Virtual Reality (VR) Review Article

Virtual Reality for All, Finally (+Video)

Will the new generation of headsets hitting the consumer electronics market deliver enhanced virtual-reality experiences at more affordable prices?

Larry Greenemeier | December 8, 2015

You can be forgiven for rolling your eyes at the latest round of promises that virtual reality has finally arrived for the masses. Tech companies have been hanging their hats on that one for decades without much success, due to high prices and poorly rendered graphics that have given people headaches—literally.
Despite these missteps, a new generation of virtual-reality tech targeted at consumers has begun to hit the market, most prominently with Samsung’s $100 Gear VR visor released in late November. Both Gear VR and Google Cardboard—which starts at less than $20 and was launched in 2014—rely on a smartphone clipped or slid into their respective visors. 

New Samsung Gear VR cost $99 and works with any new Samsung phone. Source: http://www.talkandroid.com/266271-new-samsung-gear-vr-cost-99-and-works-with-any-new-samsung-phone/

<more at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/virtual-reality-for-all-finally-video/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20151208; related links: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/virtual-reality-comes-to-the-web-maybe-for-real-this-time/ (Virtual Reality Comes to the Web—Maybe for Real This Time. Backed by Google and Mozilla, VR-enabled browsers and gear could soon immerse Web users in 3-D worlds. December 29, 2014) and http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/p757-sutherland.pdf (A head-mounted three dimensional display. Ivan E. Sutherland. 1968.[Introduction: The fundamental idea behind the three-dimensional display is to present the user with a perspective image
which changes as he moves. The retinal image of the real objects which we see is, after all, only two-dimensional. Thus if we can place suitable two-dimensional images on
the observer's retinas, we can create the illusion that he is seeing a three-dimensional object. Although stereo presentation is important to the three-dimensional illusion,
it is less important than the change that takes place in the image when the observer moves his head. The image presented by the three-dimensional display must change in exactly the way that the image of a real object would change for similar motions of the user's head. Psychologists have long known that moving perspective images appear strikingly three-dimensional even without stereo presentation; the three-dimensional
display described in this paper depends heavily on this "kinetic depth effect."])>