Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Thursday October 22 2015, @10:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the create-the-demand dept.

The New York Times has announced a collaboration with Google to deliver over 1 million Cardboard virtual reality viewers to NYT home delivery subscribers with their newspapers over the weekend of November 7 and 8. Online subscribers will receive a promo code by email that will allow them to claim a free Cardboard viewer. NYT will also create free VR content:

The paper worked closely with IM360 to create the NYT VR application. The app will be available for free for both iOS 8+ and Android 4.3+. It can be used with the Google Cardboard viewer, but a pair of VR googles is not required to view the video. NYTimes.com will host 2D versions of the videos, and 360-degree YouTube versions will be found on the company's YouTube channel.

The first video being released through NYT VR is a collaboration between The New York Times Magazine and Chris Milk at Vrse. Together, they created a film called The Displaced, which covers the story of three young children -- one from South Sudan, one from eastern Ukraine, and one from Syria -- who have been uprooted from their homes due to war in their regions. The story is captured with 360-degree cameras and taken from the perspective of these young children, depicting what they go through in their daily lives.

[...] "The power of VR is that it gives the viewer a unique sense of empathic connection to people and events," said Jake Silverstein, Editor in Chief, The New York Times Magazine. "In the context of international reporting and conflict reporting, where our readers rely on us to bring them news and stories from remote and inaccessible places, this has huge potential. Through this immersive video experience, we can put our readers at the center of the most important story of our time."

NYT VR's second planned film is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of The New York Times Magazine's Walking New York cover image. There will be a third video released on NYT VR in December and more in 2016, but we don't have any details about what those videos will be.

The app will be available on November 5th.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by Cornwallis on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:15PM

    by Cornwallis (359) on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:15PM (#253184)
    "The power of VR is that it gives the viewer a unique sense of empathic connection to people and events," said Jake Silverstein

    Unlike NYT writing which has gotten so off-putting as to be unreadable in many cases!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Thursday October 22 2015, @02:16PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Thursday October 22 2015, @02:16PM (#253231)

    I think they said this about smellovision in movie theatres, too.

    It's just a gimmick to get people to like it and spend time or money on the things presented through it.

    Maybe it is a force that will act for the greater good, but the very name seems like it's intended to be disposable, cheap, and not adhering to the highest of quality standards.

    Despite all of this, I am not sure I would ever consider the utility of VR to be that useful for reading the news. I do not care to see media snippets in what I consider to be a traditional text outlet (I mentally consider talk radio/news radio to also be "text"); it's jarring, and headlines often take me to link that expects me to watch a video for what otherwise could have been a paragraph or two of news and then I could move on.

    I don't think I need to see world problems in 3d to understand them, but I guess if it is supposed to be entertaining to present suffering in other countries in 3d, then I guess it's worth it to someone. There is some kind of irony in that a news organization is teaming with an advertising company to show depressing information on the plight of children from war torn countries, and do it in 3d with free stuff to make it more engaging... it doesn't seem right. Maybe they could just explain why they need to solicit funds to help right some societal wrongs rather than turn it into a multimedia spectacle that tracks your responses. Maybe people don't care if the suffering isn't made to look cool? Or, perhaps not cool.. but engaging. The tech is supposed to be cool, not the problems the tech exposes. I guess I don't know how to properly reach out to everyone, either, but it still seems like a strange approach.

    I also understand that it can be hard to drive adoption of something without some clever or memorable tie-ins. I just don't see myself using something like this to consume "news" type of information, but I might be missing some sort of key part of why it this method is more suitable than others simply because I am entrenched in my own bias of how to best absorb information.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 23 2015, @03:57AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday October 23 2015, @03:57AM (#253502) Journal

      Somebody has to make content, or VR is as dead as Smellovision.

      I welcome NYT and other content creators. Even if they are advertisers.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 23 2015, @06:25PM

        by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday October 23 2015, @06:25PM (#253693)

        Maybe they can include smellovision internet of things devices? it can get a command from the software to release the smell and stench of those e-recyclers, with an acrid scent of burning electronics so real you'd wonder if your own goggles were about to do nothing.