Hulu is already dabbling in virtual reality content

With things like Google Cardboard allowing people to build their own makeshift virtual reality headsets and companies like HTC and Oculus preparing to release their own high-end headsets, the virtual reality market is really starting to pick up steam. Netflix recently announced that it has its own virtual reality app on the way, and now Hulu has announced that it’s doing the same. Hulu plans to have have the app ready for the launch of the Samsung Gear VR next month, and has even suggested that it’s dabbling in virtual reality content at the moment. 

The virtual reality scene is heating up in a big way, and Hulu wants in on the action. In a report published Friday, Hulu’s Tim Connoly tells Cnet that the company will have an app ready for the Samsung Gear VR when the headset goes on sale next month. Hulu announced its app back in September, according to Cnet, but at that time, it merely said it would ship sometime this fall. In addition to the app, which will presumably allow you to watch your shows using Samsung’s VR headset, Cnet’s Joan E. Solsman reports that Hulu is also looking into producing programming designed specifically for virtual reality viewing. Solsman also notes that “[t]he company is already dabbling in VR” and is working on a VR-specific short. The Gear VR is a joint effort between Samsung and Oculus to produce a low-cost virtual reality headset. In lieu of a built-in display, you slip a Galaxy Note 4 into the $99 headset: In that sense, it’s a more sophisticated take on Google Cardboard, Google’s paperboard VR viewer for smartphones. In his initial hands-on time with it, our Hayden Dingman was generally impressed with the Gear VR, saying that it “might actually be the thing that helps [VR] go mainstream.”