(link videos should be opened in YouTube app on mobile device for full effect)

Weiners and buns, together, make something awesome, called a hotdog. When you put one inside the other, something magical happens and the result becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Recently two “modern” technologies just met and I must tell you, there’s a a spark of magic.

Virtual reality devices, and there are too many to list at this point, range in price from 5–2000$ and come in all shapes and colors. They were developed primarily for entering navigable computer generated worlds, (like video games). The tech is good, it’s ready, and if you haven’t tried it, you should. You can move about and roam these designed virtual worlds with a variety of control options : gamepads, treadmills and many more. It will blow your mind.

Elsewhere a new form of video capture and viewing, known as 360 with gyroscopic functionality, (you can move your device around to look anywhere) was developed to be accessed using VR devices. Yup. They work together, the addition of split-screen landscape mode made it so that these spherical images and videos can be viewed in those really cool devices. (even the ones that run on your mobile phone) Now I know, 360 is NOT Virtual Reality. I repeat 360 is NOT V.R. (a weiner is not a hotdog).

(and btw I also know VR is great for therapy, education, telecom so please don’t message me about this) ). What Is important to know about, is what happens, when you put one inside the other and use them together, you see it does incredible things.

360 content can be VIEWED in V.R. devices? That’s pretty damn magical !

When you load up a 360 image or video into your V.R. device you enter into a whole new world. Landscape split screen mode is an amazingly simple development.( snapchat, msqrd should take note). Suddenly environments can be “entered” and mental trickery “hijacks” your senses and fools your brain into believing what you see. (see placebo effect) For the best first experience, be sure to set the resolution to highest, have good internet and sit in a swivel chair. Now, again you CANNOT currently navigate around with a controller, it’s not a Computer Generated Image (cgi). It is best compared to static photo/videography, a 2d Bubble, a “captured recording of a real life event or experience. Its’ powers lie simply, in that you can Look all around you and swivel about. (you become the camera on a, hopefully, tripod, most videos with motion, you should expect to get nauseated)

More recently though, some 360 videos and images have button links within them. Simply looking at one for a short period of time will activate it. If that link opens up another 360 image or video, you just “teleport” to that new place, across the world or simply just a few feet away. its an interesting from of nausea- free “desire” navigation, it may not be ideal, but it does show promise. In fact most don’t know it yet, but it’s about to become the future of web navigation.

Virtual tours aren’t new, neither is 3d mapping or really, any of this tech. What’s new here, is how they’ve all started to come together to create the ultimate hot dog (with lots of fixins’). Mobile devices now have apps that let you capture 360 panoramas or can be used with the latest 360 cameras to capture and create content for VR (aka 360VR like this animal compilation). They can spatially map an environment or person. (checkout project Tango) Even more incredibly those same mobile device can also become your actual VR viewer, which allows you to enter into those VR captures and experience anything, anywhere with anyone. (if it was 360 captured of course). Oh and that VR device? It lets you enter all of those cool navigable CGI gaming worldsand watch animated films.

VR is cool, but its greatest magic may yet be the feature of reliving lifes’ moments (weddings, concerts) or Live 360 streaming. (yes it exists already) You see sharing access to the content of all of our life’s experiences (like the internet did with information) is the technological revolution that will be one of the most disruptive occurrences in our lifetime (since the internet and probably until full AI arrives).

So, for you early adopters, rather than shouting out “360 isn’t VR” . Why not just relax a bit, and see that labels aren’t as important as consumer adoptionand safety. It’s still a bit early to define everything. For now, let’s use 360 content to promote VR devices for non gamers and help Grow the entire industry. It will very soon improve many peoples’ lives and has the potential to actually shape us and our world for the better. I for one, enjoy all types of VR experiences, Recorded life, Live, CGI, Digital, Augmented, Green screen, or any combination of them all.

I say, just “Take me out to the Ballgame” …. virtually of course.

ZEN

-360 content creator and founder of ThisIsMeInVR innovations