Announced last year, YouTube’s 360-degree videos are one of the easiest source of content for VR headsets, like Cardboard. Today, Google is announcing support for live 360-degree video streaming, as well as support for spatial audio.
GoPro is today launching a new GoPro VR mobile app where anyone will be able to view 360-degree and virtual reality content uploaded using its new Omni and Odyssey camera rigs also announced today.
360 degree video has taken off this year, and now yet another creation use of the technology is hitting YouTube. Just in time for the holidays, the White House has taken to YouTube to upload a 360 degree video tour of the decked out temporary residence and workplace of the President of the United States.
Beyond just being a 360 video that you can pan around, this video also offers 3D options for those that have a pair of classic 3D glasses laying around. Also, as with any 360 degree video on YouTube, you can also head over to your mobile device and pan around the video using your phone’s gyroscope. There’s also Google Cardboard support.
Google today announced in a blog post on its AdWords blog that it is rolling out new 360-degree video advertisements to help advertisers “engage their audience in an entirely new way.” The feature is currently supported in Chrome and on Android and iOS. Users can navigate through the 360-degree video by either dragging their mouse or tilting their phone up, down, left, and right. Google originally unveiled 360 video support earlier this year.
[youtube=https://youtu.be/7IaYJZ2Usdk?list=PLbsGxdAPhjv_tgCNWGaGvSnlIMZNkmnrM]
YouTube is adding support for 360-degree video uploads alongside a new viewing experience for the video format on both mobile and the web.
Users viewing the 360-degree video (like the one embedded above) will be able to do so by dragging with their mouse in Chrome on the web or by physically moving their Android device (and soon iPhone and iPad) in the mobile app:
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With Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report officially coming to an end tonight and host Stephen Colbert moving on to “The Late Show” next year, Google today added a virtual, 360-degree tour of the show’s studio to Google Maps.
Google is promoting its Google Maps Business View feature, which allows businesses and others to add the indoor virtual tours to Maps to complement the Street View imagery it has long offered for navigating outdoors.
The series concludes tomorrow, but you can still feel like you’re in the audience (or relive the good ol’ days) with a brand-new virtual tour of the studio. And the show has created an interactive experience with the Business View imagery that lets you explore and remember some of your favorite moments from the show. And for those who want to tour more entertainment and news studios, check out our Views gallery.
As always, Google reminds that Business Views feature is available across platforms in Maps whenever a “See Inside” marker appears over locations. Google says it has already added indoor imagery for hotels, restaurants and retail locations in over 30 countries.
Google today announced some nice additions to its Google Shopping service available to users browsing for products in Google search and directly through the Google Shopping site on desktop and mobile. In addition to new curated shopping lists from some of its partners (note: These are Google’s partners buying paid product listing ads), Google Shopping also receives an updated look and feel, part of an ongoing update that Google started rolling out back in October with an updated storefront and improved local listings.
One new feature in the redesigned shopping experience pictured above is the ability create your own shortlists that are easily accessible from the top of each page while browsing:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XURK5fviu38
This certainly isn’t the first time YouTube has live streamed a concert. Most recently the site live streamed the weekend long Lollapalooza festival from Chicago and it’s been hosting its own AMEX Unstaged series that brought live streamed concerts from Coldplay, Usher, Jack White and many, many more. However, tonight’s live stream of the Kings of Leon concert live from London will be the first time YouTube busts out a new 360 degree camera that will let viewers control every angle of the show while it happens.
For the first time on YouTube, watch the live stream through a 360 degree camera you control to see the event from all angles. This concert marks the latest in our AMEX Unstaged series that pairs musical artists and film directors to create innovative performances. Actor, comedian and drummer Fred Armisen will direct the concert at London’s Shepherd’s Bush, webcast globally on Vevo and YouTube.
The concert and live stream kick off at 9 p.m. GMT (4 p.m. EST) on Vevo and YouTube.
http://youtu.be/IbLA6uweCJA
Google has teamed up with the Eiffel Tower Operating Company in Paris to capture Street View imagery from on top of the Eiffel Tower for the first time ever. Not only is it making the Street View panoramas captured with its Street View Trolley available to all, it’s also making “50 archival images, plans, engravings and photos telling the story of the Eiffel Tower’s development and social impact in the 19th century” available through its Google Cultural Institute project:
The first exhibition presents the birth of the Eiffel Tower from the initial idea until its realization. You can then followthe construction of the monument step-by-step through photos and sketches. Details on the inauguration and the first visitors lie in the third exhibition, with photos of people admiring the Paris vista on the opening day leading into today’s Street View imagery from the top floor. Did you know that during the Tower’s inauguration for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the elevators were not yet in service but 12,000 people per day rushed to climb the 1710 steps leading to the top?
Google for a while now has been allowing businesses in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Ireland, and New Zealand hire photographers through its Business Photos program in order to capture 360-degree Street View-like imagery for the inside of retail stores and other businesses. The feature allows users to get a 360-degree, interactive tour of a business without ever leaving Google Maps. Today, Google announced it is expanding the program to seven new countries for both photographers and businesses:
Today we’re announcing the expansion of the Google Maps Business Photos program to seven new countries including: Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia, Singapore and Switzerland.