- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
- 'Imperfect' PSG fighting on all fronts - Luis Enrique
- Struggling Pakistan look to thwart adaptable England
- Child 'trampled to death' in asylum seekers' Channel crossing: minister
- Gauff fights back to set up Beijing final against Muchova
- Guardiola claims Premier League won't delay season for Man City
- Israel to mark October 7 attack as Gaza war spreads
- Gauff fights back to reach China Open final
- Recovering Stokes ruled out of first Pakistan Test
- Hezbollah battles troops on border as Israel pounds Lebanon
- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
Telework in metaverse precursors already a reality
Depending on his mood, Jeff Weiser settles down to work in a Parisian cafe, a mysterious cave or high above the Earth, thanks to the budding metaverse.
Weiser lives in the midwestern US state of Ohio but his workplace is in a faux realm accessed using virtual reality head gear.
While still the stuff of science fiction for most people, forerunners of the metaverse vision for the internet's future are already de rigueur for handfuls of people beyond the gamer and techno-hipster crowds.
Weiser, founder of a translation start-up, spends 25 to 35 hours each week working with Oculus VR gear on his head in his home in the city of Cincinnati.
A VR application called "Immersed" lets him synch screens such as his computer and smartphone to his virtual world, shutting out distractions around him at home.
Along with "increased focus," the ergonomics are "perfect," Weiser said. Display screens hover where they are easily seen and can be changed to any size.
Weiser taps on his keyboard without seeing it, and appears from the outside to be speaking to himself.
But in his virtual world, he interacts with avatars of colleagues as far away as Argentina and Ireland.
The pandemic boosted use of telework technologies that make it possible for colleagues to collaborate as teams despite being in different locations.
The Holy Grail is to replicate the kind of personal contact possible in offices.
- Persistence -
Florent Crivello co-founded Teamflow, a startup that tailors software for workers to collaborate virtually from their computers.
"We are building the metaverse for work," Crivello said, who added VR headsets aren't quite ready for "prime time".
"All of our collaboration tools are still on desktop; we want to meet people where they are."
Teamflow virtual offices look like on-screen game boards with meeting rooms, sofas and more.
Workers are represented by round icons that feature their picture, or live video of their face, and can initiate chats with colleagues by moving their "pawn" close to that of a co-worker.
If the person virtually approached has a microphone hooked up, they can automatically hear each other like they would be able to in real life.
Key to the experience is "persistence," the fact that the virtual environment exists whether a particular worker is in it or not, said Crivello.
"That's a defining characteristic," he noted.
For example, Teamflow users who "write" on a virtual white board in a faux meeting room will find it there when they return the next day.
About 1,000 people use the Teamflow app every workday.
VR app "Immersed", for its part, said it has won tens of thousands of users after a difficult period at the end of 2019, when the company almost disappeared.
"The adoption curve was in the disillusioned phase, it was the bottom of the valley and we ran out of money," said Immersed co-founder Renji Bijoy.
"When I told my team that they could go look for jobs, all seven of them said unanimously, 'We're not going anywhere.'"
- Too unreal? -
The pandemic fueled a trend to remote work, reviving investor interest in startups innovating in the sector.
At the same time, VR itself gained momentum, thanks to investments by Facebook-parent Meta in its Oculus unit and the metaverse overall.
"We are trying to build a world where anyone could live anywhere and put on a pair of glasses and feel like they're actually teleporting to their virtual office," Bijoy said.
Missing links, for Bijoy, include lifelike avatars instead of cartoonish animated characters, and body tracking that lets movements or gestures be replicated in virtual worlds.
"It's not that far away," Bijoy said of such technology, expecting to see it "much sooner than five years".
Some users fear that working in VR will be misinterpreted or misunderstood and would rather stay anonymous, like one graphic designer from New York, who used to spend six hours a day working from immersed during the pandemic.
He customized his Oculus headset for comfort, and built his own room in "Immersed", a virtual reproduction of his favorite library complete with rustling pages and soft footsteps.
The New York resident told of his productivity soaring but his health suffering.
He forgot to take breaks, losing track of place and time.
"I would take the headset off and it was kind of jarring, it was just a bit of like a slap in the face, being back in reality," this man said.
A blood test showed he was low on Vitamin D, and he suspected part of the cause was spending so much time out of the sun and in virtual reality.
"I just stopped using it," the designer said. "I don't think that it's healthy to replace reality with virtual reality."
L.Mesquita--PC