It’s widely regarded that the evening tyranny of the remote control is coming to an end, as smartphones and tablets enable people to watch different shows while sitting in the same room. For some, however, the liberation is clearly not complete.
Netflix, in a move that could cut out the need for interaction with friends and family altogether, have announced an experimental project to bring their TV and film streaming service to the much anticipated Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
The futuristic-sounding project Oculix emerged during one of Netflix’s ‘hack days’, when employees are free to come up with weird and wacky ideas to improve the service. Oculix would allow users to browse Netflix’s library of shows simply by moving their head.
Once a selection was made, the library would vanish and a virtual cinema take its place. It would even be possible to turn your head to look around the ‘cinema’, although there has been no mention of virtual family or flatmates for users to ignore.
Sadly for those for whom a virtual reality TV experience cannot come too soon, Netflix has said that most of their hack day projects come to nothing. Besides, there hasn’t even been a launch date set yet for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset. The day of liberation will surely come though – Facebook won’t want to have paid $2bn (£1.2bn) for Oculus VR in March for nothing.
Check out the video from Netflix's hack day here:
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