Epic Games reveals ‘Bullet Train,’ a sci-fi shooter for Oculus Touch
Epic Games, the studio behind Gears of War, unveiled its brand new virtual reality game, Bullet Train, during the Oculus Connect 2 conference today. Bullet Train is an Oculus Touch experience, meaning players use two motion-sensing controllers to pick up weapons, shoot and interact with the environment. Plus, Bullet Train features bullet time and teleportation, and it’s developed in Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney presented Bullet Train to the world today, and he’s been a longtime champion of virtual reality. In February, he told Engadget that VR was “going to change the world.”
Source: Epic Games
Oculus VR is getting Twitch streaming soon, Netflix today
At the Oculus Connect 2 event, the virtual reality company just announced that it’s getting a number of video services streaming to VR. The biggest one, Netflix is going to launch an app “in about 20 minutes”, but Twitch, Hulu, Vimeo and more are going to be right behind it. We didn’t get a ton of details on the experience, but we expect to see something like the current Oculus Cinema, where viewers can watch movies in a virtual theater. For the Twitch app, viewers will be able to chat and comment on gaming streams they’re watching too. The slide at the event also showed logos for Facebook (obviously), Fox, Lionsgate and even TiVo.
Developing…
We’re bringing @netflix, @Twitch, @Vimeo, @hulu, and more to the #GearVR! Tune-in: http://t.co/fmSRmeDvLh pic.twitter.com/nwG8kj0GOc
— Oculus (@oculus) September 24, 2015
We’re partnering with @Twitch to bring livestreaming to the #GearVR! Tune-in: http://t.co/fmSRmeDvLh pic.twitter.com/HC4zgAiu8J
— Oculus (@oculus) September 24, 2015
Source: Hulu
‘Oculus Arcade’ brings ‘Pac-Man’ and other classics to Gear VR
Oculus Arcade offers classic games from Sega, Midway and Bandai Namco, all playable in the Samsung Gear VR. Oculus announced the nostalgia fix during its Oculus Connect 2 conference, where it also announced the new, $99 Gear VR. The new Gear VR will be available in time for Black Friday in November. Oculus also showed off a slew of new games coming to Gear VR, including Land’s End (from the Monument Valley team), Gunjack and the new VR Adventure Time game. The company also briefly showed off Netflix and Twitch running in Gear VR.
‘Oculus Ready’ PC program offers VR-ready rigs for less than $1,000
Oculus Ready is a new program that offers officially licensed, Oculus-branded PCs from Alienware, Dell and Asus. These rigs will be ready to run the consumer Oculus Rift when it launches in Q1 2016, with at least the minimum specs of 8GB RAM, an Intel i5 processor and NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290. All of the manufacturers will offer Oculus Ready PCs for less than $1,000, Oculus announced during its second annual Connect conference.
Oculus also showed off some of the games coming to the Rift, including Gang Beasts, Adr1ft, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Battlezone. For developers, version 1.0 of the Oculus Rift software development kit launches in December. A second SDK, this one specific to Oculus’ Touch motion controls, will be available to developers before the Rift launches in 2016. Oculus Touch will launch with Oculus Medium, a 3D sculpting tool.
These games and many more will be shipping next year for the #Rift! Tune in: http://t.co/fmSRmeDvLh #OC2 pic.twitter.com/oBMhfm3js1
— Oculus (@oculus) September 24, 2015
Fox is bringing more than 100 movies to the Oculus VR Cinema
While gaming and other fully immersive experiences have already flourished on VR, at least one studios is jumping in with a way to watch movies on the big (small) screen. Fox confirmed today at the Oculus Connect 2 event that the company is bringing more than 100 of its movies to the Oculus Store at launch. You’ll watch the movies in the Oculus VR Cinema app, where you can watch movies in 2D or 3D on a huge virtual screen (you can see what it looks like after the break). Movies that are coming include Alien, Birdman, Taken, Die Hard, Office Space and more.
These are not full VR experiences (although Fox’s Innovation Lab is at work on a The Martian VR Experience), but can bring something like a movie theater to wherever you are, and even let friends watch together from anywhere. We’re not ready to trade in our big-screen HDTVs (yet), but especially on a plane or in a hotel room, we could see using this to get away without going anywhere — and an Oculus headset or Gear VR packs into a bag much better than our TVs do.
[Image credit: Photos 12 / Alamy]
360-degree videos will soon be appearing on your Facebook news feed
Facebook is rolling out a new feature to your news feed starting today that will attempt to give you a more immersive look into certain news stories. You’ll soon start seeing 360-degree videos on your news feed that will allow you to pan around a video, kind of like a more detailed, interactive panoramic photo.
The videos are shot with special camera equipment, so don’t expect to see your buddies upload any of these from their smartphones anytime soon, but they give a completely immersive experience of a particular event or story. Facebook uses concerts as an example, so you can imagine panning around a live music show to see what’s going on in the audience and on stage. It’s definitely a new experience for media consumption that we’re only just beginning to try and tackle with the likes of VR, so if Facebook can get the ball rolling here it’s bound to be a very cool thing to see.
Facebook currently has some very heavy hitters on board with these 360-degree videos, including Star Wars, Saturday Night Live, GoPro, and the Discovery Channel, so there should be a good amount of content available from the get-go. The content should keep filling out as more companies begin to invest in the platform.
Android will be getting the feature first, with iOS coming in the next few months. That’s an interesting twist, but a welcome one nonetheless.
source: Facebook
Come comment on this article: 360-degree videos will soon be appearing on your Facebook news feed
Oculus Connect 2 virtual reality event will stream live in VR
Tomorrow when the folks at Oculus show off the latest developments in their plan for VR world domination at the Oculus Connect 2 event, a select few will be able to experience remotely just as if they were there. If you have a Samsung Gear VR you can download the Next VR app and get your 360-degree immersion, just like I experienced with the first live stream several months ago. One day we’ll all put on headsets and take a virtual trip to press events like Oculus and OnePlus, but since that’s not universally available yet, we will be there liveblogging all the action. Assuming you have a compatible Samsung phone and one of the plastic Gear VR headsets, the app will be available before the keynote speech starts at 1PM ET tomorrow. (If you’re not VR ready yet, yes there will be an old-school 2D live video broadcast as well.)
Can’t make it to #OC2 this year? Download our app on Gear VR and experience our live VR stream of Connect Keynotes tomorrow beginning10am
— NextVR (@NextVR_app) September 23, 2015
[Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]
Source: Oculus Blog
Facebook is bringing 360-degree videos to your News Feed
Facebook has just announced that it’s adding support for 360-degree videos in its News Feed. When you see a 360-video on the desktop, you’ll be able to click and drag your mouse around the video player to look around. When you’re on a smartphone or tablet, though, you’ll be able to tilt, twist and turn your mobile device to look around, just like you would using a virtual reality headset. You can use your finger to move the video around on mobile devices, too.
To create 360-degree videos you’ll need a special set of cameras, similar to what GoPro showed off at Google I/O a few months ago. These camera rigs can get really pricey, so you probably won’t see too many 360-degree videos show up on your feeds anytime soon.
To give us a good look at what these videos will look like on Facebook’s site, a number of publishers have already begun sharing their own 360 videos. The most interesting of the bunch is a new video based off Star Wars: The Force Awakens that takes place in the Jakku desert. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’re probably going to want to check it out.
You should already be able to see 360-degree videos on Facebook on the web and in the Android application. This feature will roll out to iOS users in a few months.
Facebook’s 360-degree videos bring immersive content to your News Feed
Always trying new things to improve your News Feed browsing, Facebook now supports more immersive videos. The social network announced that 360 video will begin rolling out to that portion of the site today. Right now, they’re only viewable on the web and Android with support for iOS “in the coming months.” The more immersive videos on Facebook work similarly to what you’ve probably seen on YouTube. As the footage plays, you can use your cursor to click and move around the video on the desktop. With a mobile device, you can use your finger to navigate around the visuals or you can simply move the device itself to change perspective. This new addition also paves the way for VR content to hit the News Feed when devices like the Oculus Rift and PS VR head to consumers.
There are a number of companies already pushing footage to Facebook as part of the new initiative, including Star Wars, Discovery, VICE, GoPro, Saturday Night Live and LeBron James & Uninterrupted. As you might expect, that first entry from Disney and LucasFilm is a 360-degree promo for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And yes, we’ve embedded it down below for easy access. Facebook says the new videos aren’t just for publishers, as you’ll be able to post your multi-angle footage as well — so long as you have a multi-camera rig to proper capture it, of course.
Source: Facebook
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