What better way to spend your virtual currency than on virtual reality? Virtual reality for home entertainment has been in the works for some time, and it’s finally a real reality. Headlining this year’s Consumer Electronics Show was news that the much-anticipated Oculus Rift gaming headset ($600) is finally coming out. It’s due to ship in late March.
Along with the headset, you may want the Oculus Touch controllers to get your hands in the game, but they won’t be available until later in the year (price remains unknown). One thing you will need is a computer with sufficient speed and processing power. That will set you back around $1,000. If that seems steep, consider that
Facebook shelled out about $2 billion to buy the maker of the Oculus Rift headset a couple years ago.
Oculus isn’t alone in virtual reality. Sony is expected to ship its PlayStation VR headset later this year for the PlayStation 4 video game system. The price for the VR headset hasn’t been announced, but the PlayStation 4 console costs $350. You will need to buy games compatible with the headset.
HTC is also putting out a virtual reality headset called the Vive and is said to begin taking preorders at the end of February. The Vive headset will come with a front-facing camera that allows you to see the real world around you while you’re immersed in your virtual one. That should cut down on the bumps and bruises you risk while moving around in two worlds at once.
In addition, the Samsung Gear VR headset ($100) enables you to get the virtual reality experience by snapping a compatible Samsung phone into the headset, which is based on Oculus technology.
Cool Apps
Get Real
If you’ve got a hankering for the real world (as opposed to the virtual one), a wide variety of news reader apps are available to help you catch up. Apple, for instance, has introduced a news reader app called Apple News that lets you select the news outlets you want to follow and read them in a format that’s optimized for its mobile devices.
For Apple and Android, the News360 news aggregator app lets you personalize your news from a wide variety of sources and save stories for offline reading. Feedly helps you organize your personal content stream of publications, blogs and YouTube channels into one feed.
With Flipboard you can create a customized, personal magazine and share stories over social media. Newstream ($3) aims for a more old-fashioned print look on your mobile device. PressReader offers newspapers and magazines.
Of course, most news outlets have their own apps these days, but serious news hounds may want to check out the apps from the Associated Press, AP Mobile and Reuters.
