Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, begins this week on Wednesday morning, and just like every year they’re going to be doing a live stream of the keynote for those that aren’t able to attend the conference so they’re still able to stay caught up on all of the action and the details of what’s announced. While you will be able to watch the live stream here on the site, Google is giving those with a VR headset including the Samsung Gear VR, the Oculus Rift, and Google Cardboard just to name a few, the opportunity to live stream and watch the Keynote speech in a 360-degree VR video.
The actual date and time of the keynote will be May 18th and the live stream should kick off promptly at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The live stream will happen using YouTube, naturally, as was announced by the official Google Cardboard Twitter page earlier this afternoon. If you don’t have a Cardboard viewer or another VR headset at your disposal, watching in a standard YouTube video player will work just fine too. This wouldn’t be the first time that something like this was tried, as Samsung integrated their Gear VR into the experience of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge announcement back during Mobile World Congress for those who were at the event, and OnePlus used the Cardboard viewer to live stream their announcement of the OnePlus 2 last year, although unlike OnePlus, Google is giving those who want to watch the live stream two different methods to do so, whereas the OnePlus 2 live stream had to be viewed through the VR viewer.
While it may seem a little bit like a stunt, it also sort of displays that Google is taking even more of a keen interest in the virtual reality space, which is further made evident by the numerous sessions listed on the official Google I/O schedule that revolve around VR, including one where they’re expected to show off the progress of what they’ve built in addition to talking about where they’re going with the virtual reality development going forward.