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Tour the White House in 360-Degree Virtual Reality

By David Foxley

Today marks the launch of The People’s House: Inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama, the first-ever Facebook 360 project filmed inside the world’s most famous home. The piece, produced by Emmy-winning cinematic virtual reality creators Félix & Paul Studios alongside the Oculus team at Facebook, takes viewers to nine famous areas within the iconic building—from sitting with the President in the Oval Office to walking around the Situation Room to stopping into the Old Family Dining Room with Mrs. Obama.

“Michelle and I always joke, ‘We’re just renters here. ’ . . . The owners are the American people and all those invested in creating this amazing place with so much history,” President Obama says in the VR experience. “What we wanted to do is make sure that everybody felt they had access to the White House, . . . that as many people as possible could come in and appreciate the place where Lincoln, FDR, or Reagan made the decisions that helped to shape America.”

Take the Facebook 360 video tour of the White House here.

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The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

First Lady Jill   Biden Announces New Virtual White   House   Tour

Virtual Tour Available on WhiteHouse.gov/VirtualTour

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, on National Civics Day, First Lady Jill Biden is launching a new virtual tour of the White House.  The White House, Google Maps, and Google Arts & Culture have collaborated to create a new virtual tour of the White House using Google Street View technology. It will live on  WhiteHouse.gov/VirtualTour , as well as on both Google Maps and the Google Arts & Culture page.  “Since day one of this Administration, the First Lady has worked to open the doors of the White House wider and wider, using technology and digital platforms to bring the “People’s House” to as many people as possible.  Not everyone can make the trip to Washington, DC to tour the White House, so she is bringing the White House to them.  We especially hope teachers everywhere can use this in their classrooms as a new interactive tool to educate their students about the White House – both past and present,” said  Elizabeth Alexander, Communications Director for the First Lady.  This is the first Google virtual tour of the White House with available Spanish translation and audio captions for those with disabilities.  Audio captions were narrated by White House Social Secretary Carlos Elizondo. The opening video on the virtual tour of the President and the First Lady is the same video that plays at the White House Visitors Center, so those who come for the virtual tour will get the same experience and message as those who come in-person. 

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You can now take a virtual reality tour of the White House

If you've always wanted to tour the White House but never managed to make it out to Washington DC, then we've got some good news for you. Assuming you've got an Oculus Rift or Gear VR headset, you can now take a tour of the White House with none other than President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as your guides.

The tour is launching today on Oculus Video, but if you don't have a VR headset, you can still check out the tour in a 360-degree video over on the The White House's official Facebook page. Obviously, viewing the video with a VR headset would make the experience much more immersive, but it's nice to know you can still check it out without needing to own one of those devices.

During the tour, Barack and Michelle Obama explain what it was like coming to live in a place with as much history as The White House. After all, not only is it a home for the sitting president and his family, but it's also something of a museum, showcasing busts and paintings of presidents past. They take us through what they felt the first time they entered the White House, and explain some of the important events that happened in these locations during the Obama presidency.

The tour takes us through multiple sections of the White House, including the Red Room on the State Floor, the Situation Room, and even the Oval Office. It's there that viewers will find themselves seated across from President Obama, who has this to say:

Michelle and I always joke, we're just renters here... the owners are the American people and all those invested in creating this amazing place with so much history. What we want to do is make sure that everybody felt they had access to it... that as many people as possible could come in and appreciate the place where Lincoln or FDR or Reagan had made decisions that helped to shape America.

What we're seeing today isn't the end of the White House VR content Oculus has helped prepare. The company says that a longer tour – the current video weighs in at around eight minutes – will be available for Oculus Rift and Gear VR soon, so maybe we'll get to see even more of the White House shortly. For now, you can check out out the tour through Oculus Video or watch the 360 video on Facebook .

SOURCE: Oculus

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Take a Virtual Tour of the White House While You're Stuck at Home

It's time for a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Take a trip to our nation's capital without tearing yourself away from your couch.

While a trip to the White House is certainly a unique experience in person, a virtual tour can be just as incredible. Thanks to Google Arts & Culture, you can enjoy a walk through the most famous residence in the U.S. online.

Google Arts & Culture is a treasure trove of art, history, and cultural tours that are not only useful for people who are social distancing due to the coronavirus outbreak, but they're also interesting at any time. This site allows you to view some of the world's most famous artworks by taking virtual tours of hundreds of museums . Enjoy a nature walk in a national park . Or, you can even take a royal tour of some of the most historic castles in the world.

The White House is a particularly unique tour because it is actually the only " private residence of a head of state that is open to the public, free of charge," according to Google Arts & Culture.

The Executive office building tour , which is accessible via Street View, shows you many rooms in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building beyond the Oval Office, including the Vice President's Ceremonial Office, the Secretary of War suite, and the library. You can also view the historical artwork (including official portraits of the former heads of state, pottery, and sculptures on display) in the White House and see its unique decor. On top of this being a visually-stimulating tour, it also offers history and interesting facts about everything you can see.

Street View makes it possible to explore the interiors and exteriors of the White House as well. Once you're done perusing the historic offices, you can find how it feels to virtually be standing on the White House lawn.

For more information or to take a tour yourself, visit the Google Arts & Culture website.

You can now tour the White House in 360-degree VR

Whatever your political persuasion

Ever imagined yourself strolling through the corridors of power in the US? Or maybe just being an extra on the West Wing? Then you'll be keen to take advantage of the official virtual reality tour of the White House that's just been launched .

The VR experience, available on the Oculus Rift and Gear VR , and on the web , is actually a guided tour led by none other than outgoing President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. It's also a bit of a retrospective on their last eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"This house belongs to you, and to every American," says Obama. "For eight years, just a short chapter in the long story of our democracy, my family also had the privilege of calling the White House home."

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Tour de force

Like any of the 360-degree videos uploaded to Facebook, if you're watching through a web browser, you can click and drag to look all the way around. You can't just run off into any room you like, however - you have to stick to the tour.

As you would expect, the video - which runs a little over eight minutes - takes you through some of the most iconic rooms in the President's home, from the Situation Room to the Oval Office.

And the creatives behind Félix & Paul Studios , who made the video, have said they're planning to make a much longer version at some point in the future. In the meantime strap on your VR headset and take a look inside one of the world's most famous landmarks.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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Take a virtual reality tour of the white house right now with google.

Want to take a tour of the White House but don’t want to fly to Washington, DC? Don’t worry about it: Google has you covered with a new YouTube 360 video that you can make even more immersive if you watch it with a Google Cardboard virtual reality headset.

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You can check out the video for yourself here:

“Filmed using the Jump platform, which includes a 16 camera capture rig and assembler for filming/editing VR videos, users can now explore the hallways and famous rooms of the White House with all the holiday decorations on full display,” Google explains. “We also created a Google Expedition of the holiday tour, so that teachers participating in the Expeditions Pioneer Program can take their students on a virtual field trip to the White House as well.”

Expeditions is an educational tool that Google unveiled earlier this year that lets students take virtual tours of some of the world’s most famous places. What makes this initiative so clever is Google’s reliance on Cardboard as the main interface. Unlike an Oculus Rift or a HoloLens, Cardboard is essentially a dirt-cheap headset that attaches to a smartphone to create an immersive viewing experience. This means it’s more affordable than other headsets and is more likely to be adopted by schools.

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Take a 360-Degree Virtual Tour of the White House

The tour includes rarely seen rooms like the Situation Room and Treaty Room.

— -- More than 50 years ago, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy introduced millions of Americans to the White House in a televised tour.

Now, the Obamas are offering a new way to see the People's House -- in virtual reality.

In this virtual experience, viewers can explore the White House and West Wing in 360 degrees. The tour, narrated by President Obama, also allows entry into the rooms that are rarely seen, such as the Situation Room and the Treaty Room, which is Obama's private office.

Throughout the tour, you'll be able to listen to the president and first lady Michelle Obama personally reflect on their time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Last year, the president made his virtual reality debut in a video filmed on his trip to Yosemite National Park.

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Visit Obama’s White House, Room by Room, in New Facebook 360-Degree Video

By Janko Roettgers

Janko Roettgers

Senior Silicon Valley Correspondent

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Before President Obama is calling the movers to the White House this coming week, he’s inviting the public for one last tour: Emmy Award-winning virtual reality startup Felix & Paul Studios and the Oculus team released a 360-degree video dubbed “The People’s House” Friday that’s both a personal reflection of the time the first family spent in the White House and the history of the presidential residence.

The project was filmed over seven days in November and December, and will eventually result in a full 3D VR experience to be released later this year. But the team didn’t want to wait, and decided to release a shorter 360-degree video on Facebook and Gear VR this week. “We felt it was a moment in time that was ideal,” said Colum Slevin, Head of Experiences at Facebook-owned Oculus.

The video takes the viewer through an 8 minute journey through the White House, exploring iconic rooms like the Oval Office, the Situation Room and the the podium that Obama used to announce the demise of Osama bin Laden, as well as two one-on-one interviews with the President and the First Lady. The couple also act as the narrators of the piece, intertwining some of the legacy and symbolism of the building with their own recollection of key moments of this presidency.

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Felix & Paul filmed some of the sequences using time lapse and a moving camera, with individual scenes tied together by the President’s and his wife’s narration. “It’s the idea of the President moving you forward through his recollection,” said Felix & Paul Chief Content Officer Ryan Horrigan.

This isn’t the first time Obama has used virtual reality and 360-degree video. Back in August, the White House cooperated with Felix & Paul, Oculus and National Geographic for “Through the Ages,” a video to celebrate the 100th birthday of the U.S. National Park Service.

“The Oculus team has been in dialog with the digital team at the White House for some time,” said Slevin. Out of that dialog, the idea for “The People’s House” was born, which Slevin at least partially attributed to Obama’s fascination with technology. Horrigan agreed, saying that Obama quickly warmed up to the medium. “He pretty quickly started to understand how to have an intimate conversation with the viewer.”

Viewers who can’t get enough of Obama will be able to get an extended tour later this year; the full VR experience, which will be available on Oculus Rift and Gear VR, will be last at least twice as long and feature sneak peeks into many more rooms of the White House.

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Tour the White House with Obama in VR

A 360-degree video on Facebook takes you into White House sanctums like the Oval Office and the Situation Room, a teaser to a longer virtual-reality tour.

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US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle take you into iconic spots of the White House in a 360-degree video tour.

Yesterday, I sat across from US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. First impression: The room is way smaller than you'd think. (Obama agreed.)

It sounds like something that happened all in my head, but really it happened on my face -- a 360-degree video tour of the White House, led by the president and the first lady, via a Samsung Gear VR headset.

On Friday, Facebook's Oculus launched a 360-video version of the tour on its social network. You can watch on your phone, moving it around you to see in every direction or you can use a Gear VR headset like I did. The 8-minute clip is a prelude to a longer virtual-reality experience to come later this year.

"What we wanted to do is make sure that everybody felt they had access to the White House," Obama says in the experience.

Virtual reality is an entertainment format that makes you feel like you're in the middle of the action, created by wearing a googles-like device that presents a digital view of the world and that responds to the way you turn your head. It's among the buzziest consumer technologies, as big investments in VR hardware by tech giants like Facebook and Samsung start to deliver products to consumers more widely.

Samsung said last week that 5 million of its $99 Gear VR headsets are in use around the world, with more than 10 million hours of video viewed in them so far.

But by and large the technology, new and unfamiliar to creators and consumers alike, has yet to find widespread traction .

The beauty of spherical video

That limited reach, combined with the desire to release the tour before the Obamas leave the White House later this month, motivated the administration and the filmmakers to release the 360-degree-video version via Facebook, according to Félix Lajeunesse, one of the filmmakers.

"The beauty with spherical video, you can distribute all across the world," he said in an interview, since it lets anyone with a phone or tablet still experience the tour. Lajeunesse's company, Felix & Paul Studios , is the same VR filmmaking house that shot "Through the Ages," a virtual-reality experience that visited Yosemite National Park with Obama and his family.

The tour itself takes viewers into eight different areas of the White House. You sit across from Barack Obama in the Oval Office. Michelle Obama sits across the table from you in the Old Family Dining Room. They both narrate the experience with personal recollections and historical notes as you enter places you'll likely never visit in person, like the Situation Room, the White House's intelligence hub.

It's sure to make history buffs geek out. Fans of the Obamas will delight in having what feels like a private sit-down with the president and first lady. If you're not a fan of Obama administration, well, maybe you can start mentally redecorating all the rooms? Send tips and suggestions to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

"The People's House: Inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama" is available as a Facebook 360 video as well as Oculus Video for Samsung Gear VR.

Batteries Not Included: The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool. Take a look here .

CNET Magazine: Check out a sampling of the stories you'll find in CNET's newsstand edition, right here .

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Tour the White House in virtual reality with the Obamas as your guides

Filmed by Felix & Paul, a VR film studio that has a number of 360-degree content under its belt, “The People’s House” is available to everyone as a 360-degree video, and thanks to a partnership with Oculus Studios, Gear VR and Oculus Rift owners can watch the tour with their headsets.

The video is a tour of the White House led by both Barack and Michelle Obama, who not only talk about the building’s history, but about their time spent in it for the past eight years. It’s not the first VR short film made by Paul & Felix to feature President Obama. “ Through the Ages ” takes the cake, and it showcases the president celebrating the National Parks Service Centennial at Yosemite.

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The White House video, which was filmed in November and December, isn’t the final version — the full-length video will come later this year, but the production studio wanted to make sure a part of it is available before Obama leaves office. The current version on Facebook clocks in around eight minutes, and the full version is expected to be around 20 minutes long.

The full version will also feel more real, and have more depth, as it will be available in stereoscopic 3D. It’s unclear when it will be available, but for now, you can enjoy a personal tour of the White House led by the 44th President of the United States and the first lady  here.

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• Virtual Reality

Microsoft has recently filed a patent for a virtual reality floor mat — and the most intriguing aspect is the patent’s suggestion that it could be used with a gaming console like the Xbox.

The patent, which was filed by Microsoft on April 2, 2018 and published last week on Thursday, October 3, is for what the technology company refers to as a “virtual reality floor mat activity region.” While the use of floor mats in virtual reality isn’t a new concept, the Microsoft patent indicates that its floor mat will have more features than just simply providing a way to help VR gamers stay within the safety of their designated play spaces.

Remember when Windows Media Player ruled the earth? Before the world was inundated with versatile playback tools like VLC and countless other platforms, most users flocked to the built-in OS media players provided by Windows and Apple (the latter being the minds behind QuickTime). In fact, you’ve probably come across a handful of WMA files in your life of using computers.

If you're a realtor, trying to find a good laptop can be just as challenging as finding the perfect home for your clients. Not only do you need something that looks professional and can withstand the daily demands of the modern work environment, but it also needs to be portable and durable. After all, there's a good chance you'll be lugging it around with you to your showings, so a clunky laptop simply won't cut it.

That means you'll need a laptop that's portable, reliable, responsive, and boasts a professional design that'll impress your clients. That's quite the checklist – but thankfully, there are plenty of great laptops for realtors that fit all these criteria.