HBO Now joins HBO Go on Google’s Daydream VR, Netflix coming this month

By Kris Wouk December 8, 2016

hbo go unreleased daydream version 1480519713 handson 08 — Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

As is often the case with technology, new ways to experience content often leave us looking for ways to repurpose the old. Virtual reality is one of those cases: 360-degree videos are great, but what about those old 2D videos? You watch them in virtual reality on a virtual big screen, of course. This was already available for Daydream users watching YouTube Videos, but other services are coming to the platform fairly quickly

Last month, HBO debuted an “unreleased” Daydream-compatible version of HBO Go in the Google Play Store. At the time, we wondered when we might see the company’s stand-alone service HBO Now join the party, and it seems that we didn’t have long to wait, as Google announced the app’s arrival on Daydream in a blog post on Thursday.

If you’re a fan of the Daydream technology but looking for more variety in your programming, you won’t have to wait for long. Alongside the arrival of HBO Now and the now-official HBO Go app, Google announced that Netflix would be coming to Daydream later this month. No specific date was given, but the company said it will arrive “in time for the holidays.”

Many phones these days offer some form of VR, but this app is Daydream-only, meaning a tiny fraction of phones are currently supported: Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL, and the Moto Z. Gear VR users will have to look for their entertainment fixes elsewhere, at least for the time being.

If this idea has you thinking about hopping on board the VR train and you own a compatible phone, take a look at our review of the Daydream View headset for a better idea of whether it’s for you. Both HBO Go VR and HBO Now VR are available in the Google Play Store now.

Updated on 12-08-2016 by Kris Wouk: Added news of HBO Now VR’s release and of Netflix’s impending release

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Computing

This Alienware gaming PC with an RTX 4090, 64GB of RAM is $1,000 off

Alienware Aurora R15 placed at an angle on a table.

Dell is consistently a great place to check for gaming PC deals and that’s certainly the case today. If you want a high-end gaming rig for less, you can currently buy the Alienware Aurora R15 gaming desktop for $2,900 instead of $3,900. The $1,000 saving is particularly sweet when you bear in mind that this is a truly high-end gaming PC packed with all the latest hardware. If you’re keen to know more, check out what we have to say about it below or you can simply hit the button below to go straight to the deal.

Why you should buy the Alienware Aurora R15 gaming desktop
Alienware makes some of the best gaming PCs around and the Alienware Aurora R15 gaming desktop is a perfect representation of that. It’s packed with the latest hardware. That includes an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor, 64GB of memory and 2TB of M.2 SSD storage. It’s great to see so much RAM with many gaming PCs still sticking with 32GB when 64GB really does set you up for the long term. Similarly, the large amount of fast storage is perfect for ensuring you won’t run out of room any time soon even when handling large installs like Call of Duty: Warzone or Hogwarts Legacy.

Computing

4 CPUs you should buy instead of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D sitting on a motherboard.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is one of the best gaming processors you can buy, and it's easy to see why. It's easily the fastest gaming CPU on the market, it's reasonably priced, and it's available on a platform that AMD says it will support for several years. But it's not the right chip for everyone.

Although the Ryzen 7 7800X3D ticks all the right boxes, there are several alternatives available. Some are cheaper while still offering great performance, while others are more powerful in applications outside of gaming. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a great CPU, but if you want to do a little more shopping, these are the other processors you should consider.
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Computing

Even the new mid-tier Snapdragon X Plus beats Apple’s M3

A photo of the Snapdragon X Plus CPU in the die

You might have already heard of the Snapdragon X Elite, the upcoming chips from Qualcomm that everyone's excited about. They're not out yet, but Qualcomm is already announcing another configuration to live alongside it: the Snapdragon X Plus.

The Snapdragon X Plus is pretty similar to the flagship Snapdragon X Elite in terms of everyday performance but, as a new chip tier, aims to bring AI capabilities to a wider portfolio of ARM-powered laptops. To be clear, though, this one is a step down from the flagship Snapdragon X Elite, in the same way that an Intel Core Ultra 7 is a step down from Core Ultra 9.