What Happened
Oculus kicked off its annual Oculus Connect Event earlier today in San Jose, California, where the Facebook-owned VR company unveiled a series of updates for its products and software. CNET has a good summary of all the announcements the company made, but two of them stood out as brand-related highlights:
First, Oculus introduced two new technical features called “Timewarp” and “Spacewarp,” which create synthetic frames that can keep the image smooth, enabling Oculus Rift to provide a decent VR experience on a PC that costs as low as $499.
In addition, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will invest $250 million in the Oculus developer community, on top of the $250 million it has already spent. $50 million of the funding is allocated for mobile VR content and another $10 million for educational programs.
What Brands Should Do
Lowering the minimum PC requirements to support Oculus VR headsets may help expand its user base, which in turn provides brands with a bigger audience to reach with VR content. And Facebook’s continued investment in VR content not only shows its commitment to the emerging medium but also presents brands with an opportunity to work with developers to capitalize on the impending VR content boom with branded VR content and experiences.
The Lab currently has four VR headsets — an Oculus Rift, an HTC Vive, and two Samsung Gear VRs — ready for demos. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood, so come by the Lab and ask for a VR demo to get a hands-on experience and figure out how your brand can use it to excite and engage with consumers.
Sources: The Verge & VentureBeat
