As it happens, some of the biggest companies in the world are staking out a position offering the highest-quality devices, capable of displaying complex imagery and inserting users in a digitally created world that feels like our own. Google? It wants to help everyone else. The search giant will do this with a product called Cardboard, a simple device made from Velcro, a button, some lenses and folded cardboard. The project was first announced at the company's I/O developer conference last year, but Google returned to this year's show with an updated version that works with devices whose screens measure up to six inches diagonally. Google also showed off a new version of its Cardboard smartphone app. Perhaps the biggest change: Cardboard and its apps will work with the iPhone, in addition to Android devices.

The takeaway: Cardboard may sound cheap, but it's a powerful play for getting VR out to everyone and their mother, All told, the device costs less than $20, a fraction of the $350 or more that most high-end headsets are expected to command, The trick: Your smartphone is both the engine and the display, sliding easily into the front of the contraption and viewable through a pair of off-the-shelf lenses, For Google, this is business as usual, The search company has made its name by offering technology and software broadly and at little or no cost, inspiring millions ted baker dorsao iphone 8 plus soft feel shell case - fairy tale pink of people to flock to its products, It's how the company helped make its Android software for mobile phones the most popular in the world, And for the broader industry, Google's Cardboard could be the device that introduces VR to people from rural India to downtown San Francisco, all while companies like Facebook-owned Oculus, Sony, and others design expensive headsets requiring powerful hardware to generate 3D images..

The fear is that if VR isn't a great experience the first time someone tries it out, it may poison public perception. Doronichev thinks that while the experience is an obvious downgrade from wearing an expensive VR headset powered by a PC or game console, the overall impression is comparable. "People still say, 'Oh my God,'" he said, mimicking the startled reaction of a Cardboard user as they hold the screen up to their eyes. Google is also shying away from experiences like gaming and intensive 3D imaging in favor of using its other services, like Google Maps and Google Earth, to take users to faraway places.

To up the quality of the footage that will feature prominently on its Cardboard smartphone app, Google is partnering with GoPro to launch a service called Jump, That service will feature high-definition video captured by a camera rig, an assembler that turns raw footage into VR video and a player, The rigs include 16 camera modules mounted in a circular array, and users will be able to view the virtual reality videos on YouTube starting this summer, "Jump is about capturing the world's places in VR video," Clay Bavor, vice president of product management, said onstage at Google's I/O conference on Thursday, "And Cardboard is about VR for virtually everyone."Virtual reality is fast becoming one of the most popular trends in the technology industry, Companies large and small have become involved, whether through research as Apple has, or through a high-profile acquisition like Facebook did ted baker dorsao iphone 8 plus soft feel shell case - fairy tale pink last year when it bought industry leader Oculus VR for $2 billion..

But there's a problem with VR: It costs a lot of money. Oculus itself has said that in order to best use its technology, customers will likely need to spend $1,500 on both its headset and a powerful PC around or under $1,000 to display the complex visuals that make up these virtual worlds. To ease the cost, Oculus partnered with smartphone maker Samsung to offer a headset called the Gear VR, a $199 headset that works with Samsung's top performing smartphones acting as the computer and screen. Others have followed suit.