Zuckerberg, onward with Facebook’s head of social virtual reality, Rachel Franklin, looked as avatars within the telecast from his profile as they “teleported” to various locations using Facebook’s “social VR” tool Spaces. In fact, the two were speaking from the comfort of their offices at the company’s campus in Menlo Park, California, using virtual reality headsets.
“One of the things that are really magic about VR is you can get the sense you’re really in a place,” said Zuckerberg as his grinning avatar hovered over scenes of flooding and destruction.
“Rachel and I aren’t even in the identical building in the physical world, but it seems like we’re in the same place and can make eye connection,” he added before he and Rachel high-fived within the virtual space with the somber pictures of Puerto Rican devastation around them.
Zuckerberg took the chance to talk about some of the ways Facebook was accommodating with disaster relief, including donating $1.5m and working with the Red Cross to build “population maps” so that relief structures know where the most help is needed.
“You can see that we can truly feel like we’re here,” said Franklin.
“This street is actually flooded,” added Mark.
After a consequence of reflection, the pair decided to “teleport” back to California and switch gears to support the company’s upcoming Oculus developer convention by showing a 360-degree video from the 2016 event. They then made a practical journey to the moon, where Franklin marveled at the “absolutely lovely” view of the Milky Way.
The live stream briefly dropped after sustaining a technical glitch, before a second one started. In the interim, Zuckerberg presented an animated version of his dog Beast to the virtual space and he and Franklin took a selfie.
After taking some inquiries from the audience, the pair made their final trip to Zuckerberg’s living room, where their avatars were arranged in a 360-video with a giant Beast.
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