Facebook allows owners of Samsung Gear VR to connect the headset to their Facebook accounts. Starting next week, users will be able to like and share 360-degree video from inside their headset.
On Wednesday, Oculus launched its new features into the Samsung Gear VR headset. In its official blog, Oculus announced, "Starting tomorrow, people with a Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus, can create a profile and then easily search for others on the platform by real name or Oculus username."
This new features is called Oculus Social Features, which allow owners of Samsung Gear VR to connect with their friends. Oculus also launched two new social VR games: Social Trivia and Herobound Gladiators.
Oculus is a virtual reality technology company founded in 2012 by Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe. Facebook acquired the company in 2014 for $2 billion, in $400 million of cash and 23.1 million Facebook shares. The social network giant has tried to integrate its social network into VR technology with the acquisition.
"VR is going to be the most social platform," Mark Zuckerbeg told audience in Samsung's Galaxy S7 event earlier this month as ZDNet reported.
"Facebook with Oculus are committed to this for the long term. We've recently created new teams at Facebook to build the next generation of social apps and VR," Zuckerberd added.
Now, Facebook and VR integration is moving one step further. Along with its new feature and games, Oculus also add Facebook video tab to Oculus Video. This enable owners of Samsung Gear VR to connect their Facebook account and personalizing their 360-degree video, based on pages and people they follow.
In the coming weeks new feature will be added. Venture Beat reported that owners will be able to like, share, and react to their favorite Facebook 360° videos directly in virtual reality. According to the Facebook data in February, Samsung Gear VR owners had watched 1 million hours of video using the device.
Samsung Gear VR is a virtual reality headset developed in collaboration between Samsung and Oculus. When Samsung launched the headset in November last year, it has achieved a good commercial success.
Oculus also provide applications for the headset which is available in the Oculus Store. Prior to the new social games and Facebook 360-degree video connection, there are 185 games and application available for Samsung Gear VR owners.
Starting next week, owners of Samsung Gear VR will be able to connect the headset to their Facebook accounts, and watch the 360-degree video. They will also be able to like and share the video from inside the headset.
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