Oculus and Tidal are partnering to bring livestreamed music performances to virtual reality, the companies announced Wednesday.
The exclusive concerts will be streamed on the Venues app on the Oculus Quest starting later this year. The performances will also be available in regular 2D video and high-quality audio on Tidal.
All of the performances will be available at the same time on Oculus — which is owned by Facebook — and Tidal.
“At a time when livestreamed performances are seen as the new norm, Tidal’s partnership with Oculus provides music lovers an elevated concert experience with more interaction and dimension than past livestreams,” Tidal Chief Operating Officer Lior Tibon said in a statement. “Oculus is revolutionizing the live music experience and matched with Tidal’s HiFi audio quality, members will be able to remember what it feels like to stand in a large crowd at a concert venue.”
The lineup for the exclusive virtual concerts hasn’t been revealed yet. The partnership was announced just after the Facebook Connect event, in which Facebook revealed the new Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.
The Oculus-Tidal tag team could capitalize on a new era of music performances, as the coronavirus pandemic has kept concert venues shuttered to prevent the disease’s spread. Many artists have taken to performing on livestreams or producing online concerts to attract fans.
But a push into VR may make those shows feel even more like a regular concert experience, something music lovers have been missing for months now.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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