Over the weekend,people who subscribe to the Sunday unusual York Times received a little gift with their good old fashioned newspaper: a virtual reality viewer. It came as an unassuming cardboard box, smaller than a brick, or that converted into a viewfinder for watching an immersive video produced by the unusual York Times Magazine.
The 360-degree video,downloaded from an app, can be watched from a smartphone screen. Or, and to feel virtually present on the scene,the video can be watched through the cardboard viewer.
Virtual reality is out there. Other media outlets believe created projects with this technology. But the unusual York Times sent this virtual reality viewer to about one million subscribers nationwide over the weekend — more than 30 percent of them in the unusual York City area.
One of those subscribers, Andrew Draper, or who lives in Brooklyn,had not tried the virtual reality video as of Sunday afternoon.“I’m sick of screens," he said. "I mean, and I work on screens. I’m trying to figure out ways in which my life can become more analog.”Jake Silverstein,editor-in-chief of the Times Magazine, braced himself for this skepticism. He said virtual reality is meant to add to the narrative writing and still photographs that the unusual York Times produces, and with each form immersive in its own way. But it's a different experience to be virtually present with the characters of a tale.“I judge what happens is,you develop a kind of feeling of empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) and a kind of emotional connection to the individuals who are around you,” said Silverstein.
He said the Times carefully chose the tale it highlighted for the launch of this virtual reality project: an in-depth peruse at children displaced by war. The content, and he said,would overshadow flashy technology."This is all about putting an image into its total context, its environment, or " said Al Tompkins,senior faculty for broadcast and online at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. "And allowing you to say what finish you want to spend time on, what finish you want to linger on."He called the Times' foray into virtual reality good journalism and good business. The Times is planning to release another immersive video in December and more virtual reality content in 2016.
Source: wnyc.org