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Android Phone Turned Into Virtual Reality Goggles
andylim writes "After years of hype surrounding virtual reality, including the classic '90s movie The Lawnmower Man, few of us can claim to have experienced virtual reality at home. But what if you could build your own virtual reality goggles without having to spend a fortune? Using an HTC Magic and Google Street View, Recombu.com made a simple pair of virtual reality goggles that let you immerse yourself in distant locations. As the article points out, you can also use these goggles with augmented reality apps — although you probably don't want to walk around with them all day long."
aka an iphone strapped to a cardboard box.
A cardboard box with a phone taped on one end, "Virtual Reality Goggles" written with marker on the side, and an elastic cord to hold it to your head. Man, I totally want one of these. Where do I buy them?
I think all of us could claim to have experienced virtual reality at home. Just not with clunky glasses from the 80s, but congratulations in making an expensive new phone into your very own pair of 80s fail.
I personally own a pair of these: http://www.vuzix.com/iwear/products_vr920.html they're exactly what they claim to be, and work just as well. Shame that the technology hasn't made the concept much better over the years. The problem is simply that trying to trick the human vision system is really hard. Doing it in an affordable way is even harder.
How we know is more important than what we know.
We already have enough problems with people running into walls, other people, walking into intersections and getting run over by buses -- and that's with just iPods and bluetooth ear leeches. People go driving off bridges, across corn fields, etc., with navsat equipment... And before we solve the human interface problems here, we're talking about immersing people further?
At the rate things are going, we'll all be walking into each other and talking to walls, and occasionally driving off cliffs... And this'll be considered normal.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This rig isn't stereoscopic and therefore isn't a pair of "virtual reality goggles" in the classic sense.
Using just a laptop with a built in motion detector and a series of steel poles to rig it to your body you can do exactly the same thing but in higher resolution. From a simple netbook to a 21" monster its all possible and creates a higher resolution virtual reality experience. Going higher resolution why not drive it from a 30" cinema display, sure dragging the cables around is a bore but its virtual reality with exercise built in.
Oh hang on you wanted actual tactile touch, object interaction and other genuine immersive elements that signify the difference from a pair of goggles and a true virtual reality experience.
Nope we don't do that.
This is the virtual reality equivalent of carving little pictures into asprin and claiming they are Ectasy tablets.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
They do close to nothing.
I...I am so... sorry. I'll leave now.
"If I have been able to see so far, It is because I went out and bought a damn binoculars" - Ze da Esquina
email me at tonyzmadmodz@gmail.com and I can get you a free nintendo DS.
So what did Tony do to piss you off?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The goggles, they do nothing.
God spoke to me.
Is this some use of "classic" of which I have been heretofore ignorant?
synopsis: when the phone battery wears off, Neo realizes that he no longer is saving the human race from enslavement in a VR world constructed by Aliens, but really was wearing a cereal box duck-tapped to his head all along.
1. Go to Babes(or Dudes)OnCam.
2. Open a webcam window
3. Open a second instance of the same webcam
4. Size the the same and place them side by side.
5. Look at them cross eyed until you get a far more interesting pseudo-3D VR than some street view of someplace, without goggles, Googles, immersion, or Androids.
6. Or go blind.
7. Just kidding, that can't happen.
8. No, they won't get stuck either.
9. Mine? They've always been like this.
10. They have so. Really.
11. Wait, androids? That would be SOOOOO.....
12. What? oh. those. Nevermind.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Obviously this isn't really "virtual reality", still it's a neat concept.
I think it could be quite a bit more useful for augmented reality, though a custom made device would be better (especially if it provided peripheral vision). I wouldn't mind a nice Terminator HUD, though maybe a bit less red.
To everyone dogging on this article, consider a few things.
The whole setup (cardphone, goggles, phone) looks cheap, true, but it IS cheap. It'd be magnitudes cheaper if you made a similar device without the phone, just able to load locations. Spend the savings on a much more comfortable headset and attachment. Hundred bucks, maybe $200, and you know who would love this? Kids. Maybe 2nd to 6th grade. Young enough NOT to complain about the look as I'm seeing here.
I know my elementary school history education consisted of reading about a culture, and then looking at pictures in a book, usually drawings, sometimes photos. Replace those pictures with these things, and kids would be 10x more interested. And you could definitely put learning into there. Have a scene of a Native American village, a Roman forum, a Civil War battle, or real modern scenes, all in 360 degrees, controlled by the student. It would be simple to tie this into learning and assignments. Have them list pieces of technology they see in the panorama, and explain their functions or how we have a different tool today, or put in an unnamed scene and have them guess the culture along with their reasoning.
I think cheap solutions using everyday technology like this has LOADS of practical applications, and should be commended and developed upon.
I bet one of these are cheaper and probaly do a better job for kids. OK, so its static images, but the concept isn't new.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
When he showed a picture of one of those toy 3d viewfinders, I was hoping that it would have two phones, showing a stereoscopic image of sorts. Maybe move the screens a little closer to your eyes for the full 3D effect. You could probably mod (or compile an existing) version of Doom 2 to support displaying the 3D sprites of enemies inside the levels. I don't know if Android phones are capable of running quake 1 or quake 3 but that would be interesting at the very least. A G1 runs as low as $100 on ebay if you shop around. Maybe someone could finally build a proper virtual boy emulator!
moox. for a new generation.
I have no Idea. As far as I can tell, the googles do nothing.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Get outside - there's the part about the sun and no it won't hurt you...not much and not for long anyway.
It would give a much more 'realistic' experience if he didn't have the phone blocking the view out the front.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Since most of these phones wouldn't last all day on a charge, how about adding
some solar cells on the top of the cardboard box?
I am one of the lucky few that has actually used a true VR rig at Autodesk in the early 90's. And as others have pointed out, the OP is not VR. Much like the flying car, VR simply asks too much of you to gain widespread acceptance.
But augmented reality is a completely different game and stands a good chance of being the next big thing.
Since this is /. let's make the effort to get our terminology correct.
The OP shows us that AR is starting to arrive. If Apple showed up with iAR glasses, what apps would you want to use / create?
Place nail here >+
I dunno. It's about half a year away from being April 1st, so I'm not sure if it's a spoof. On the other hand, it's almost Halloween, so maybe this guy is just prepping his dork outfit.
I'd have laughed my ass of if his phone rang as he was demoing his awesome VR goggles.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
When he started talking about Viewmaster I thought he was going to build a stereoscopic viewer. That's what made the Viewmaster compelling... not that it was "immersive", but that it was 3d.
Also, he left out the high-speed-measuring-and-cutting-the-cardboard montage that would make it look like a real wacky science show episode.
It would have been much cooler if he demoed one of those apps that combines the camera view with geopositioning info to show you the way to the nearest Starbucks.
I'm waiting for someone to tape a 22" LCD to his car's windshield.
Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
They do nassing!
There's an app for that!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Take a look at http://cellagames.com/artd.html It is by far the most impressive thing I have ever seen a phone do.
If you have a Nokia e-series Symbian phone with a camera you can fire up an awesome AR game right now. You print out a series of cards that have a block bar code system on them and place them on a flat surface. The camera reads the codes and the game converts them into 3D and projects bad guys, bases, and lasers on the screen. Its not fully mature and your arm gets tired but you can pan around your coffee table playing desktop defense but it is really interesting.
...just like building a spaceship bodywork around your mountain bike will not get you into orbit. ^^
No, but to think it would work you'd have to be high. ;)
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
OK, I watched this one and was almost waiting for a punchline at the end. My initial instinct was that it was lame because the guy was using a cardboard box, tape, and safety goggles, and yet the more I watched it, the more it began to seem cool. Strange?!?!
My software never has bugs.
It just develops random features.