Samsung has just announced their new line of products: the Galaxy S5, the Note 4, the Note 4 Dali Edition, and my personal favorite, the Gear VR. The Gear VR is Samsung’s answer to a growing buzz of excitement around virtual reality. Lets break down this trend:

The Set Up

The Oculus Rift started this whole VR machine back up. College-aged engineer Palmer Luckey started working on the Rift on the basis of a simple idea: previously unreachable VR experiences can now potentially be built inexpensively with smartphone technology. He starts a Kickstarter campaign and raises oodles of money, puts out some dev kits that generate massive buzz and gets bought by facebook for $400 million in cash, $1.6 billion in Facebook stock, and an additional $300 million subject to blah blah blah…[a lot of money].

Google resents Facebook [see google+ for clarification]. Google also sees itself as the harbinger of future [see cloud computing, self driving cars, project loon for more details]. Facebook buying up and owning one of the brightest stars of futurism did not sit well with Google, especially since they understood something that most of the world has yet to: the Oculus Rift is basically an android phone’s screen and sensors with no onboard computing power. Yes, it has some very fancy custom hardware to make it more responsive, but I’m not sure if that matters.

This idea is supported by a small number of users who have been experimenting with android device based VR for a number of years. Most notable in this space is DuroVis Dive who sells an open-sided plastic headset that is a mount for a smartphone with adjustable lenses. The crazy thing about these devices is that they work surprisingly well because the magic needed to do VR is already present in any high end Android device:

Large super-high-resolution screen Processor capable of rendering 3D at videogame speeds Accelerometers A low enough weight to be comfortable strapped to your face

Seeing this and wanting to deal a blow to Facebook/Oculus, at this year’s Google I/O event, every attendee received a VR headset made of cardboard aptly named Google Cardboard. It was instantly loved, developers immediately began building more goggle-based apps for Android. More importantly, the world got the message: “anyone can do this”. Google engineers have taken to calling the Cardboard the “Mockulus Thrift”, possibly poking fun at Facebook for spending so much on a business so indefensible.

The Sorta War To Come

Really, the only technical thing Oculus Rift has going for it right now is it’s edge in graphics capability that comes from being tethered to a gaming PC. I believe this will really only make a difference to hardcore gamers and is temporary to boot.

At this point most people focus their technology use on a mobile device and use their laptops less and less. Of those of us who are still computer-bound vanishingly few of us have machines capable of rendering vast beautiful simulations, it’s basically only hardcore gamers. The boom in mobile gaming however is palpable and our hardware has kept up. A Galaxy S4 can comfortably run a simulation on par with a PlayStation 2 [I know because I own one] and the more powerful S5 is already out.

Here’s the real reason I’m banking on the cardboards and their ilk: you get a new smartphone every 2 years. Most people are on some form of new-every-two plan that incentivizes them to upgrade their handset every two years, and every upgrade is usually a world-changing improvement because there is SO MUCH DAMN MONEY in smartphones. This is why manufacturers put out several iterations of their products every year.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of money in videogames too, but at this point your parents and maybe even grandparents have smartphones, do they have gaming consoles? It’s considerably more rare. Most importantly, new videogame consoles come out about every 10 years. The timescale of console development simply can’t keep up with the pace and agility of smartphones. Phone-powered headsets are already good-enough-to-use and when VR headsets take off, the capability gap between Oculus Rift and Cardboard will close fast.

Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality is when the simulation the user is experiencing completely replaces their normal boring world with a more awesome ore more useful one. Augmented Reality is when the same technology is used in conjunction with a camera to inject virtual objects into the real world of users who are wearing goggles.

From instruction overlays, to shared viewing of 3d architectural models, to true telepresence, the real world applications of this technology are staggering and Oculus can’t do any of them. Oculus Rift, for all of it’s wonderful bleeding edge photon accurate display and sensing technology, doesn’t have a camera. Conversely, every high end android device comes with an increasingly amazing camera. Samsung in particular has placed emphasis on the quality and fidelity of the images returned by it’s Galaxy line. I’ve actually used the camera on my S4 in a vrAse to walk around outside and at meetup events and interact with virtual objects. It’s still very early tech but if you’re interested you can check out the app I used here.

Oculus, the Kleenex of VR

The people running the show at Oculus Rift seem to be very smart dudes and dudettes. It appears they quickly realized that the business of making headsets had no barriers to entry and so have taken steps to leverage their first-mover-advantage into becoming THE brand for VR headsets.

The Samsung Galaxy Gear headset was actually a joint effort between Samsung and Facebook/Oculus (Faceulus Rift?) that began over a year ago. Apparently the project was so exciting it was enough to get the inventor of the first-person-shooter, John Carmack, to ditch ID and join up [this is a big deal]. This is a super smart move on Samsung and Oculus’ part because they each get a foothold into each other’s world but in essence, the Samsung Gear VR is Oculus’ admission of the inevitability of mobile VR dominance.

A Virtual Land of Opportunity

After 20 years of pop culture preparations, Virtual Reality is finally ready for the world and I couldn’t be more excited. These android headsets have the potential to bring that technology, with all the power it implies, to the most people the fastest. I’m focusing my efforts on developing android/unity experiences for real world businesses like interactive marketing, real estate, and more! [simpleactually]