Drone Races To Be Broadcast To VR Headsets (thenewstack.io)

An anonymous reader writes: You just plug in the HDMI feed, and you're in the cockpit of the drone," the CEO of the new Drone Racing League tells Wired. "Everyone from Oculus on is expecting to have VR headsets in every home for entertainment consumption, and we're a natural use for it." In anticipation of a new mass entertainment, the Drone Racing League released new footage Thursday highlighting one of their complicated competition courses, "a concrete steampunk torture chamber with cast-iron columns and massive hulking turbines from another era" described as The Gates of Hell. "[T]hese young drone pilots are not just enjoying themselves, but also inventing a new sport," reports one technology site, asking whether we'll ultimately see "drone parks" or even drone demolition derbies and flying robot wars. In an article titled "When Video Games Get Real," they quote one pilot who says it feels like skateboarding in the 1990's, "with a small group of people pushing the envelope and inventing every day" — this time wearing virtual reality googles to experience the addictive thrill of flying.

Comments

Not unless

[Kohath]

they find a way to prevent viewers from getting motion sickness.

This is the killer app for VR headsets.

[MMC Monster]

Sporting events are likely THE killer app for VR headsets.

Would be pretty cool to watch the football game from the point of view of the quarterback or someone else on the field. Similarly, would actually make Nascar racing interesting to be able to watch it from the driver's perspective.

I would certainly go and watch a sporting event with VR headset enhancements.

Come to think about it, the bandwidth for this is probably more than most people can push down from their home ethernet in realtime. This would make it the perfect sort of app for those Off Tack Betting sort of places.