Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new feature on stage at the social network’s annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Spherical videos are 360-degree videos that will run natively in Newsfeed and are shot with 24 high-resolution cameras, Zuckerberg said.
In addition to embeds in Newsfeed, spherical videos will also be compatible with virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and Samsung’s Gear VR.
Zuckerberg says attendees will be able to experience spherical videos at the conference in its “Teleportation Stations.”
When Facebook purchased Oculus, the company behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, last year for $2 billion, many wondered what the social network would do with the platform. Spherical videos are the first glimpse of what’s to come for the company’s VR ambitions.
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Source: BBC