The Best Apps to Get the News in VR

Welcome to the Economist VR app, which provides access to virtual-reality content from the world’s most influential news publication. The latest version of the app features:

Passport: Hyderabad
Hyderabad, India's fourth biggest city, is fast becoming one of the most exciting visitor destinations in the country. Its booming tech scene is attracting global attention and transforming this ancient city into a cosmopolitan hotspot. This 360-degree video experience accompanies the Hyderabad episode of the “Passport” series by Economist Films.

Passport: Osaka
Bright lights, bath-houses and seafood markets — take a tour of the Japanese city of Osaka with a local who can show you the city's best-kept secrets. This 360-degree video experience accompanies the Osaka episode of the “Passport” series by Economist Films.

Ocean: The mystery corals
Lukas Isall, a researcher at the Palau International Research Centre, tells the story of some of the world’s most beautiful and mysterious corals. This 360-degree video experience accompanies the “Ocean” series by Economist Films.

Oceans VR: Net positive
Explore the case for limiting fishing on the high seas, examining things from the viewpoint of diner, fish, fisherman and policymaker. By taking you inside the argument, we hope to give you a new perspective on this serious issue. Produced by The Economist Media Lab with Object Normal. Featured in the Convergence programme at the 54th New York Film Festival.

RecoVR: Mosul, a collective reconstruction
Take a tour of the Mosul Museum in Iraq, destroyed by militants from Islamic State but now recreated in virtual reality. Examine lost artefacts reconstructed by Rekrei, a project dedicated to restoring cultural heritage through photogrammetry and 3D modeling. Developed by The Economist Media Lab, with additional VR production from Visualise. Winner of the jury prize for innovation at the 2016 British Interactive Media Awards.

An extension of the iconic LIFE brand, LIFE VR is a virtual reality and augmented reality platform offering immersive experiences from some of today’s most beloved Meredith brands, including TIME, People, Sports Illustrated, Real Simple, Travel + Leisure, Southern Living, and InStyle.

LIFE VR elevates Meredith’s acclaimed storytelling capabilities to new levels through 360° video, interactive virtual reality, and immersive augmented reality experiences to engage every passion, including news, entertainment, sports, fashion, history, food, and travel—all with new content curated every month from the best of the Meredith brands.

This mobile app is one of many platforms from which you can explore LIFE VR’s growing slate of world-class stories and original programming. Others include Steam for the HTC Vive; Samsung Gear VR; and Oculus Rift.

A short list of LIFE VR’s most recent experiences:
• College Football's Most Iconic Landmarks in 360°
• The Solar Eclipse in 360°
• Travel+Leisure's World's Best City - Mexico's San Miguel de Allende
• Capturing Everest
• The Crystal Reef
• Experience Dubai
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 360
• Remembering Pearl Harbor
• Best Love, A VR music and fashion experience featuring Yuna
• Travel+Leisure's Destination of the Year - Portugal
• Defying the Nazis VR, a companion piece to the Ken Burns’s documentary on PBS
• Fast Ride by The Drive

Visit Time.com/lifevr for more information and a sneak peek at upcoming content.

• Live Feed
A news feed featuring the latest content for your virtual reality headset; this content can be a VR game, an experience, a 360 video or an article again. The Live Feed will be updated at least once a week, but can be updated on a daily basis depending on the news and content.

• TOP 20 and the user vote
The VR Center Top 20 will be reviewed every week based on your votes; a ranking of applications and videos will be presented as a TOP 20 illustrated with icons indicating whether the content is up, down or stable compared to last week. The purpose of this vote is to help us and you find the best content in virtual reality.

• Apps and Videos categories
All the experiences offered in the VR Center are filed by category. The catalog will of course be extended during the beta phase and a premium set of the most popular content is also planned.
Are you a developer? Do not hesitate to submit your application to the following address: [email protected]


• Bookmarks
Located in the side menu, it allows to find all the experiences in the live feed as well as in the categories. Each application or a video card gives you the possibility to mark the content to find it later in this section, at any time.
By dragging an application card to the left, you can access this card or delete it from the Bookmarks page.

• Dynamic search
You can start a dynamic search at any time by typing in the first three characters of the content you are looking for. The results will be displayed instantly in the form of cards, giving you access to the experiences.

• Facebook Connect
To ensure that votes are counted and that no votes are doubled, the VR Center uses Facebook’s unique authentication. Only the email address is required for the sole purpose of identifying the user, no other information from your Facebook account is used.

• Sharing through the VR Center
It allows us to notify an application or a 360 video to be added in the VR Center. This function is very simple to use: press the Share button and share through the VR Center. After testing or viewing, we may add the proposed content.

• Expert mode
A space reserved for those who are familiar with more complex applications, technical articles and exclusive tutorials.

VR Center is compatible with all virtual reality headsets for smartphones including:

Homido, Durovis Dive, Freefly VR, Merge VR, Gear VR (via tips), VR Box, Shinecon, Dodo case, Daydream View, Dlodlo, VR One, Cardboard, Noon VR, Bobo VR etc.

All of the brand names or product names used are the registered marks of their respective owners.

Step inside the story.

Guardian VR fuses rigorous journalism with innovative storytelling.

Whether it’s living in solitary confinement, struggling as an asylum seeker or seeing through a baby’s eyes, you can now experience all of these stories from a different point of view.

Just pop your iPhone into a Google Cardboard headset and you’ll be able to watch and interact as events unfold around you.

Keep coming back for new content - we’ll be bringing you different pieces regularly.

For the best experience we recommend using an iPhone 6s and above, running iOS 10 and above.

If you have questions, ideas or you want to subscribe to our newsletter, email [email protected] Or visit our FAQ page: http://www.theguardian.com/vr

Through virtual reality, The New York Times puts you at the center of the stories that only we can tell.

From embedding with Iraqi forces as they fight to retake Falluja from ISIS to climbing the spire of the World Trade Center with professional mountaineer Jimmy Chin or setting foot on the alien world of Pluto, NYT VR delivers on the promise of VR to bring you to places you can’t normally go.

Experience our award-winning virtual reality films by New York Times journalists in an immersive 360-degree video experience.

For the most immersive NYT VR experience, watch our VR films with Google Cardboard. If you don’t have one, you can still watch our VR stories on your smartphone.

We’ll be posting new virtual reality films every month or so.

App Features:
-Exclusive 360 videos for Cardboard or smartphone-only mode
-Option to stream or download films

Have feedback? Need help? Email [email protected]

Cronkite News takes you inside major stories affecting Arizona and the world. Whether it’s a raucous Donald Trump rally or life along the U.S./Mexico border, Cronkite News VR brings it to you in high-definition 360 video produced by the country’s best emerging journalists and filmmakers.