Tech giants Google has announced that it is leading the charge in 360-degree content again, by adding live 360-degree video on YouTube. The feature will be aptly named “Live 360.”
While 360-degree video has been the buzz of the tech industry starting with Google’s Cardboard in 2014, but live streaming 360-degree video has stayed just out of reach. Google has been working with 360 camera manufacturers already to support live streaming, and it will be initially possible to stream from the Ricoh Theta ($350), ALLie ($500), and Orah 4i ($1,800).
Facebook and its virtual reality subsidiary Oculus are also betting on the new 360-degree video format, which Facebook introduced to News Feed. For a software company, Facebook is starting to get more and more entrenched in building hardware. Whether you’re on desktop or mobile, if you’re on Facebook and see one of these new 360-degree videos published by media outlets, you can tap, click, or drag the video to change your viewing angle and see the action happening all around you.
And the experience is even more immersive if you’re one of the lucky few software developers who has early access to an Oculus Rift VR headset (the consumer model is coming early 2016).
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