Gadgetory

hah there you are my name's Gary seems Ranger Authority today we are entering the question what is virtual reality virtual reality is an immersive computer system that mimics the world we see around us it can also be used to create imaginary world which is particularly useful for creating immersive gaming vr itself isn't a new idea in fact it was first described in the 1930s and the first VR system was built in the late 1960s his boon time came in the 1990s when companies like Sega and Nintendo started developing consumer level vr gaming products how after a boom there is often a bust and that is what happened with VR Sega's product was never released and Nintendo's virtual boy was a commercial failure and since they're not much has changed at the consumer level and it isn't just because of the computing power needed to do vr properly think about the size of laptops and mobile phones from that era they were quite big therefore to do VR headsets properly a lot needs to change in terms of militarization materials displays and of course the computing power and that's what's happened now now almost after 20 years VR is making a comeback in 2012 Palmer Luckey started a Kickstarter campaign for an immersive virtual reality headset for video gaming called the oculus rift it aimed to rate 250 thousand dollars but in the end raised an amazing 2.4 million dollars in 2013 John Carmack famous for his 3d games like doom and quake joined the oculus team the oculus rift is designed to be connected and used with a PC however Carmack helped develop a mobile version in collaboration with Samsung the Samsung gear VR uses a smartphone which is clicked into the headset to create a VR platform it is an untethered solution which means there are no wires printing it to a pc or other computing device the smartphone's GPU is used to render the virtual world and the phone's display is split into half for the image is needed by the left and right eyes the headset also includes the head tracking module from the oculus rift the original gear VR only work with the note 4 however samsung recently released a new version to coincide with the launch of the samsung galaxy s6 both these gear VR versions carry the title innovate edition meaning they are intended for early adopters and for developers however during a recent keynote speech at GDC John Carmack said that the gear VR would become a true consumer level prank later this year and he hinted strongly that this would happen with the release of the samsung galaxy note5 the two other big players in the re-invigorated VR market are Sony and Microsoft in 2014 sony announced project Morpheus a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 the headset which is reported to be able to do graphics 120 frames per second is set to be released sometime during 2016 unlike project Morpheus Microsoft's product the hollow lens is an untethered headset that will work with Windows 10 it is different from gear VR in that the hollow lens come to this own built-in computing module and doesn't use your smartphone it's also different in that it doesn't use an oled display that is placed directly in front of the users eyes but rather it uses transparent goggles with a form of projection or head ups display system this is where we cross the line between virtual reality and augmented reality although VR and AR might look very similar because you need to wear a headset or some form of special goggles they are in fact quite different and have different goals and ultimately they have different consumer markets before leaving our discussion on AR I want to mention epson's movi Rio smart glasses unlike Google glass the movi Rio smart glasses don't try to be a normal pair of everyday glasses they are as dead designed for tasks that need AR but like Google glass the mo vario glasses as Android as we can see well the difference in the oculus rift and the gear VR today's dr. Ettie market is split into two tethered and untethered the advantage of the tethered approaches at the processing power and the electrical power comes from a PC or a console and these have high performance CPUs and high performance GPUs however the disadvantage is is that they are really tethered to one place to the room in your house wherever your PC or console is located however the untethered approach gives you portability wherever you go your VR headset can go with you it's portability also means it has a greater social impact although using a VR headset could be considered as antisocial when used in public there is an aspect of sharing the VR experience with a group of friends for example the wow factor you get when the headset is passed from one person to another so it seems that the tethered and untethered markets will coexist and grow together for quite some time in the future there may be some convergence as the headsets become more Universal and are able to be driven by any device however at the moment android plays an important role as we can see from the Samsung gear VR it's more than able providing an excellent experience and because it already is a full multitasking operating system based on linux it's able to do this as well as any other operating system however because it's a mobile operating system it's already optimized for the untethered use case samsung gear vr isn't the only android VR solution at the low end is google cardboard designed as a way to get people interested in VR the Google headset is made from cardboard this means it is cheap and you can get a headset under twenty dollars of course it isn't the most ergonomic ly designed piece of equipment in the world and you're probably isn't going to be very comfortable for long periods however as a way into VR cardboard is great Google currently has around 50 apps in its featured cardboard section in Google Play the challenges for untethered VR devices and tethered via our devices are quite different for example one of the main problems that faces the oculus rift is it needs to get game down to the marketplace so it becomes a de facto standard for vr gaming course there are still technical issues however many of the problems that plagued VR technology of the 1990s has already been overcome for untethered VR devices the challenges are different first of all the headsets don't have a main power supply everything needs to be based on a battery that means that power consumption is always going to be a factor secondly the current crop of untethered VR headsets like Google cardboard and gear VR rely on the screen that's built into your smartphone this of course affects picture quality refresh rates and resolution also with untethered headsets the GPU in the smartphone is being used to generate the virtual world although mobile GPUs are sophisticated bits of hardware they aren't up to the same quality and speed aphek cards we find in pcs and that's normal have you seen the size of the graphics card in your PC what this means is that VR headset makers are now pushing the boundaries for mobile graphics VR developers are looking for greater frame rates and higher mobile GPU performance the one major concern for VR OEMs is motion sickness your brain is an incredible thing and it isn't easily fooled when your inner ear to text motion but your eyes don't see the same motion then you start to feel sick you may have experienced this on a boat or in a car the same thing can occur when using VR headsets and it's sometimes referred to as simulator sickness if your brain detects that you have moved your head but your eyes don't see the same movement then some people can feel sick also some people feel sick when you're I detect movement but there is no corresponding physical movement VR headset makers like oculus are very aware of this problem and are treating it seriously in fact when the gear VR hits mainstream it will have its own app store and any apps which could cause motion sickness will carry a very clear warning label this is an exciting time for VR there are some big companies involved Samsung Sony and so on and it looks like they're bringing out a really interesting range of products it looks like the technology problems of the 1990s have been resolved especially those in terms of militarization and pricing also VR is going to be a driver of lots of new technologies including motion tracking movement sensors displays and mobile G use three downside I can see is what happens when the lawyers get involved and if the different companies start suing each other for paint violations well let's just hope that doesn't happen my name's Gary Sims round your authority I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give it a thumbs up also don't forget to subscribe to android authorities youtube channel and also leave some comment to tell me what you think about VR have you used a gear VR are you going to buy an oculus rift tell me what you think and as for me I'll see you in my next video