One of the big tech talking points of this year was the Samsung Gear VR. In fact, Samsung were responsible for a couple of novel tech ideas this year (think the Note Edge), but the weirdest of the lot has to be their take on virtual reality. The Gear VR is a virtual reality unit which can be used in conjunction with a smartphone to offer users an immersive VR experience. That said, Samsung somewhat shot themselves in the foot with this product by reducing its compatibility with smartphones. In a bid to add an additional reason to buying a Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Samsung made the Gear VR only compatible with the Note 4. As such, only a limited number of users can experience the tech giants virtual reality concept.
Well, it seems to try and provide those limited number of users with more of a reason to fork out another $200, Samsung have this morning launched a video service for the Gear VR. Now the details are rather limited and obviously you will need both the VR and the Note 4 to test the service which is being dubbed ‘Milk VR’. If you are an any Samsung-device owner, then the ‘Milk’ name will sound familiar as it seems to be the go-to Samsung media labelling. Either way, Milk VR has arrived for the Gear VR. So far, the early reports seem to suggest that Milk VR can be best thought of (and intended by Samsung) to be a sort of YouTube for VR. Therefore, the videos on offer are all short content videos ranging from one minute to ten minutes. The selection of content is also reportedly to be rather limited although Samsung are expected to continually increase the content available via routine updating. The video themselves are nothing too special but are expected to be more lifestyle, music or sport short based content. Either way though, the idea of a 360 immersive video service offered by Samsung is one that will be interesting.
If you are currently a Note 4 and Gear VR owner then you certainly should be giving this service a try. It is worth noting, that at present the service is only provided as a limited technical preview (think beta) and is available to all Gear VR owners. Not to mention the service is also currently free. As mentioned the library is limited at the moment and as such you will probably be able to get through the entire catalogue quite quickly. However, if you want an immersive 3d experience (and you do as you have bought a VR) then look out for the Milk VR service on your unit. Already tried it? What did you think? Any good content? Let us know.