videos and no-frills, offhand comedy style.He's the second-most-followed TikToker in the world, behind Charli D'Amelio, who has 127 million followers on the app, the social-analytics website <a href="https://socialblade.com/tiktok/user/khaby.lame">SocialBlade</a> indicated.<a href="https://www.insider.com/culture">Read more stories from Insider's Digital Culture desk.</a>

Khaby Lame, the second-most-popular TikToker in the world, promoted Facebook's metaverse in a video with Mark Zuckerberg

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/onlyfans-to-block-sexually-explicit-nsfw-content-starting-in-october-2021-8"></a>Good morning and welcome to <keyword id="11907113" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="10-things-in-tech" source="Orion">10 Things in Tech</keyword>. If this was forwarded to you, <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/10-things-in-tech">sign up here</a>. ​​Plus, download Insider's app for news on the go - <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id554260576?pt=385758&amp;ct=06292021_newsletters&amp;mt=8amp;mt=8">click here for iOS</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.freerange360.mpp.businessinsider&amp;r[%E2%80%A6]ers%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D06292021%26anid%3Dadmobdmob">here for Android</a>.Let's get started.1. <keyword id="11897491" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="onlyfans" source="Orion">OnlyFans</keyword> will block some sexually explicit content starting in October. In a major shift from its NSFW roots, the company said it will implement new policies banning some pornographic content. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/onlyfans-to-block-sexually-explicit-nsfw-content-starting-in-october-2021-8">Why OnlyFans is getting out of the porn game.</a>2. Amazon is planning to open department stores in California and Ohio. The WSJ reported that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-open-department-store-style-shops-california-ohio-report-2021-8">the stores</a> would sell a mix of furniture, clothing, and electronics. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-amazon-would-open-department-stores-2021-8">Here's why Amazon would invest in brick-and-mortar stores, an industry that's been declining for years.</a>3. Hundreds of Amazon employees are criticizing its opaque performance review system. Nearly 300 workers took to an internal Slack channel to vent their frustrations about the system's ambiguity and unfairness. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-slam-performance-reviews-pip-on-internal-slack-channel-2021-8">See what employees are saying in the channel.</a>4. Tesla customers are suffering months-long delivery delays. Some customers have been waiting four months for their Model S and Model Y Teslas, and one customer's car was supposed to come in March but still hasn't arrived. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/report-tesla-model-s-and-model-y-big-delivery-delays-2021-8?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Read up on shipping delays.</a>5. Mark Zuckerberg's bet on the future of Facebook is VR meetings with your coworkers. The company just launched Horizon Workrooms, a virtual reality workspace that lets employees mimic team meetings and socializing. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-announces-horizon-workrooms-pushes-for-metaverse-2021-8">See how it works (and how it fits into the "metaverse").</a>6. A new report accuses Apple's engraving service of censoring political phrases. Researchers at the University of Toronto said the service blocks thousands of keywords in China and blocks pro-democracy phrases in Hong Kong. <a href="https://www.insider.com/apples-engraving-service-censoring-political-phrases-china-hong-kong-taiwan-2021-8">See what's censored (and where).</a>7. The Taliban's following on Facebook has more than doubled. As social media companies struggle to enforce bans, the group is turning to their platforms as a form of governance - and amassing thousands of followers. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taliban-afghanistan-twitter-facebook-youtube-bans-accounts-followers-2021-8">More on that here.</a>8. Facebook made up a new popularity ranking. Instead of looking at what people are interacting with on Facebook (which is typically political posts), the report measures what users viewed the most (which is typically memes). <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-made-up-a-popularity-metric-2021-8">Some people believe the new metric will obscure what users actually engage with.</a>9. Hedge fund Tiger Global is blowing up the rules of startup investing. With its speed, cash, and hands-off approach, Tiger Global has quickly become one of Europe's biggest startup investors - and is disrupting the way venture capitalists do business. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-tiger-global-eclipsed-softbank-to-become-a-global-behemoth-2021-8?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Here's how it's shaking things up.</a>10. Apple is scaling back a key health project that grew out of its care clinics. As the company draws back from the app, called HealthHabit, some of its 50 employees will be laid off with severance if they're unable to find other roles within Apple in the next few weeks. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-scaling-back-healthhabit-app-layoffs-2021-8">More on the decision - which could cost workers their jobs.</a>Compiled by Jordan Erb. Tips/comments? Email <a href="mailto:jerb@insider.com">jerb@insider.com</a> or tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/jordanparkererb">@JordanParkerErb</a>.Sign up for <a href="https://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/free">more Insider newsletters here.</a>

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Meta's vision for the metaverse is an 'old idea' that's 'never worked,' tech CEO says

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Mark Zuckerberg urged Meta staff to have virtual meetings when many of them didn't have VR headsets, report says

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Mark Zuckerberg's bet on the future of Facebook is virtual reality meetings with your coworkers

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The tech industry is blowing millions of dollars to make work from home into a worker-surveillance dystopia

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Facebook says it's hiring 10,000 people in Europe to help build Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse'

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Silicon Valley has given up on reality - and now they want us all to use their terrible new alternative

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