These 360-degree interactive videos are shot with up to 24 cameras at a time, allowing the viewer to change the point of view in any direction. It is much like Google Street View, except you can look up or down as well, and you do so while the video keeps playing.
The immersive videos will also be available on the Oculus Rift 3D goggles headset, made by Facebook’s recent acquisition, Oculus VR.
Despite Virtual Reality being associated mainly with gaming, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expects VR video to be more engaging.
The new feature was announced at F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference, with live broadcasts planned to be supported at a later stage as well.
Facebook’s announcement comes just under two weeks after Google started allowing users to upload 360-degree videos onto YouTube.
It seems like both service are not 100% ready yet, but there’s no doubt left that VR and augmented reality are one of the main directions in which the video and content worlds are heading.
While Zuckerberg did not reveal when these videos will be hitting our News Feeds, he gave a quick demonstration showing how it will look and work.
We recently saw some great 360-degree interactive in the Dubai360 project, but that video is currently available only on the custom built website.
[via CNET]
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