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"They took the Android rendering loop and pared it right back for speed, as well as adding accurate sensors to the headset.

"Samsung and Oculus did a lot of work to improve movement tracking and reduce latency for the user," Fireproof Games' Barry Meade told Polygon. People love to compare Cardboard to Samsung's Gear VR, another VR standard we'll get to next, but they're not in the same class of product. The requisite sensors are great for most uses on a phone, but not nearly precise enough to give you a sense of presence in VR. The low-cost viewers mean that Cardboard is 100 percent reliant on the connected smartphone for head tracking and motion sensing. What's not to love?įor starters, the experience isn't great. So you have one of the most respected and largest tech companies in the world backing the standard hardware is cheap the ecosystem is strong there's plenty of content.
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Getting a viewer, which Google often gives away for free at tech shows, and putting it together is part of the fun. The possibilities for education are also massive, since low-cost Android devices are already common and the viewers are so inexpensive and welcoming. The New York Times recently gave subscribers a free one with its Sunday edition, allowing many people to try virtual reality for the first time. The low cost of the Cardboard viewers, which are literally made of cardboard and often shipped flat until you bend them together, is a huge selling point. You're not going to run out of content anytime soon, and there are many things to do and see in Cardboard that are very enjoyable, especially if this is your first experience with virtual reality. You can also check out a variety of YouTube videos designed for virtual reality, and Google recently announced that every YouTube video can now be watched in virtual reality.


Google has made it clear that it's serious about virtual reality, and you'll find a wide variety of programs and demos available to try with this platform, although you'll quickly find the offerings are of wildly varying quality. Google Cardboard is the least expensive way to dip your toe into virtual reality, as Cardboard viewers, which are designed to work with nearly any phone, can be purchased for around $20.
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Update (February 2016): Our section on the HTC Vive has been updated to include the final retail price, links to our coverage of games coming this year and a few more details about the retail version of the hardware. This is, on the whole, rather expensive technology, however. This guide will get you started, and if you'd like to take your first tiny looks into this brave new world, we'll present some low-cost options. There are plenty of people who would love to get going in virtual reality, or would at least love to understand a bit more about the products coming this year. Or it's possible the retail hardware is released, no one buys it and we're about to see one of the worst bubbles in technology since puppets tried to sell us pet supplies during the Super Bowl.īut for now, let's be a bit more optimistic! 2016 is widely expected to be the year of VR by people who believe that virtual reality has a pretty decent chance of becoming a thing.
