Google's Approach to Virtual Reality (VR)

Google Aims to Make VR Hardware Irrelevant Before It Even Gets Going

Smartphones have sidelined digital cameras and other special-purpose devices. Now Google thinks mobile phones will shove virtual-reality headsets like the Oculus Rift into the shadows, too.

Tim Simonite | November 3, 2015

The bright black sand at Diamond Beach, Iceland, is dotted with smooth gray pebbles and glassy chunks of ice. The crash of foamy waves fills my ears as I turn my head to look up and down the beach and see the dark strip of sand fade into white fog as if it goes on forever. I don’t feel the cold, because I’m not really there. Moments earlier, I had been standing in a cable car climbing over Onomichi, Japan.
I’m in a windowless room at Google’s headquarters, holding a cardboard box against my face in a way that positions a smartphone two inches from my eyes. Google Cardboard, as both the phone holder and the accompanying app are called, transforms the computer in your pocket into a virtual-reality headset. It’s something of a gimmick.

Google cardboard. Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/232520/google-cardboard-lets-you-preview-virtual-reality-but-its-not-all-that-great/

<more at http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/542991/google-aims-to-make-vr-hardware-irrelevant-before-it-even-gets-going/; related link: http://www.howtogeek.com/232520/google-cardboard-lets-you-preview-virtual-reality-but-its-not-all-that-great/ (Google Cardboard Lets You Preview Virtual Reality, But It’s Not All That Great. November 2, 2015) and https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/virtual-augmented-reality-funding/ (Getting Real: Deal Activity Jumps For Virtual And Augmented Reality Startups. August 4, 2015)>