6633767
story
Comments: 103 +- Hardware: Android Phone Turned Into Virtual Reality Goggles on Monday October 26, @09:58PM
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicmonitors.gif); width:52px; height:53px;
displays
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topictoys.gif); width:59px; height:46px;
toy
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topiccellphone.gif); width:75px; height:74px;
cellphones
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicgui.gif); width:69px; height:53px;
gui
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topichandhelds.gif); width:65px; height:78px;
handheld
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."
Related Stories
Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat.
-- Bill Musselman
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
Brilliant idea (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Haha. This reminds me of an old image describing an early hands-free cellphone system:
http://spiro10.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/hands-free-cell-phone.jpg [wordpress.com]
Re:Brilliant idea (Score:4, Funny)
You should see my time machine. And my hovercraft. And my spaceship.
I got my degree from the University of Calvin and Hobbes.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I got my degree from the University of Calvin and Hobbes.
Ah, and I was wondering where I can get a degree to be a futurist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In all fairness, yes we would hear on how great idea this was. And we would hear about how this is yet again another plot where Apple brings nothing of value, but considers it magic. And to be fair at least that discussion would 1,000,000 comments long, instead of this 50 comment, "Man do they look like wiennies!" posting. You see this time around even a geek will say, "dude get a life!"
I've already got a hack for this (Score:3, Funny)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
I have an HTC Dream, and it lasts all day... I turn GPS off, and don't spend all my time playing video games or browsing the mobile web, but I do have it checking/syncing my e-mail every 5 minutes to both my gmail, and my work's exchange. A full charge on the battery lasts long enough for me to ride the bus to work, put in my 8 hours, and ride home, with what I'd consider "normal" e
Waiting for more (Score:3, Funny)
I'm waiting for someone to tape a 22" LCD to his car's windshield.
Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
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 [vuzix.com] 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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, since the StreetView camera only records a single image, you can't get the parallax needed for stereo.
Well, you can, sorta, if you take two adjacent streetview scenes, for the left and right eyes, and look perpendicularly away from the direction of travel. You can even take a sequence of these and play them as an animation, with the "trailing" eye being delayed by a frame. But with an eye separation in the order of metres, it really only works with very long views, and makes everything seem k
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't buy a pair of those even if you paid me. 1024x768 maximum effective resolution, with the native resolution on the screens being 640x480. It's cool and all, but that's nowhere near enough pixels for me to actually get some work done. My laptop's got a 1680x1050 LCD and I complain that *that's* not enough pixels for me to effectively multitask. Not to mention the harm you're doing to your eye by trying to focus on something that's an inch away from your face.
They're a cool toy, and might be fun for
Do not want. (Score:2, Insightful)
We already have enough problems with people running into walls, other people, walking into intersections and getting run over by buses -- and that's with just iPods and bluetooth ear leeches. People go driving off bridges, across corn fields, etc., with navsat equipment... And before we solve the human interface problems here, we're talking about immersing people further?
At the rate things are going, we'll all be walking into each other and talking to walls, and occasionally driving off cliffs... And this'l
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You might not be taking it far enough [imdb.com]!
Re: (Score:2)
Or here's another possibility [youtube.com].
Re:Do not want. (Score:4, Insightful)
We've already addressed this problem. It's called the Darwin Award! [darwinawards.com]
They have Honorable Mentions, too.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Odd how the "Darwin Awards" site doesn't understand evolution!
She's fifty, she's probably a grandmother. If so, she wins the evolution game, if you are childless you lose.
Much older than that is to OLD to lose the evolution game. As soon as you procreate, you win.
These p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not stereoscopic (Score:4, Informative)
This rig isn't stereoscopic and therefore isn't a pair of "virtual reality goggles" in the classic sense.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This rig isn't stereoscopic and therefore isn't a pair of "virtual reality goggles" in the classic sense.
In outdoor scenes, you can't tell anyway. Stereoscopy only matters for objects out to a meter or so. The change in relative position of near and distant objects is a more powerful cue than stereoscopy. (You don't have enough information from Google StreetView images to do that anyway,)
When Jaron Lanier demoed his original virtual reality system to me in the 1980s, he mentioned that once one of the
Re: (Score:2)
Goggles are too intrusive. However, the 'beam images into your retina' article earlier today is about the right shade for me. Lightweight, fit like normal glasses that I wear anyway. Inobtrusive 10 cm 'display 3 feet 'away'.
I'd kill to have something like that for pilots to provide terrain awareness in Instrument Meterological Conditions! Just being able to 'see' terrain in a small box, where red is above you, yellow is less than 1k feet below, and green more than 1k feet below, fading to show distance woul
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I was also disappointed that they didn't divide the screen and turn it into a video stereo-opticon. These google goggles are greatly gimpy.
Re: (Score:2)
But the stereoscopic googles are out there. http://www.i-glassesstore.com/ig-hrvpro.html [i-glassesstore.com] This would be cool with a couple of small cameras outside the goggles, so you can overlay your view with data. I could see a whole new kind of video game, where you play out in the real world with things nobody else can see (except fellow players) of course you'd look schizophrenic, buy hey, that'd be half the fun.
Why stop there? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Classic 90s movie (Score:2)
Is this some use of "classic" of which I have been heretofore ignorant?
Re: (Score:2)
I present you The Matrix VR (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Better On (almost) All Counts (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Better for augmented reality (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously this isn't really "virtual reality", still it's a neat concept.
I think it could be quite a bit more useful for augmented reality, though a custom made device would be better (especially if it provided peripheral vision). I wouldn't mind a nice Terminator HUD, though maybe a bit less red.
Why the hate? This is a good idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I bet one of these [fisher-price.com] are cheaper and probaly do a better job for kids. OK, so its static images, but the concept isn't new.
Two screens? (Score:2)
When he showed a picture of one of those toy 3d viewfinders, I was hoping that it would have two phones, showing a stereoscopic image of sorts. Maybe move the screens a little closer to your eyes for the full 3D effect. You could probably mod (or compile an existing) version of Doom 2 to support displaying the 3D sprites of enemies inside the levels. I don't know if Android phones are capable of running quake 1 or quake 3 but that would be interesting at the very least. A G1 runs as low as $100 on ebay if y
Virtual Reality? (Score:2)
What does the phone do? (Score:2)
He left out the 3d... (Score:2)
When he started talking about Viewmaster I thought he was going to build a stereoscopic viewer. That's what made the Viewmaster compelling... not that it was "immersive", but that it was 3d.
Also, he left out the high-speed-measuring-and-cutting-the-cardboard montage that would make it look like a real wacky science show episode.
It would have been much cooler if he demoed one of those apps that combines the camera view with geopositioning info to show you the way to the nearest Starbucks.
Want to see what she would look like naked? (Score:2)
There's an app for that!
Re: (Score:2)
email me at tonyzmadmodz@gmail.com and I can get you a free nintendo DS.
So what did Tony do to piss you off?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:virtual reality? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:virtual reality? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Did I go to the right site? The only text is "Using an HTC Magic and Google Street View we've made a simple pair of virtual reality goggles that let you immerse yourself in distant locations. You can also use these goggles with augmented reality apps -- although you probably don't want to walk around with them all day long.". No pictures, but there is a big blank place where it looks like there should be a picture.
I guess I'll have to check it out when I get home for lunch, maybe it's the browser here? Why
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's pretty sweet! Imagine... in just a few short years, a VR headset might be this small! [vpimg.net]
(Aerosmith, Amazing, 1993)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have no Idea. As far as I can tell, the googles do nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno. It's about half a year away from being April 1st, so I'm not sure if it's a spoof. On the other hand, it's almost Halloween, so maybe this guy is just prepping his dork outfit.
I'd have laughed my ass of if his phone rang as he was demoing his awesome VR goggles.