At Google IO, Google introduced introduced a do it yourself virtual reality headset. With some cardboard, couple lenses, a magnet and rubber band, you can assemble a box that holds your Android phone and then with the Google Cardboard app, can see some VR demos.
http://gweb-cardboard.appspot.com/
If you aren't crafty or just too lazy, you can buy all the pieces or even an pre-assembled kit from these guys for about $20.
http://www.unofficialcardboard.com/
Only a few phones are compatible with this DIY VR headset kit.
Google Nexus 4 and 5
Motorola Moto X
Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Mine arrived today. And used it with my Nexus 5. It's very cool, but the demo is fairly limited (as demos tend to be).
In the YouTube app there is a wall of videos. The wall circles around me 360 degrees, just turning my head wasn't enough, I had rotate around in my chair to see the videos on the wall behind me. The Cardboard box has a magnet on the side and when I pull the tab it triggers a click on the video I'm looking at to start playing it. Pretty nice, but it just showed popular videos, I couldn't access my subscription or search for anything specific.
Google Earth was really cool. I can toggle between moving forward or stopping and looking in a direction will move me in that direction. So I can zoom through a 3D model of a city. Though the graphics were very bad in the demo. And if I look straight up, I can move to outer space and look back down on Earth. The higher my elevation from the earth the faster I can move around.
There were a few other demos as well. When I have my 5 inch 1080p phone about an inch from my eyeball I realized I finally found a purpose for a 1440p phone. The pixels were pretty niceable this close.
I hope Google keeps working on this and updates the Cardboard app to allow us to do more with it. But for now, it was a pretty cool demo.
http://gweb-cardboard.appspot.com/
If you aren't crafty or just too lazy, you can buy all the pieces or even an pre-assembled kit from these guys for about $20.
http://www.unofficialcardboard.com/
Only a few phones are compatible with this DIY VR headset kit.
Google Nexus 4 and 5
Motorola Moto X
Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Mine arrived today. And used it with my Nexus 5. It's very cool, but the demo is fairly limited (as demos tend to be).
In the YouTube app there is a wall of videos. The wall circles around me 360 degrees, just turning my head wasn't enough, I had rotate around in my chair to see the videos on the wall behind me. The Cardboard box has a magnet on the side and when I pull the tab it triggers a click on the video I'm looking at to start playing it. Pretty nice, but it just showed popular videos, I couldn't access my subscription or search for anything specific.
Google Earth was really cool. I can toggle between moving forward or stopping and looking in a direction will move me in that direction. So I can zoom through a 3D model of a city. Though the graphics were very bad in the demo. And if I look straight up, I can move to outer space and look back down on Earth. The higher my elevation from the earth the faster I can move around.
There were a few other demos as well. When I have my 5 inch 1080p phone about an inch from my eyeball I realized I finally found a purpose for a 1440p phone. The pixels were pretty niceable this close.
I hope Google keeps working on this and updates the Cardboard app to allow us to do more with it. But for now, it was a pretty cool demo.