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Google’s VR football videos take you behind the scenes at NFL and college games

Google has found all kinds of uses for its 360-degree images and video since launching it. Now that YouTube supports VR and Google Cardboard as standard, it’s ramping up its efforts to make it more relevant to the every day viewer.

One such effort is its ‘Inside The Game’ video, featuring a behind the scenes look at New England Patriots’ pre-game practicing. But the NFL team isn’t the only one to get in on the VR game, Stanford’s college football team has made a similar video experience, and even offered Cardboard headsets to those in the press-box for its weekend game…


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Google launches new Cardboard Camera app for shooting VR photos from your phone

Google is out today with an interesting new app for VR fans called Cardboard Camera for Android. The new camera app lets users shoot their very own virtual reality photos right from a smartphone. Simply launch the app, start shooting a photo and pan in a circular motion like you’re shooting a panorama image, and you’re set.

Then throw your phone in a Google Cardboard virtual reality viewer and you can experience the immersive shot as if you were back in the moment, adding a new dimension to still images.
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Google Cultural Institute brings 360-degree tours of famous performing arts venues

Google has recently been on a major push to bring its 360-degree and VR experience to as many people as possible, and in as many services as applicable. Most recently, that was bringing some awesome 360-degree views of areas effected by climate change to Street View. Today, the company has announced that it will be launching 360 tours of popular performing arts locations.

You can browse performances and everything that goes on on- and off-stage at more than 60 institutions—including the world famous Carnegie Hall, to the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Berliner Philharmoniker. Moving east, I’ve selected some highlights from our partners in Asia-Pacific—the Queensland Performing Arts Center in Australia, the Dilli Gharana and Natural Streets For Performing Arts Foundation in India, Aomori Nebuta Matsuri in Japan, and the National Theatre of Korea, National Gugak Center and Kukkiwon in Korea.

It’s an incredible collection of imagery, photos and Street View-like tours of some great cultural locations. There are tons of backstage photos and images of classic performances, costumes and exhibitions in a host of venues across the globe. If you’re in to the performing arts, it seems a fantastic resource to dig in to.

PSA: Verizon customers can get a free Star Wars-themed Cardboard viewer on Wednesday in stores

Starting tomorrow, Verizon carrier stores will be offering a free Star Wars-themed Google Cardboard viewer. Verizon’s page mentions that the offer is only available to Verizon customers, but whether that mean subscribers or just anybody shopping in the store is unclear.

This is part of a larger promotional campaign between the carrier, Google, and Disney. The viewers are meant to be used to watch the Star Wars virtual reality experience that is coming out on the same day. According to Lucasfilm, the experience will tie directly into the beginning of The Force Awakens. If you already have a Cardboard viewer, be sure to download the Star Wars Android and iOS app to watch the VR video.

Four versions of the viewers are up for grabs, with a BB-8, R2D2, Kylo Ren, and Stormtropper design on the front and Verizon branding on the side. Supplies are limited and expect Star Wars fans to be the first to try and get what will certainly end up being a collectible item. Do comment below if you are successful in getting one.

Senior exec jumping ship suggests Magic Leap close to launch, HTC Vive significantly less advanced

UploadVR reports that Magic Leap has poached Jeff Gattis, the global marketing head of HTC’s Vive, a virtual reality headset expected to ship by the end of the year.

Comments made by Gattis add fuel to speculation that Magic Leap’s own VR headset is close to launch, but also suggest that it is significantly more advanced than the HTC product he’s been pushing for the past eight months … 
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Monument Valley makers release Land’s End, a Gear VR game for Galaxy S6

The makers of the smart and visually stunning Monument Valley have released their first virtual reality game for Samsung’s Gear VR platform. Land’s End has the same stunning visuals, hypnotic soundtrack, good story, and smart game mechanics that earned its predecessor such high praise.


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Newest Samsung Gear VR now available to pre-order for $100

Back at its event in August, when it launched the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge plus, Samsung also unveiled the first consumer-focussed Gear VR headset. The ‘Innovator Edition’ tag has been dropped, and you can now pre-order the latest version of the Samsung Gear VR from Best Buy for $99. It’s compatible with all the latest flagship Samsung Galaxy products including the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5.

Samsung built the new Gear VR to be lighter and more comfortable to wear than its predecessor. It’s built with flexible padding, has an easy-to-use touchpad on the side, and ships with a 16GB microSD card loaded with 3D movie trailers and 360-degree videos to enjoy right out of the box.

Multiple companies are aiming to transform the way we view multimedia with virtual reality. Samsung partnered with Oculus to create an affordable, smartphone-powered headset, while Google developed the even more budget-friendly Cardboard. HTC went more high end with its Vive (which is yet to be released), and of course, there’s Oculus’ own-brand set among others. Even YouTube recently updated its Android app to enhance it with VR content and site-wide Cardboard compatibility.

In short, companies are seeing VR as the next step in multimedia and are betting big to make it happen. Whether or not the Gear VR becomes a lasting or memorable part of that move is yet to be seen.

YouTube now supports VR video, app updated with Google Cardboard support

YouTube announced today that it’s bringing two new features to its popular video-viewing service. Perhaps the most important of the two updates is that YouTube now supports VR Video. That means people can upload full virtual reality experience videos which have an added depth versus the regular two-dimensional flat video. Objects that are near look close, those further away seem far.


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Google picks up 360° photography startup Digisfera to bolster Street View

Digisfera, a startup that prides itself in “photography, design, and development services for projects involving 360° images,” has been acquired by Google. Financial details of the deal haven’t been revealed, but Digisfera’s website has been updated to reflect the acquisition and states that the group is joining the Street View team at Google to “continue building great experiences using 360° photography.”

Here’s the full statement from the team:

We’re excited to share that Digisfera is joining Google. We started Digisfera almost five years ago and have had the opportunity to work in many interesting projects involving 360º photography over the years. We’re excited to join the Street View team at Google to continue building great experiences using 360° photography.

As we move on to our next adventure, it will no longer be possible for us to keep developing PanoTag, so it is being discontinued. We are planning to open-source our Marzipano viewer in the coming weeks and hope this will benefit the panoramic photography community.

The Portugal-based startup, according to reports, has been part of capturing many significant moments in panoramic photography, including Barack Obama’s inauguration, landmarks in Rio de Janeiro during the 2014 World Cup, and parts of the 2014 Winter Olympics. These skills are going to hopefully translate to making Street View a better product and it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that Digisfera could contribute to Cardboard technology as well.

The company says it plans to open-source its Marzipano panorama viewing software.

 

 

OnePlus giving away Cardboard headsets to 1,000 lucky individuals

OnePlus is a small, exciting Android OEM (original equipment manufacturer) doing practically everything different. Just a few days ago they announced that the OnePlus 2, the next generation of the OnePlus One, will be unveiled on July 27th in a live-stream conducted using 360-degree virtual reality cameras. And to make sure as many people as possible can watch, they’re now giving away 1,000 of their own in-house Cardboard (the Google specification for how to build a cheap VR headset) headsets to lucky fans.
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OnePlus to launch OnePlus 2 via virtual reality, announces its own Google Cardboard viewer

The company’s OnePlus One

OnePlus has today announced that they plan to launch their upcoming OnePlus 2 handset by way of virtual reality, something that has never been done before. Tired of traditional keynote-and-an-audience tech announcements, OnePlus decided to do something new — and, perhaps more importantly, way cheaper:

In our industry, product launches tend to be the same. An auditorium, a keynote, and a seated audience. For the OnePlus 2 launch, we didn’t want that barrier between us and you; we want to invite you into our world, because you’re a major part of it. That is why we will be unveiling the OnePlus 2 to the world completely in VR.

OnePlus has a reputation of being as loud and disruptive as they can in their marketing, and this is yet another step in that direction as the company slowly announces the specifications of the OnePlus 2 one by one…
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Adult Swim will send you a free Google Cardboard viewer… if you fax them a form

All of the attendees of Google I/O this year (myself included) got the latest version of the Mountain View company’s Cardboard virtual reality headset for free—and now it looks like you can too. To promote their “Adult Swim Virtual Brainload” app, Adult Swim is trying to put a free Cardboard viewer in the hands of as many people as they can. But there’s only one catch: You have to fax them a form.
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Dodocase announces two new $25 Google Cardboard VR viewers

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Dodocase has long been a supporter of Google’s Cardboard initiative, and at I/O this morning a variety of new features were announced concerning the VR platform. Dodocase has now revealed two new virtual reality viewer designs this evening following Google’s announcements earlier. Dodocase is now offering the G2 Viewer and the P2 Viewer for $24.95 each.


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Google introduces ‘Jump,’ a camera rig implemention for taking VR video

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Life is about seeing the wonders of the world for yourself, but Google thinks that the experience you get from reliving these moments later on through the tiny windows that today’s cameras produce is pretty limited. Which is why the company today at its I/O conference announced the release of an open-source VR camera rig specification called “Jump” which will make it much easier for creators to capture, process, and share 360-degree virtual reality video for the whole world to enjoy.


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Google Cardboard VR viewer updated for bigger phones, now supports iOS

Google revealed today at the I/O conference that its Cardboard viewer for creating virtual reality experiences easily from Android apps will now support the iPhone for the first time.

The added support for the iPhone comes as Google has added support for iOS to its Cardboard SDK for developers. This means that iPhone apps can now include virtual reality experiences when paired with the Cardboard viewer.

In addition to adding support for iOS, Google is releasing an updated version of its Cardboard view that supports larger phones with up to 6-inch displays. The new version also features an improved input button and can be assembled in just three steps rather than twelve.

Google Cardboard for iPhone is available on the App Store. Cardboard Viewer is available to buy from $19.99 through Google, although the company also offers instructions for building your own viewer.

High profile internal move supports suggestions that Google has big plans for virtual reality

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Google’s initial play with virtual reality couldn’t possibly have been any more basic: the company’s first headset was quite literally made from cardboard. But suggestions that the company is more serious about VR than Google Cardboard have been backed by a high-profile exec change within the company spotted by Fast Company.

Jon Wiley, the lead designer of Google Search, has transitioned to become lead designer of Google Cardboard […] Wiley’s Twitter profile reflects his new position, and Google confirmed the move, but declined to share details as to when or why it occurred, or who will replace Wiley in his former role. What’s clear is that Google has invested a major design talent in VR.

The WSJ reported in March that Google was working on a new project to build a VR platform based on the Android operating system which would be free for hardware manufacturers, and Google last month announced a ‘Works with Google Cardboard‘ program to unify third-party viewers … 
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LG G3 and VR headset giveaway (Winners selected)

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTozuo5ocoM]

Virtual reality has consumer the smartphone market lately. It seems like every manufacturer is coming out with a smartphone compatible VR headsets. Recently, LG sent us its new VR for G3 headset to take a look at and we’ve been having a blast so far. Think of LG’s new VR headset as a premium version of Google Cardboard that’s tailored to fit the G3 in every way. It’s a very nice upgrade over Cardboard and the app selection for VR in Google Play is growing rapidly.

This whole VR movement is very cool, but it’s hard to explain in words what it’s actually like to use a VR headset. It’s just one of those things that you need to experience yourself. Well, thanks to the good people over at LG, we’re giving you a chance to win one of five LG G3 and VR headset packages…


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Dodocase offering its Google-certified VR viewer for free

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Earlier today, Google announced a new program called “Works with Google Cardboard” that highlights all of the third-party Cardboard-compatiable viewers. The program is Google’s attempt at unifying the various variants of Cardboard, which was first shown at I/O 2014, and making sure they are all compatible with the variety of Cardboard apps that are available.

To celebrate the launch of Works with Google Cardboard, Dodocase is briefly offering its Google-certified virtual reality viewer for free…
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Google reportedly working on Android-based virtual reality platform

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Google is planning to jump into the virtual reality software game in a big way, the Wall Street Journal said today. The company is said to have “tens of engineers” working on a new project to build a VR platform based on the Android operating system. Like the smartphone version of Android, Google’s VR software will reportedly be available for free to hardware makers.

The virtual reality hardware market is growing at a speedy pace, started by Facebook’s purchase of Oculus last year. Oculus and Samsung teamed up to create a VR headset late last year, and smartphone manufacturer HTC partnered with gaming company Valve to build their own device called the Vive. Each of these devices run their own proprietary software.


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CES 2015: Pinć VR headset for Android hands-on and first impressions

A few months ago, we visited Toronto-based Cordon Labs for some hands-on time with the work-in-progress Pinć VR headset case for Android-based smartphones and the iPhone. Fast forward to CES 2015 and we’ve once again had a few minutes to check out a new and improved prototype of the headset, now 20% slimmer and closer to becoming an accessory that could actually be pocketable without protruding through your pants. Read ahead for my first impressions of the Pinć and a brief overview of where I think it is headed.
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Google announces Android/Unity SDKs for Cardboard VR headset, dedicated Play Store section

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Google today announced some updates for its Google Cardboard virtual reality experience that it says is now in the hands of around 500k people since launching in June (not including unofficial versions). The main updates include new SDKs for developers building experiences on Android and Unity and a dedicated section for virtual reality Cardboard apps in the Google Play store.
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