First, you had the web on your desktop. Then you could browse on your phone. Now, you can fill your entire field of vision with it. A Reddit user discovered that Chrome offers support for the Oculus Rift VR headset.
Another Redditor noted, “Just tried it and yep, it works (had a quick look at the Google Mars surface demo). Without the flag enabled, you just get an option for a desktop 360 view. Enable the flag though and an option to view in VR is there, and it launches it straight to the headset.”
That user continues: “For those that don’t know how, in your Chrome address bar, type: chrome://flags then do a search on that page for ‘Oculus’, and set it to enabled.”
Right now, Chrome supports the Oculus Rift, but when Variety asked Google if Samsung’s Gear would also get support, there was no answer. Google rolled out initial VR support for its own Daydream headset in September, 2017.
If you’d like to play around with some web-based third-party-generated VR experiences, you can check out this site.
It’s clear that virtual and augmented reality will become the future of entertainment and web consumption. The question is when we’ll make the big shift. Some estimates suggest the VR game market will surpass $45 billion by 2025. Until then, we’ll keep an eye on developments and keep you in the loop.
