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Vimeo now supports 360-degree video
Virtual reality hardware wouldn't be anywhere without content to play on it -- that's why so many big video companies are putting resources towards immersive, 360-degree video playback. Facebook and YouTube have both supported 360 videos for a while now, even letting users livestream (provided they have the right gear, of course.) It may be a little late to the party, but Vimeo is also getting into the game. While there's no livestreaming to be found yet, the platform now fully supports 360-degree video uploads and playback in a variety of ways.
PlayStation VR now supports 360-degree YouTube videos
PSVR is still a young whippersnapper in the virtual reality world, striving for parity -- and in games, superiority -- with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Today it's taken another step forward with support for 360-degree videos on YouTube. That means you can boot up anything on the platform, including a New York Times 'Daily 360' video, and move your head to change the perspective. You're stuck in one place, of course, but the experience is still fairly immersive, especially in comparison to the desktop YouTube experience (dragging around with your cursor isn't much fun).
Twitter adds live 360 video, still no edit button
Facebook and YouTube jumped on the 360 video train back in 2015, leaving Twitter to tardily trundle out their first all-direction footage experiments during the NBA finals back in June. But now the social network is letting larger broadcasters post their own live 360 videos through Periscope for users to watch and interact with in real-time.
With live 360 video Facebook should focus on cameras not content
360 cameras exist. YouTube already supports livestreaming in the immersive format. Yesterday Facebook finally opened up its popular Live service to 360 videos too. But not for everyone. Right now it's just select pages, with National Geographic kicking things off today. Officially, then, 360 livestreaming is going mainstream. But if the new world of live, spherical video is to succeed, livestreaming needs to get easier, with a home on a major social network. YouTube has already made headway in this space, but, much like how video streaming didn't gain traction with the broader public until Meerkat and Periscope (and then Facebook) piped it direct into your friends' feeds, 360 needs the immediacy of social to succeed. To do that, it needs hardware that's easy to use and a seamless app experience.
Facebook now lets you livestream in 360 degrees
Facebook has unveiled the next iteration of its Live video streaming service, dubbed Live 360. As the name implies, the new feature will enable comprehensive surround video broadcasts in real time.
Watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 360-degree video
Let's be honest: no matter how much you like watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, it loses a lot of its thunder if you aren't in New York City to witness it first-hand. However, you might get a better feel for it with the 2016 event. Macy's, NBCUniversal and our corporate overlords at Verizon are planning to livestream the parade in 360 degrees as soon as it kicks off on November 24th at 9AM Eastern. If you have a browser or device that can handle 360-degree YouTube video, you too can watch the floats and marching bands almost as if you were streetside. There will be numerous 360-degree cameras placed at "strategic points" on the route to add a dash of variety. No, this won't help you skip the less-than-enthralling segments, but those so-so moments will at least will be more immersive than ever before.
Watch the Earth from the ISS observatory in a 4K 360 video
International Space Station (ISS) crew work pretty hard, but when they do get time off, they often head to the "Cupola," according to Andrey Borisenko. The Russian cosmonaut shows us what it's like to hang around the space station's observational dome, thanks to a new 360 degree, 4K video from Russia's RT News. He dryly mocks flat-Earth types, saying "you can see from here that the Earth is round -- no elephants or whales holding it up.
Go through virtual spacewalk training with this NASA video
Most people will never train to walk in space, but you can always get a cheapo Google Cardboard and play the latest 360 ultra high-definition video out of NASA's headquarters to pretend that you are. The space agency used Harmonic's VR tech to show three different perspectives of astronauts training at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. That's a humongous pool with a life-size replica of the ISS, where they perform simulated tasks for their future missions aboard the space station. If you don't have a VR headset right now, you can still watch the whole thing below the fold -- don't forget to set the quality to 4K and drag the screen to look around for max enjoyment.
BBC to show the Olympics live in 360-degree video
Watching the Olympics on TV? That's so 2012, apparently. The BBC is launching an "experimental" service on Friday that will broadcast the action in 360-degree video instead. It's not a complete replacement -- only 100 hours will be shown throughout the tournament. But it's more than a token gesture, with one live event and a highlights package planned for each day. They'll be accessible through a new BBC Sport 360 app for iOS, Android and Samsung's Gear VR headset. Coverage will also be available through BBC Taster, a website for the BBC's off-the-wall projects.
