philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Google’s Plan to Use Android Phones to Dominate Virtual Reality

Now Google is stepping up its VR game, too. At the company’s annual developer conference in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, it introduced a new virtual-reality platform called Daydream that will be available in the fall as part of the latest version of its Android operating system, Android N.

Daydream includes several pieces: a set of standards for smartphones that will work to play virtual-reality content, reference designs for a Daydream headset that uses one of these smartphones (much like Samsung’s Gear VR) and an accompanying controller, and a range of apps that will include content coming from partners like HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and video-game makers Electronic Arts and Ubisoft.

Bavor, who introduced Daydream at the conference, said Google believes virtual reality should be mobile, approachable, and for everyone—an approach that’s very much in the vein of Google Cardboard, as opposed to pricey headsets like Rift and Vive, both of which have to be tethered to a high-end PC.

Bavor said the Daydream team worked on common virtual-reality issues like rendering digital imagery at high frame rates and in high resolution, and minimizing the latency between when you move your head and when images you’re looking at update. Phones that will work with Daydream will have to have sensors for accurate head tracking, displays with fast response times, and software that can make use of these capabilities while keeping latency “to an absolute minimum,” he said.

He presented a design for a handheld controller meant to go with the headset, too, which appeared very similar in style to the oblong one that Oculus ships with its Rift. This one, however, had fewer buttons, an indented, circular touch pad near the top, and as some video demos showed, it could be twisted and turned to control the same sorts of actions in games (for instance, to twist and turn an animated flying dragon).

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601508/googles-plan-to-use-android-phones-to-dominate-virtual-reality/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160519#/set/id/601516/