Fully Charged: Oculus Rift’s 360° video calls, Fable goes freemium, and Swatch’s volleyball watch

360° video calling coming to Oculus Rift

We tend to think of games and immersive app experiences with VR headsets, but the uses will be much broader before long. In fact, next week at Mobile World Congress, a company called Summit Tech plans to demonstrate the ability to have 360° video calling via the Oculus Rift.

According to the company, its tech allows Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Video over LTE (ViLTE) calls to be pumped into the VR headset, and the upcoming 360cam from Grioptic can transmit the 360° video image for the headset wearer to view. The footage can also be streamed to smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

Summit Tech’s press release is heavy on technical jargon, but this sounds like the kind of thing we need to see to believe. We’ll try to scope out VR video calling on the MWC 2015 show floor next week, so stay tuned for impressions.

[Source: Summit Tech]

Fable Legends will be free-to-play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAzpP0lSrEc

Looking forward to the next Fable game from Lionhead Studios? Ready to have your expectations tempered just a bit? Microsoft announced yesterday that the upcoming cooperative multiplayer game will be a free-to-play affair, rather than a traditional, pay-upfront premium game.

Let’s be fair: there are many great free-to-play games that have done the model justice, especially on PC, where multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games thrive. On the other hand, there are many times more examples of irritating, devious freemium titles that diminish the play experience in hopes of generating more cash. Here’s hoping this Xbox One and Windows 10 PC entry is the former.

[Source: Xbox Wire]

Swatch has a beach volleyball-ready watch

Attention hardcore beach volleyball players and/or fans: Swatch has the wearable for you. The new Swatch Touch Zero One is a variant of the touch-enabled watch that includes features specific to the sport, such as the ability to count power hits and claps.

It’ll work with the Touch Zero One app for added functionality, and the announcement comes on the heels of the company’s new sponsorship: the Swatch Beach Volleyball Major Series – FIVB World Tour. Seems like an extremely niche device, but true aficionados might love it.

[Source: Swatch]