The MWC 2016 event began on Monday. While the show was expected to be dominated by the newly launched Samsung Galaxy S7, Virtual Reality seems to be running the stage in this year’s event.
Almost every person attending the show seems to be in a virtual reality headset as opposed to having a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge smartphone in their hands, playing around with it. However, the good side of the story is that Samsung is still the main brand as far as VR is concerned.
Usually, the MWC event is meant for companies to showcase their newly made mobile phones and networks. However, as mentioned above, this year’s event has been taken by storm with respect to virtual reality. Nevertheless, these VR headsets will not be complete without phones – they will be responsible for delivering the VR technology to people. In this way, the technology will be pushed past the realms of gamers and other technology enthusiasts.
While phones remain a crucial element in the delivery of VR experience, CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg believes that social media will also have a huge role to play in the same. Whether this statement is so because his company owns a VR company in the shape of Oculus is not known. However, what is clear is that the Zuck wants to see this technology come to his network as far as possible.
In his own thinking, the Facebook CEO feels that virtual reality will become the “most social platform,” with consumers being at the center of the technology’s uptake. This will be facilitated by their changing tastes for media as many of them shift from still images to what the social media giant feels is more immersive video content.
VR headsets and 360-degree cameras growing in popularity
Last year, Facebook introduced 360-degree video viewing on its platform. This can easily be enjoyed on a standard screen simply by clicking and then dragging the video in its frame. You can also experience the same viewing as a fully immersive experience via a VR headset. Unsurprisingly, other social media platforms such as YouTube have also taken this direction.
In the recent past, the shift has started taking this direction, with more tools to create, view as well as share VR content slowly becoming easily available. The result of this will be that more people will move into the VR experience, making VR headsets and 360-degree cameras must-have accessories for new phones.
Samsung already has Gear 360 camera and Gear VR headsets
As mentioned earlier, Samsung unveiled Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge over the weekend. Even though pre-orders are already available, the phone will not be here until March 11. To make the deal sweeter, Samsung is offering a free Gear VR headset for each pre-order made for any of these two smartphones.
The company also unveiled Samsung Gear 360 camera, which can capture both stills and video footage. All content can easily be shared on social media platforms right from the smartphone app.
During the same weekend, LG also unveiled the new G5. To prove that VR is actually taking over, LG also unveiled 360 VR goggles and camera as accessories for the newly unveiled LG G5.
While hardware companies are working hard to come in with VR gadgets, there is little on offer from the side of VR content creators. This continues to be a barrier, but it will definitely be for a short term.