US celebrity Paris Hilton has posted pictures on her Instagram account of her using an HTC Vive, HTC’s first virtual-reality headset.
The photographs posted by Hilton, who is well known for showing off her wealth and for clothes, were followed by about 36,000 “likes” over three days.
“I have a favorite new toy. Just got the new HTC Vive Virtual Reality Headset,” Hilton wrote beside the photographs on her Instagram account.
“So much fun playing all the games! It blows my mind how real everything looks,” Hilton added.
She even called the Vive “the future of gaming.”
In one photograph, Hilton, wearing a Vive, held a remote control and played games, while another photograph showed her wearing a Vive on her forehead as though it was a pair of sunglasses.
One follower responded to Hilton’s photographs and comments, saying: “Looks really cool.”
The Vive is one of the Taiwanese company’s gambits to diversify away from its core smartphone market, which is saturated and intensely competitive, hoping that virtual-reality development will provide an additional source of revenue and turn the money-losing company around.
Hilton is just one of several celebrities spotted playing with the Vive.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Chinese former NBA star Yao Ming (姚明) shared their experiences with the Vive on Facebook.
Analysts said that Hilton’s praise of the Vive on Instagram could help the virtual-reality headset gain popularity in the US market.
The Vive, jointly developed by HTC and US video game developer Valve, was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress show in March last year. The headset is equipped with tracked controllers that allow wearers to inspect objects from every angle and interact with their surroundings.
The US$799 gadget has begun sales in physical distribution channels worldwide.
In Taiwan, the Vive is scheduled to go on sale in brick-and-mortar retail stores on Tuesday.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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