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Have you ever felt the burning desire to be in the same room with Presidential candidates during a 2-3 hour long debate? Now you can be there virtually from the comfort of your own home!
CNN and NextVR will make history on October 13th by hosting the first-ever live stream of a news event in virtual reality, giving viewers a front-row seat to CNN's 2016 election debates.
The network is partnering with virtual reality technology platform NextVR to stream the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate live, in full 3D immersive virtual reality, from Las Vegas, NV.
The live stream follows CNN and NextVR's first virtual reality experience at the CNN Ronald Reagan Debate, where it quietly filmed the highest rated event in CNN history in virtual reality to make it available to users on demand. This experience is now available to users who have a Samsung GearVR virtual reality headset by visiting the NextVR portal in the Oculus Store. Once downloaded, the debate can be seen from the perspective of an audience member at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
The October 13th debate will feature 5 candidates, along with Vice President Biden should he choose to enter the race. You can discuss the debate on my journal.
[Ed's Comment: Discuss the technology in the comments below, but please leave the political discussion for Takyon's journal.]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:13PM
I hope they contain themselves. If the VR recording gets too accurate, everyone will scald to death from all the hot air.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:46PM
I guess this is the thread to comment on the audience.
1) Whats the point, if you look at who will be able to view, they're in a demographic that either always votes -D or doesn't vote at all, but they're small of a population that its not energizing the base or converting undecideds or really doing anything politically. So its a product advertisement, not a political strategy.
This is even weirder as the stereotypical VR fan or video game hardware buyer doesn't have much (any?) overlap with white male senior citizens who watch FOX and CNN. So I don't think Grandpa Simpson screaming at his TV is really in the market to buy a google glass goggle gadget or WTF its called anyway.
2) Lots of commentary for a couple generations about how blurry analogy 2-D TV changed debates and politics forever when bearded sweaty Nixon tried to debate metrosexual JFK on TV and the liberated women voters were only interested in who looked more Alpha on TV. I'm sure VR or 3-d panoramas or WTF will have some gut level of impact along those lines. I'm not even sure what to say about it beyond its more likely to drag the intellectual level of the debate lower rather than higher, at least based on past history. Would seeing Hillary in 4K tomorrow make me even less likely to vote for her than in HDTV today vs old fashioned NTSC SD video the last time I wouldn't vote for her? Just.... ugh. It just seems inappropriate, like having a smell-o-vision feed of the lincoln memorial is supposed to mean something, well, no, really it means nothing, or nothing good.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:07PM
Don't worry so much about it. Every aspect of American elections are broken, not just the debates.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:43PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:26PM
That's the easiest thing in the world: If they are a Democratic or Republican presidential candidate, they are corrupt. Full stop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:52PM
If you see a television ad for them, they're corrupt.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday October 13 2015, @08:38PM
But then, voting is easy: Just look for the name you don't know, and vote for that one.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:28PM
they're in a demographic that either always votes -D
Then it actually is an argument for this being a good test. You are saying that a large percentage of the installed base would be interested in watching it and that as it is a primary debate they would possibly be the ones picking a candidate based on the performance instead of watching it with a view of live tweeting snarky comments.
But really. Who is going to watch this thing live with a VR headset on for two hours? With the headset on you will pretty much be trapped there for the duration with no distractions. I'll watch but 'tape delayed' on my MythTV so as to be able to minimize my expose to the toxic levels of stupid all of these debates release. At least CNN won't be running this one as a demolition derby or WWE match. If you had watched that last one with take a drink every time a moderator began with "Trump said..." and ended with "..would you like to respond to him now." you would have passed out in the first half.