Google Daydream VR: Google’s Way of Addressing Virtual Reality
[Philip Lelyveld comment: Google Daydream is supposed to standardize VR across android platforms, avoiding the multi-version android problem of a few years ago.]
With the introduction of Google Daydream, Google’s VR division finally showed the world what Google’s vision for VR is and perhaps where we can expect VR to go. Google’s Daydream platform makes several nods to Facebook’s Oculus platform in their UI and use of a controller, both of which look strikingly similar to what Facebook’s Oculus has done with the Rift.
Google’s Daydream VR platform is a way for Google to finally reign in many of the VR devices and decisions under one performance profile, and more importantly experience, before there is too much fragmentation. Google appears to be trying to prevent the mess that they had with Android in the early days when it came to different operating system versions and hardware specs. Daydream will enable device makers and developers to both deliver a certain level of experience based on the Daydream software and hardware specifications. In fact, Google has developed both a reference platform for Daydream as well as announced plans to develop their own Daydream device that will likely serve as a platform for Daydream developers.