Samsung Live-Streams Birth in VR

In a bid to promote its GearVR headset, Samsung has live-streamed the birth of a baby boy to a father wearing a virtual reality headset thousands of miles away from the delivery room.

The father was not there to witness the birth of his son first-hand because he was out of town for work. According to Samsung, such clashes are common.

"Every day, millions of life-changing moments take place. Sadly, many people miss these moments," Samsung says in the ad.

Using GearVR, however, the father was able to sit in the room to see his son's birth, at least virtually. He was on one side of Australia while his wife was delivering the child on the other, streaming the event with a multi-sided camera. Samsung is calling this the "world's first live virtual reality birth."

As many have pointed out, a standard webcam--which would have let the mother see her husband's face--might have sufficed. But the video does demonstrate the opportunity for virtual reality to bring people together in a way that's hard to argue against.

Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski tweeted about the video, using the hashtag "#HowToSellVR"

Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey said last year that he thinks virtual reality has incredible power to bring people together, even if they aren't meeting up physically.

"I guess you will have to ask yourself, 'Why do we care if we're physically isolated if we're mentally connected?'" he said at the time. "If you can perfectly simulate reality, why do you need to actually go see people in real life?"

GearVR, which is powered by Oculus Rift technology and requires a Galaxy Note 4, is currently available to developers through a $200 innovator edition. The consumer model, meanwhile, should launch by the end of the year, according to Oculus VR CTO John Carmack.

Carmack spoke at length about the future of mobile virtual reality technology at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month. Check out GameSpot's report for more.