Google's VR Headset is Literally Made of Cardboard

[MarlaDesat]

Google's VR Headset is Literally Made of Cardboard

Google has unveiled Cardboard, which uses a cardboard enclosure to turn a phone into a VR headset.

Hardware manufacturers are lining up to nab a piece of the virtual reality headset market. The project Cardboard [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135659-Oculus-Acquires-Carbon-Design-Firm-Behind-Xbox-360-Controller] at its annual I/O developer conference, describing it as "a no-frills enclosure that transforms a phone into a basic VR headset."

The plans for the headset can be Android demo app [https://developers.google.com/cardboard/] then lets you explore Google Earth in virtual reality, tour Versailles, and watch YouTube videos.

"Virtual reality has made exciting progress over the past several years. However, developing for VR still requires expensive, specialized hardware," says Google. "Thinking about how to make VR accessible to more people, a group of VR enthusiasts at Google experimented with using a smartphone to drive VR experiences." Assuming your local hardware store stocks the necessary parts, assembling a Cardboard viewer could easily cost you less than $50, not including the phone. "David Coz and Damien Henry at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris built a cardboard smartphone housing to prototype VR experiences as part of a 20% project," says Google. "The results elicited so many oohs and ahs that they inspired a larger group to work on an experimental SDK." Google's 20% projects allow employees to spend one fifth of their time working on side projects, a practice that helped created Google Glass.

Source: Gamasutra [https://developers.google.com/cardboard/]

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[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Boy, April 1st came back around pretty fast.

I mean... I really don't get it. Is this supposed to be Google commentary on what they think of VR technology. "Haha, what took you millions of dollars to develop we made out of cardboard and magnets," That sort of thing? I dislike Google, but if that *is* the case, then I like them even less.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Checks the calendar.. nope, not April 1st.

Hmm, researching the source more closely.

I just don't get this at all.

Either way, someone at Google has too much time on their hands

 

[ultrabiome]

Google is making public the tech for Oculus Rift (ie Facebook) and Project Morpheous (Sony) before they are released to the public, using barely more than the high tech phone in your pocket.

This is Google slapping them in the face for investing time and effort into tech barely better than what you'll be able to do with your phone, not to mention 3D tech has been around forever. The hardware just had to catch up.

 

[XenIneX]

What's so hard to get about this?

Want to play around with VR software? Are you a hobbyist who couldn't justify blowing several hundred on an Occulus Rift dev kit? (...And a few hundred more the gen 2 dev kit... and then more on the final version hardware a few months down the line...) Get $20 of cardboard and miscellaneous hardware, grab your existing smartphone, and start experimenting. Bolt the Cardboard toolkit to the free Unity engine and you can be prototyping VR games for next to nothing.

 

[Fasckira]

What's so hard to get about this?

Want to play around with VR software? Are you a hobbyist who couldn't justify blowing several hundred on an Occulus Rift dev kit? (...And a few hundred more the gen 2 dev kit... and then more on the final version hardware a few months down the line...) Get $20 of cardboard and miscellaneous hardware, grab your existing smartphone, and start experimenting. Bolt the Cardboard toolkit to the free Unity engine and you can be prototyping VR games for next to nothing.

Hush, Google employee, and leave us to our conspiracies and wild theories!

 

[luvd1]

You may laugh, but it does works really well. It's an eye opener about all the money being poured into all these projects.

 

[Baresark]

Color me interested.... I just... I don't get it... and I'm sure I won't till I put it together and try myself.

IT'S ON!

Edit: I checked out the demo on my browser... and it all makes sense now. Amazon is universally out of the listed components though.

 

[RandV80]

That's cute, but a big part of getting VR to work is supposed to be around getting a high enough latency/framerate/refresh rate/etc so it looks natural and doesn't make your head explode after 20 minutes. Smart phones and their fancy high-def screens were a driving force behind making it actually work, so it makes sense that you could make a cheap mock up based around your own standard smart phone.

For anything other than a novelty toy you're still going to need a dedicated kit though.

 

[LordReaver]

Ha! I love this. I got it to work by just ripping off a small piece of cardboard, throwing a towel over my head, and holding the cardboard up to my phone by hand. I literally didn't even have to leave my chair to do this.

 

[EiMitch]

Facebook buys Oculus Rift, then Google renders it moot. Gee, its almost as if the two are in some kind of competition.

Nah, that can't be it. Right Google+?

 

[uchytjes]

Honestly this sounds kind of interesting as a way to create a disposable headset for, say, conventions and such. They pass these out, folded up, to all the people in the audience with instructions to download a certain app then during a presentation they tell them to go onto the app and put their phone in the headset in order to present something in a pseudo 3D rift-like experience so that everyone in the audience can enjoy it at once.

 

[orangeapples]

I thought this looked familiar...

 

[Scars Unseen]

I'm sorry, no. It doesn't work like that. The impressive part of the upcoming HMDs isn't that it puts an image in front of your face. We've had that for decades. You have to address latency and 1:1 head tracking so that the experience doesn't make the majority of users sick. You aren't going to fix either of those with cardboard.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I dislike Google, but if that *is* the case, then I like them even less.

Actually, I think somebody noticed that ninety percent of the technology in a VR headset (accelerometers, high resolution screens, gyroscopes etc) is already built into the average smartphone. That leaves getting a high enough frame rate out of the smartphone screen whilst it bifurcates itself and projects two images at once, whilst also figuring out how to make the phone give accurate head tracking without the vomit inducing lag.

Given where smart phones were six years ago and where they are now, a phone (or several) that can do that doesn't sound implausible to me. Maybe not in the next couple of years, but VR by the use of a cheap add on to a smart phone sounds pretty cool to me.

Also, that is way cooler than Google Glass.

 

[RicoADF]

I'm sorry, no. It doesn't work like that. The impressive part of the upcoming HMDs isn't that it puts an image in front of your face. We've had that for decades. You have to address latency and 1:1 head tracking so that the experience doesn't make the majority of users sick. You aren't going to fix either of those with cardboard.

Well it includes an app which you download, I assume the app uses the phones sensors to do the head tracking part, so it's possible but I agree that it's quality would vary depending on the phone etc and the dedicated head sets would be far better. Still, as a dev test kit or even small use stuff it could do the job.

According to Captcha "Butler did it"

 

[Vivi22]

Well it includes an app which you download, I assume the app uses the phones sensors to do the head tracking part, so it's possible but I agree that it's quality would vary depending on the phone etc

I'm sure the quality would vary depending on the phone, but I'm not sure any phone on the market would be suitable for handling the head tracking well. None I've ever seen would have sensors capable of actually doing it, and I can't think of any reason to put such sensors in a phone under normal circumstances generally speaking.

 

[Epicspoon]

Well it includes an app which you download, I assume the app uses the phones sensors to do the head tracking part, so it's possible but I agree that it's quality would vary depending on the phone etc

I'm sure the quality would vary depending on the phone, but I'm not sure any phone on the market would be suitable for handling the head tracking well. None I've ever seen would have sensors capable of actually doing it, and I can't think of any reason to put such sensors in a phone under normal circumstances generally speaking.

I have the technology for that in my 3DS. It's not hard to do.

 

[FalloutJack]

So, this is extremely destructible and easily torn apart by:

Cats
Dogs
Kids
Mice (and similar rodentia)
Water
General wear and teat
and possibly a stiff breeze...

Great idea! *Snerk*

 

[Sol_HSA]

It's basically a cardboard version of this kickstarter project:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/278203173/altergaze-mobile-virtual-reality-for-your-smartpho

..with the added magnet and nfc tag. For those interested, dodocase is selling a kit for $25 plus shipping.