Virtual Reality Timeline
January 2012
Nonny de la Peña debuts “Hunger in Los Angeles” at the Sundance Film Festival, with technology help from intern Palmer Luckey.
August 2012
Luckey launches a Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift
VR headset, raising almost $2.5 million.
March 2014
Facebook announces that it is buying Oculus Rift for $2 billion.
July 2014
Google debuts “Cardboard,” a low-cost VR viewer.
September 2014
The Des Moines Register launches “Harvest of Change,” a virtual reality experience showing the life of an Iowa farming family.
September 2014
Samsung announces the Samsung Gear VR, a headset that uses a Samsung Galaxy smartphone as a viewer.
April 2015
The Wall Street Journal releases a virtual reality “roller coaster” that follows the ups and downs of the Nasdaq.
April 2015
In partnership with Vrse, The New York Times Magazine debuts a virtual reality cover showing street art in Manhattan.
April 2015
RYOT debuts “Confinement,” a short virtual reality film covering solitary confinement at American prisons, at the Tribeca Film Festival.
April 2015
The Washington Post shares a virtual reality experience of the Oval Office at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
June 2015
BBC creates a 360-degree video immersing users into a Syrian migrant camp in northern France.
June 2015
Fusion launches a virtual reality experience that allows users to swim alongside — and peer inside — a blue whale.
August 2015
Discovery releases nine 360-degree videos, which include skateboarding in San Francisco and surfing.
September 2015
ABC launches virtual reality coverage of Syria.
September 2015
“Frontline” debuts “Ebola Outbreak,” a 360-degree video documentary of the disease’s spread in West Africa.
October 2015
CNN live-streams the first 2016 Democratic presidential debate in virtual reality.
November 2015
The New York Times distributes 1.3 million cardboard VR viewers and releases a short spherical video piece called “The Displaced.”
