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Cardboard Hits Half a Million Mark, Gets an SDK
PC Magazine reports (citing a blog post from project manager Andrew Nartker) that Google's Cardboard -- first introduced to some laughter -- is growing up, with a small but growing collection of compatible apps and a recently announced SDK. And while Cardboard itself is pretty low-tech (cardboard, rubber band, a magnet) and consequently cheap, the resulting VR experience is pretty good, which explains why more than 500,000 of them have now shipped.
Yeah there are lots of cardboard boxes this time of year
"I bought cardboard when it was only 14 cents a ton. And it's up to what, 16 cents now? Well, I bought three tons of it. So that's about...well, you do the math. Plus I made a special deal where I only have to keep 2 tons of it at my house."
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Out of pure curiosity to see how far this technology can go, does anyone know of a porn site using this?
Like I said, just for research purposes.
The head tracker API returns a 4x4 matrix from the sensors:
public void getLastHeadView (float[] headView, int offset)
Provides the most up-to-date transformation matrix.
Parameters
headView An array representing a 4x4 transformation matrix in column major order.
offset Offset in the array where data should be written.
I wonder how reliable the translation information is. The angle seems to work quite well from the apps I have checked, but no app is trying to use translation information. Having it available, if it is reliable enough, would enable a whole lot of new cool applications.
Did anyone test this?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
The lastest cardboard app (the 1.3) is broken for me(display drivers?), but the cardboard is for sale at 5 dollar in China (paypal recommended)
That is including cardboard,lenses,magnets, velcro and shipping.
I might not be at your doorstep before chrismas, but such a small amount is nice for 10 minutes of fun.
Where did the 500k number come from? As google isn't selling the kits, is it an estimate of the big suppliers?
Also, as the $25 for a simple cardboard contraption is kindof rediculous, my guess is a lot of the people are
opting to build their own so there is probably a lot more than that out there.
If google really wants it to take off, they should start selling the kits for $5 a piece and maybe a more durable
plastic version for $25. If google's not up to the logistics, they could put them up on amazon.
Ok, scratch that, it does look like there are already some low cost 3rd party versions for under $10 on amazon
with free shipping.
"The pre-printed cardboard probably fits only one phone type"
- not necessarily. As far as I could tell it handles a range of sizes, though the info was less than clear about that.
"the response on most phones is not good enough to do head tracking very well"
- ah - but it does! It has a novel and innovative strapless design that forces you to hold this thing up to your head with booth hands. Then you cannot move your head around quickly, because you are now limited to trunk movements.