"It's like I'm experiencing the horrors of Homs!" – The BBC experiment with Oculus Rift
The BBC has been experimenting with Oculus Rift – the immersive-3D virtual reality headset that was recently bought by Facebook.
In a blog post Cyrus Saihan, who is head of Business Development at the corporation, explained that the BBC are “are always looking for ways to create new types of content and deliver it in new ways”.
As an experiment they filmed Fiona Bruce reading the news with a 360-degree camera, and let people in the BBC’s public cafe at Broadcasting House try it out – you can see the video of reactions below:
In the post, Saihan mentioned that this could conceivably be used to let viewers feel closer to the action in a nature documentary, or like they’re actually on the stage at a music festival. Which makes a bit more sense than using the news… does anyone really want to be that immersed in the horrors of war, or to be an active participant where it feels like you’re in the same room as Michael Gove?
The best bit: If you have an Oculus Rift, you can download the files the BBC used, and experience Fiona Bruce for yourself.
