Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
We've already addressed this problem. It's called the Darwin Award!
They have Honorable Mentions, too.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Exactly. The google maps app that comes installed on the system already has that feature where you can hold up the phone and turn around to investigate the scene. The accelerometer/compass stuff is built in! All this guy did was tape his phone to a cardboard box.
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
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.
But it's such a cool cardboard box! He wrote "Virtual Reality" on the side with a black pen! :)
I intend to live forever, or die trying. - Groucho Marx
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?