Meta’s vision of its metaverse is a safe happy place where you can socialise with friends or make new ones. However, that’s not always the case and there will always be a small contingent who’ll try and ruin it for others. To that end, Meta has just announced Personal Boundary for Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, a feature that’ll prevent avatars from coming in close proximity to one another.
Essentially, Personal Boundary is an invisible shield that stops anyone from getting too close. You won’t notice it and there’s no haptic feedback to indicate the fact, it’s just there as your unseen security guard.
Whilst it is a shame such features are required, having them there is better than not. Plus the Personal Boundary does have one customisable setting. By default, it is always on but you can turn it off if you so wish, if you’re in a private setting with real-world friends and family for example. The boundary extends two feet from your avatar so there can be a total of four feet between you and someone else.
There’s no way to adjust the boundary yourself if you want to make it bigger or smaller. Those kinds of customisation options may arrive at a later date as Meta fine-tunes the feature.
Meta adds in a blog post that: “Note that because Personal Boundary is the default experience, you’ll need to extend your arms to be able to high-five or fist bump other people’s avatars.” So there might be a few odd moments where two people lean in for a fist bump.
Personal Boundary is rolling out today for Horizon Worlds and Venues. Actually accessing Horizon Worlds is another matter. Currently, under development as Meta’s core metaverse experience, the app was in beta for ages until it opened up to adults in the US and Canada in December 2021. There’s still no indication as to when other territories will gain access.
For continued updates on the Horizon family of apps, keep reading gmw3.
