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Google starts selling Cardboard VR viewers through its store
Believe it or not, Google hasn't offered Cardboard through its own online shop -- you've had to go through third parties to get a taste of its virtual reality experience. Logic is finally prevailing, though, as Google has started offering Cardboard through its in-house store. Pay $15 ($25 for two) and you'll get the bring-your-own-phone VR solution straight from the source. The offering isn't alone, either. It's joining a new VR section in the Google Store that highlights the Mattel View-Master and other VR gear. You probably bought Cardboard a while back if you were really, really eager to give it a try, but look at it this way: this is a simpler way to see what the fuss is about if you're a relative newcomer.
You can now pre-order HTC's Vive VR headset for $799
If you passed on the Oculus Rift because you're dead set on owning HTC's Vive VR headset, your time has now come. The company has just opened pre-orders for the $799 bundle (€899 in Europe and £689 in the UK), which includes the Vive headset, two wand controllers, a couple of room scale movement sensors and three VR titles.
LG's wacky 'Friends' accessories might just annoy its enemies
LG didn't just roll up with a new phone. It turned up with an entourage of devices in one of the most refreshing, if a little baffling, launches in MWC history. The devices all center around the G5, and include drones, rolling robots and high-fidelity audio accessories: quite the family. LG's calling these accessories "Friends," and while it's a little unexpected, the collection offers something compelling: a line of gadgets that not only plug into the LG G5, but also into pretty much every hot trend right now.
View-Master VR keeps one foot planted in the real world
Last year View-Master made the leap to virtual reality, packing a Google Cardboard experience into an affordable, kid-friendly headset. With the introduction of the View-Master Viewer DLX at this week's Toy Fair, the brand remains fully committed to VR, while still finding ways to incorporate its analog roots.
Pre-order Oculus Rift-ready PCs starting on February 16th
If you want an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset but realize that your existing PC just won't cut it, don't panic -- you can get a guaranteed-ready system very shortly. Oculus has announced that pre-orders for both Oculus Ready PCs and those with Rift bundles will start on February 16th at 11AM Eastern, or 8AM Pacific. Amazon, Best Buy and the Microsoft Store will offer a handful of certified systems from Alienware, its parent company Dell and ASUS. Should you pull the trigger, you should get your rig sometime in April.
Google is reportedly releasing a VR headset this year
There were hints that Google was interested in making virtual reality hardware, and now some of the first details of that gear seem to be trickling out. Financial Times sources claim that Google's first true VR headset is effectively a more open rival to Samsung's Gear VR -- you slot in a phone from your brand of choice into a plastic housing that has its own movement sensors. It's miles above Cardboard, according to the tip. If the leak is accurate, you'd see it arrive sometime this year... alongside software that could be just as (if not more) important to the experience.
This VR flying rig had me pining for the fjords
Riding on a flying, virtual Pegasus is cool and all, but German design firm Hyve has cooked up what might be an even purer VR flying experience. Rather than plop down on a specially made stationary bike, designer Johannes Scholl has spent the last two years of his life crafting Icaros, a rig you climb on top of to simulate flight. There's no motor or hydraulics here — the sense of motion is derived solely from your own of balance... or in my case, the lack thereof.
I quite literally ran around a virtual arena and loved it
We've been watching the development of Virtuix's Omni VR treadmill since 2013. The company debuted a fully-functional production model at CES 2016 and I was lucky enough to take the $700 device for a test drive -- or rather test run.
Teslasuit does full-body haptic feedback for VR
Smartphone-powered headsets like Google Cardboard and Samsung's Gear VR have been worthy stop-gaps for introducing the medium of modern virtual reality. But this year, more resource-intensive VR experiences, games especially, will finally make it into consumers' homes. Pre-orders for the final Oculus Rift opened today, and competitors like Playstation VR and HTC's Vive aren't too far behind. For start-up Tesla Studios, though, pulling on a headset and grabbing a controller just doesn't seem immersive enough. That's why it's developing the Teslasuit, a full-body haptic feedback ensemble for putting you well and truly in the game.
The 3DRudder is a $175 VR controller for your feet
Last year 3DRudder let us put our kicks on its feet-based motion controller, but it wasn't quite ready for the full VR demo. This year the team is back with an Oculus headset attached so we can get the proper experience. From my experience, the balance board isn't much different than what we've seen, as its embedded gyroscope, accelerometer and pressure sensors gave me hands-free control through a 3D environment with six degrees of freedom. I picked up the controls pretty quickly, and I could definitely see using this in combination with a mouse/keyboard or game controller. The 3DRudder VR Edition is supposed to ship by the end of March, and preorders are open now for $175/€175.
PlayStation VR is a few games away from being ready for prime time
The PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco this weekend is one of the biggest opportunities to date for the public to check out PlayStation VR -- more than a dozen titles are on display here, including titles from Sony, Harmonix, Capcom and more. Unfortunately, it hasn't been easy for those at the show to actually try those games out. Attendees were able to sign up ahead of time and reserve a slot to try the PlayStation VR experience, but a glitch in Sony's database erased all those reservations, leaving a bunch of excited fans figuratively out in the cold.
Samsung Gear VR review (2015): A no-brainer if you own a Samsung phone
When Samsung and Oculus debuted their Gear VR headset almost a year ago, the companies made it clear the device wasn't yet ready for the masses. Billed as "Innovator Edition" models, the original Gear VRs were intended mainly for early adopters. They only fitted a limited number of phones -- the original was designed just for the Note 4; the second for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge -- and were also quite pricey at $200 per headset. Just last week, however, the two companies released the first-ever consumer-ready version of the Gear VR. It's smaller, lighter, cheaper (only $99) and is compatible with more phones (the Note 5, S6, S6 Edge and S6 Edge+). But, more importantly, its content library has exploded, with more VR apps and games than ever before. Virtual reality has finally gone mainstream, and there's no better way to get started than with the new Gear VR.
AuraVisor takes on Gear VR, no phone required
Most current virtual reality headsets fall broadly into one of two categories: high-end options (Vive, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR etc.) that connect to a console or PC, and glorified phone holders (Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard et al). AuraVisor offers a third way: the freedom of an untethered headset, but you leave your phone in your pocket -- everything is built-in to the visor. It's a fairly logical solution to the fast-growing problem of family-friendly VR. Using your phone in a headset is quick and dirty, but it comes with compromises on compatibility and comfort. Not to mention the ever-present risk of your fun being interrupted by all the other things your phone does (email, calendars and myriad other notifications). AuraVisor put VR into a single, Android-based device that could provide a Gear VR-like solution to everyone, minus the anxieties of using a phone.
Ultimate VR simulator throws you around in mid-air
Virtual reality headsets can trick our eyes and ears into believing we're someplace else. Fooling the rest of the body is a little trickier though. Companies have tried spinning chairs and omnidirectional treadmills, but nothing comes close to the "Cable Robot Simulator" developed at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. The player wears a wireless VR headset inside a carbon fibre cage, which is then suspended in mid-air and thrown around the room using eight steel cables. The exposed pod is able to tilt, bank and move with an acceleration of up to 1.5g in response to the VR experience. Researchers have shown off some basic flight and racing simulations, but we're already imagining how it could be used in our favorite video games. A dogfight in Star Wars: Battlefront? Tearing around corners in F-Zero GX? The possibilities are endless. It's still very much a prototype, and hardly suitable for home use, but we're desperate to have a go ourselves.
Disney is closing its first virtual reality attraction
Disney World broke ground in virtual reality when it launched its DisneyQuest "interactive theme park" back in 1998. To say that times have changed would be an understatement, though -- DQ is using primitive VR technology that makes even Google Cardboard look like a quantum leap. Appropriately, the company now plans to close DisneyQuest in 2016 and replace it with an NBA-themed attraction. The exact reasons for the shutdown aren't clear, but it's likely a combination of the less-than-impressive technology with mounting support costs. At one point this spring, most of the attractions weren't working -- it's hard to imagine Disney pouring lots of money into hardware that's more likely to make you yawn than gasp in awe. You might feel nostalgic if you have fond memories of visiting DisneyQuest as a kid, but it's hard to mourn the loss when you can have a much nicer experience at home. [Image credit: Dave Pape, Wikimedia Commons]
Samsung invests in another crowdfunded VR company
Just because Samsung is extra-cozy with Oculus doesn't mean that it's putting all its virtual reality eggs in one basket. Samsung Ventures has invested an unspecified amount of cash into Fove, the company whose crowdfunded VR headset adjusts focus based on your gaze. There's no word of an official collaboration between the two companies, but it's not hard to see why a tech giant would pour money into this startup. Samsung is really eager to see VR take off -- Fove's work both creates healthier competition and provides the Korean firm with a technically advanced alternative to the established options.
StarVR is a QHD headset with an ultra-wide field of view
Starbreeze, the game developer behind Payday 2, Syndicate and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is getting into VR. The company has acquired hardware startup InfinitEye and is developing its prototype VR headset under a new name: StarVR. The device is unique because it offers a super-wide 210-degree field of view, which is more than double the 100 degrees found on the Oculus Rift. The headset also boasts two 5.5-inch Quad HD (2560x1440) displays, coupled with a fresnel lens design to give players an immersive VR experience. Motion tracking is handled with fiducial markers on the headset (not shown) and a combination of gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers.
You can buy your own smell-o-vision VR headset, if you wanna
Aside from the anguished cries of our loved ones begging us to go to work, there are two things that are left out when we play games in virtual reality: our senses of smell and taste. After all, we can see, hear and sometimes feel the action in the FPS realm, but we won't be truly satisfied unless we're getting artificial blood, sweat and seawater in our faces, too. That's what FeelReal's smell-o-vision headset is all about, which sits beneath a VR headset and pumps air, water and various scents into your face in an attempt to add a little more realism to your gaming.
Razer to make a VR headset with built-in Leap Motion hand tracking sensor
The holy grail of virtual reality is presence; that feeling that you're truly there in that virtual world. That's why it was great when Leap Motion announced that it would be making a VR mount a few months ago -- manipulating objects with your hands is just so much more immersive than using a game controller. But in order to use it, you would already need to have a VR headset plus you'd need to get the Leap Motion sensor separately, which isn't exactly ideal. Now, however, you don't need to: Leap Motion has just announced that it's collaborating with Razer's OSVR to build a VR headset with the Leap Motion sensors built right in.
