Facebook Horizon: A virtual reality environment from Facebook

The Facebook creates a virtual reality environment called Horizon, in order to attract and encourage users to spend more time in VR.

ΌAccording to the BBC, the VR application will be essentially a "mix" of social activity areas, where users can meet and chat, as well as other places where they can play games. The movement and exploration of these sites will be done through cartoon avatars, and the application will become available and will begin to be tested in early 2020 by a small number of users.

Some details about Horizon, along with pictures, were revealed at the Oculus Connect conference last week. Facebook said that Horizon users will be able to invite people "guides" to help them explore the area and get acquainted with the virtual environment. As the company stressed, these will not be "moderators" who will "police" the virtual reality environment and behaviors in it, however there will be tools that will allow users to manage and control how they interact with other users. There will also be options for configuring and creating their own parts of the virtual environment, while they will be able to design their own avatars.

The virtual reality environment has a cartoonish character, as it is intended for use with the Oculus Quest set, which does not have the high-resolution graphics that other VR devices have, which are connected to the computer. Sam Mahkovets, a Hor Technon-based Ars Technica reporter, said Facebook had worked hard on the environment to make it as welcoming as possible - but added that it was "another" combination of apps, chat and avatars. . "We are still waiting for Facebook to inspire certainty that it will launch a social-VR application and will continue to work with it for over two years," he wrote.

Those interested can apply to become early testers. It is noted that Horizon means that Facebook will close its current VR sites, Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms, on October 25.

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