In the mid nineties when I was beginning a career in the computer industry one of the big buzz terms was Virtual Reality (VR). At that time VR was predicted to be the next big thing in education, medicine, and industry. And although I saw numerous presentations and read various articles, beyond a few real-world entertainment implementations, VR failed to take off.So, in the past year,when I started to hear chatter about VR again, I was predictably skeptical.
The introduction of the Oculus Rift appeared to be an attempt to make the technology more accessible by addressing two major hurdles to entry, size and price point. The Ocular Rift seems to have sparked sparked a new interest in this once-shelfed technology. More and more companies are sticking their toe into VR, One of those being Google who introduced Cardboard VR.
Cardboard VR uses a cardboard headset and a smart phone to experience VR content. This make VR accessible to the masses.I picked up a basic viewer from Knox Labs for about $15.00, but there are all sorts of options including building your own.
Currently there are a handful of Cardboard VR apps available in Apples iTunes Store and Google Play, however so far my experience is they are mostly simple walk-through demos. It will be interesting to see where developers take this technology.
