Despite the company purchasing VR specialist Oculus all the way back in 2014, you still can’t access VR in your Facebook News Feed. But that may be changing soon.
In a post shared on Friday, Oculus confirmed that it has started to test native React VR support for the News Feed on its social platform. What does that mean? Well, React VR is a sort of framework for building WebVR experiences using JavaScript. It can be used to create websites that seamlessly let you access VR content without the need to download apps.
On the Facebook News Feed, then, this could mean that you might scroll down the traditional feed on a phone or PC browser as usual but if you come across a 360 video or image that a friend has posted you should be able to quickly pull on a headset and jump into that media in seconds. It’s unclear at this time if you might be able to access the entire news feed in VR.
Facebook first brought 360 degree content to its platform in late 2015 and has since expanded the initiative with a dedicated 360 app on the Oculus-powered Gear VR.
That said, Oculus noted that it was only in the early phase of testing this support out right now. Don’t expect to see it any time soon, then. Crucially, these experiences won’t just run on the Oculus Rift and Gear VR but should instead be compatible with the entire range of headsets, as Oculus reassured in the blog post’s comment section.
Elsewhere, Oculus highlighted some of the other experiences built with React VR that you can try now. They include a tie-in to Sony’s upcoming Jumanji reboot with a 360 degree video scavenger hunt and even a 360 degree tour of London’s British Museum.
