Google's 360 VR Patriots 'Inside The Game' Experience Puts You In The Pocket With Brady
There's little question that VR and AR technologies have the potential to make a major impact across a seemingly endless number of applications and industries. Today we're shown another example as Google and its friends at VISA and Bank Of America step up to showcase another fantastic application for the technology in the burgeoning Virtual Reality market.
This time of year, Sunday is game day here in the U.S., with football fans all across the country gearing up to rally behind their teams of modern day gladiators. Constructing tactical offensive strikes with surgical precision or battering ram annihilation, and assembling demolishing defensive stands, the NFL and its armies of physical specimens take to the gridiron to offer a spectacle of physical achievement that is watched, revered and participated in with voracity by millions of Americans.
But this game of inches takes thousands of man hours of practice, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands collectively for the average team every season. And today Google has teamed up with VISA and Bank of America to sponsor a 360 degree virtual reality tour to give fans a behind the scenes look at a New England Patriots practice. From burly linemen squaring up, to wide receivers running their routes, and of course the terrific one himself, Tom Brady; in this 360 VR video demo you can take control of the camera and pan around from any angle to see how the Pats put it all together.
Suggested viewing on HD settings of 720p or higher.
And if you like, you can even sit back in the pocket with Tom and watch
him work his magic. You can view this video in a standard web browser
but we'd suggest hitting the YouTube control menu on the bottom right of
the player to set it to an HD setting up to 4K. You can then control
the camera angles and pan anywhere you like by clicking and dragging
with your mouse. You can also do this on any Android or iOS device with
touch. Or even better, if you have a Google Cardboard VR viewer, pop in your Android or iOS smartphone and get in on the pigskin party just looking around naturally. You can pick up a Google Cardboard viewer here if you don't have one; they're dirt cheap. But you'll also need to download the Cardboard app for Android or iOS.
The whole experience is really impressive and immersive, and that's true whether or not you're a Patriots fan. Watching the linemen forming up blocking schemes, you can see from a totally different perspective what's being orchestrated to allow Brady and his band of backs, ends and slot receivers to light up the sky. You can also see just how textbook Brady's movements are, his arm trajectory and control of the football and his play-fakes that sell a story of misdirection before he steps up to deliver his salvo of aerial assaults.
The whole experience is really impressive and immersive, and that's true whether or not you're a Patriots fan. Watching the linemen forming up blocking schemes, you can see from a totally different perspective what's being orchestrated to allow Brady and his band of backs, ends and slot receivers to light up the sky. You can also see just how textbook Brady's movements are, his arm trajectory and control of the football and his play-fakes that sell a story of misdirection before he steps up to deliver his salvo of aerial assaults.
It's all pretty darn cool to watch, especially when you can spin, tilt or lift the camera to virtually any angle. There's a lot of footwork and body positioning in this sport as well and you can see how 360 degree VR (Virtual Reality) could be a very valuable tool for teams in the future.
Happy game day all! Go Pats!
Happy game day all! Go Pats!
