philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Inside The Oculus Business Ecosystem

When Facebook announced their $2 billion acquisition of Oculus Rift, Jaunt swears it took them by surprise. The small Silicon Valley company is working on the goal of creating cameras and audio recording equipment that lets anyone create a fully immersive, 360-degree virtual world. Jaunt's particular product goal, which still is in prototype mode, is a modular camera system designed for immersive films.

Done right, Jaunt's product can be amazing. I sat down for a demo viewing several weeks ago of some of the company's sample videos in downtown Los Angeles. As I strapped on a prototype Oculus Rift headset (Jaunt's leadership notes that their movies can be viewed on any other VR headset, and indeed on tablets and smartphones as well), I was impressed. Various clips of a day in the park in San Francisco, of martial arts demonstrations, and of other outdoor events came through with full immersive video and all-engulfing audio. Instead of the polygons and almost-real-but-not-quite textures of other Oculus products I had used, this was real video.

And Jaunt's pioneering work is just one part of a growing ecosystem of tech companies adopting Oculus Rift for all sorts of commercial purposes.

Condition One is a small San Francisco startup devoted to making movies for Oculus Rift. They are working in much the same sphere as Jaunt, and the company plans to release a movie for Oculus called Zero Point later this year. Judging by the trailer, it's an intriguing proof-of-concept for Oculus as a movie-watching platform.

A laboratory at the University of Southern California is exploring ways to turn the Oculus Rift and headsets like them into journalism devices. Late last year, I wrote about how a researcher at USC named Nonny de la Pena is working with Google, the Associated Press, and the Tribeca Film Institute to create 3-D, fully immersive journalism through virtual reality. Two fully-immersive videos her lab has put out so far place users in a food bank line where a bystander is going into diabetic shock, and at the U.S.-Mexico border when a man was beaten to death by Border Patrol officers.

See the full story here: http://www.fastcolabs.com/3030732/the-oculus-business-ecosystem?curator=MediaREDEF