Mary Lou Jepsen, the executive director of engineering at Facebook and the head of display tech at its Oculus virtual reality arm, is leaving the social-networking giant after a little more than a year on the job to focus on curing diseases using MRI images in the form of a consumer wearable.
Hulu Plans To Release Virtual Reality Series
Hulu is set to debut a virtual reality series that lets users experience what it’s like to walk out on stage as the star of a huge concert. The series, a partnership with tour operator Live Nation, is one of several new initiatives announced Wednesday by the online TV service.
It’s too soon to say how the four-week delays will affect Oculus, much less the overall acceptance of virtual reality, a technology that submerges users in realistic artificial worlds. The delay, naturally, has sparked online grousing and even some data-based activism, including the creation of a crowdsourced spreadsheet for tracking who received their prized VR gear and when.
For Marriott, VR’s Moment Is When, Not If
Marriott International’s Creative Director Marc Battaglia says the company has already been aggressively testing the virtual reality waters. He says that within two years, it’s going to be a “key part” of the company’s marketing strategy capable of producing an emotional connection with consumers like nothing else.
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — An executive from virtual reality company Oculus says consumers shouldn’t be concerned about an invasion of their privacy when using the Oculus Rift. Jason Rubin , […]
AP reporter Derrick J. Lang spent an entire week with the consumer edition of the Vive, an $800 room-scale virtual reality system released this month by smartphone maker HTC and game pioneer Valve. It uses a pair of wand-shaped controllers to mimic hands in virtual worlds displayed within goggles. Here’s his account.
Exclusives
Talking OTT, VR, 4K At The NAB Show
Gavin Mann, Accenture’s global broadcasting industry lead, examines media industry trends ahead of the NAB Show April 16-21 in Las Vegas. With topics ranging from OTT video, 4K, to virtual reality, the show is no longer just for broadcasters, attracting speakers and attendees from cable, telco and OTT companies.
The NCAA has decided to broadcast the most important part of this year’s college basketball tournament, the Final Four, in virtual reality, for the first time. Presented as a partnership between the NCAA, CBS and Oculus, the live stream event will be produced by VR production house Voke.
Oculus Rift A Step, Not A Leap, Into VR News
Deep breath, publishers: you won’t need to be cranking out VR stories for the new Oculus Rift headset overnight. Joseph Lichterman writes that based on the spate of early reviews, it’s an impressive and positive step in the VR revolution, but widespread adoption will likely be hampered by its price tag ($599) and the high-powered PC it needs to run (no Macs yet). In short, it’s also just thrilling enough to get critics revved up for the 2.0 version.
NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood studios, news outlets and consumer brands are all dabbling with virtual reality. Many everyday folks will soon join them using 360-degree cameras coming soon from […]
Before the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive debut in a few weeks, VR is back in the spotlight at this week’s Game Developers Conference, the 30th annual gathering of the video game — and now VR — industry that kicked off Monday at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.
The new report from the Knight Foundation and the USA Today Network surveyed 10 news organizations that have been experimenting in the form, and finds that while proliferation is expected this year, there are also a number of concerns. Those range from production burdens, headset availability and ad metrics to whether people will actually embrace the experience.
Advertising could likely, as in TV and on the Web, form the financial backbone of VR’s universe, and the technology’s dazzling visuals, boundless worlds and captive goggles-wearing clientele have turned what once seemed like a passing fad into an advertisers’ dream. But that rush into VR ads and 360-degree videos — their less-involved technological cousins — means advertisers will likely define the platform before it hits mainstream audiences, much in the same way pop-up ads shaped the early Web.
USA Today will launch a regularly scheduled virtual reality news show, VRtually There, this spring. The Gannett-owned national newspaper says the show is the first regular news program developed for VR. VRtually There will cover a variety of topics including politics, sports, technology and finance. How often the show will air and for what length of time has yet to be determined, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. WSJ subscribers can read the full report here.
In case you worried that Netflix wasn’t developing on all fronts at one, calm yourself. The company is tracking developments in virtual reality with great interest, an executive said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelaona this week. “We’ve very interested in where it could go in storytelling,” said Chirs Jaffe, VP of product innovation.
The founder of Oculus told a group of developers working on virtual reality content Wednesday that the immersive medium’s success should be measured by time — not necessarily money — spent on it.
