YouTube Antes Up on Facebook With 360-Degree Live Streaming Video

YouTube is hitting back at Facebook’s splashy campaign trumpeting its live streaming and virtual-reality prowess: Google’s huge video site has launched support to live-stream 360-degree videos and added higher-tech audio that makes 360 and VR content feel more real.

YouTube and Facebook, the world’s biggest social network by users, have been locked in video brinkmanship for the last year, with the latter having quickly ramped up streaming by peppering news feeds with more clips and playing them automatically as users scroll past them. The moves have grown video viewing to 100 million hours a day on the social network.

YouTube’s announcements come after Facebook spent much of the last two weeks touting live-streaming activity on its platform and bragging about the popularity of a viral “Game of Thrones” 360-degree clip.

Also Read: 'Game of Thrones' 360-Degree Opening Is a Fan's Playground (Video)

Today, YouTube said it’s introducing the ability to live-stream 360-degree video (as opposed to loading clips after they’ve been shot.) To mark the announcement, the company said it would stream the Coachella music festival live in 360 this weekend, after years of streaming parts of the fest via traditional video.

YouTube also said it’s introducing what’s known as “spatial audio” for on-demand YouTube videos. Spatial audio allows users to listen along as they do in real life, where depth, distance and intensity all play a role, the company said.

'Game of Thrones' 360-Degree Map: 5 Easter Eggs, Clues and Anatomically Correct Surprises (Photos)

The official “Game of Thrones” Facebook page has posted a 360-degree-video version of the opening-credits sequence. The familiar 3D mechanical map flies around King’s Landing, Winterfell, the Wall, Braavos, Meereen and Dorne, and includes some surprises and possible hints. Here they are.
As the camera flies toward the familiar elevator on The Wall, a wolf is perched on an ice block to the left. Its pelt looks too dark for Jon Snow's direwolf Ghost, but the Stark family's sigil is a grey direwolf. Could it be a clue that one of the Starks will appear at the Wall?
HBO/Screenshot
Speaking of the Starks' stigil: It's hard to spot, but their grey direwolf has returned on top of Winterfell. The flayed-man sigil had roosted there since the Boltons overtook command of the Starks' ancestral home. Will Winterfell finally be returned to Stark control?
HBO/Screenshot
As the map approaches Braavos, the coin that typically rolls into a building, symbolizing the Iron Bank, is missing from the interactive map. Could the Iron Bank's coffers be in jeopardy?
HBO/Screenshot
Oops. The body of water just beyond The Eyrie is supposed to be labeled The Bite, but the 360-degree version accidentally plops an island in the middle of its name.
HBO/Screenshot
In what was surely intended to be a dramatic camera swoop, the interactive maps flies viewers right between the legs of the monolithic Braavos guardian statue. But the effect isn't quite as grand if you look up to see that Braavos' great Titan clearly goes commando.
HBO/Screenshot

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Now’s your chance to take a peek under the kilt of the Braavos guardian statue

The official “Game of Thrones” Facebook page has posted a 360-degree-video version of the opening-credits sequence. The familiar 3D mechanical map flies around King’s Landing, Winterfell, the Wall, Braavos, Meereen and Dorne, and includes some surprises and possible hints. Here they are.

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'Game of Thrones' 360-Degree Map: 5 Easter Eggs, Clues and Anatomically Correct Surprises (Photos)

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