Google Cardboard Official Buy

Experience portable and affordable virtual reality with the Knox Cardboard. Built with the same quality as the official Google Cardboard, this viewer is your VR companion. Anytime. Anywhere. Academic Discount packs are available for 10 or more.

google cardboard official buy

To build your own viewer all you need are a few everyday items you can find in your garage, online, or at your local hardware store: cardboard, lenses, magnets, hook and loop fastener and a rubber band.

To build your own viewer all you need are a few everyday items that you can find in your garage, online or at your local hardware shop: cardboard, lenses, magnets, a hook and loop fastener and an elastic band.

Google Cardboard is a discontinued virtual reality (VR) platform developed by Google. Named for its fold-out cardboard viewer into which a smartphone is inserted, the platform was intended as a low-cost system to encourage interest and development in VR applications.[1][2] Users can either build their own viewer from simple, low-cost components using specifications published by Google, or purchase a pre-manufactured one. To use the platform, users run Cardboard-compatible mobile apps on their phone, place it into the back of the viewer, and view content through the lenses.

The parts that make up a Cardboard viewer are a piece of cardboard cut into a precise shape, 45 mm focal length lenses, magnets or capacitive tape, a hook and loop fastener (such as Velcro), a rubber band, and an optional near field communication (NFC) tag. Google provides extra recommendations for large scale manufacturing, and pre-assembled kits based on these plans are available for less than US$5[9] from multiple vendors, who have also created a number of Cardboard variations.

Google Cardboard was a surprise hit at Google I/O 2015 and moved the entry point for VR lower than anyone had imagined previously. The device was a literal piece of cardboard, shaped like a VR headset, with special plastic lenses. Google built a Cardboard app for Android and iOS, which would let any suitably high-end phone power the headset. The landscape display split into left and right views for your eyes, the phone hardware rendered a VR game, and the accelerometers did 3-DoF (degrees of freedom) head tracking. There was even a cardboard action button on the handset that would boop the touchscreen with a capacitive pad, so you could aim with your head and select options in a VR environment. Since the product was just cardboard and plastic lenses with no electronics whatsoever, Google sold the headset for just $20.

After cardboard, Google started to scale up its VR ambitions. In 2016, Google also launched an upscaled version of Google Cardboard, the Google Daydream VR headset. This was a plastic and cloth version of a phone-powered VR headset, with the key improvements of a head strap and a small controller, for $80.

Three years after Cardboard, Nintendo took Google's "cheap cardboard accessory" idea and ran with it, creating the Nintendo Labo products. Labo packaged Nintendo Switch software with a boatload of pre-cut, printed cardboard sheets, which could be assembled into all sorts of cheap peripherals like a cardboard piano, or a robot suit. The Labo VR kit was an exact Google Cardboard copy: a cardboard VR headset used the Nintendo Switch as the display, letting you view Nintendo's worlds in 3D.

Google Cardboard is an accessory that holds your phone in place while you use virtual reality (VR) apps on your phone. It's basically a VR headset! There are official Google Cardboard apps, but you can use the kit with just about any VR app and any phone. This guide will list apps and resources for using Google Cardboard in the classroom and with clients in a healthcare setting.

Google Cardboard is a low-cost virtual reality platform by Google that consists of a fold-out cardboard viewer and a number of smartphone apps. The viewer is used by placing a smartphone with a Google Cardboard app into the back of it and viewing through the lenses in the front.

There are a number of Google Cardboard viewers in the HSHSL Innovation Space that are available on a first-come-first-serve basis for use in the library. Once you've installed the official Google Cardboard app, you're ready to step into virtual reality!

The first step is to install the official Google Cardboard smartphone app for Android or for iOS. This official app is required to prepare your smartphone to work with the particular version of Google Cardboard viewers that are available in the Innovation Space.

With Cardboard no longer available for purchase, Google has simply made official what was already abundantly clear: they are no longer interested in phone-based virtual reality. Under normal circumstances, anyone still using the service would be forced to give it up. Just ask those who were still active on Google+ or Allo before the plug was pulled.

I managed to not actually mention the name of the project: while OpenXR is the standard, Monado is the open source project implementing it that will eventually have cardboard support. (Other headsets like the Quest and most desktop headsets now support OpenXR, but their runtime/drivers only work on their hardware.)

At the 2014 Google I/O developer's conference last June, the tech giant made a splash by handing out kits containing, of all things, pre-cut pieces of cardboard along with a pair of lenses, some magnets and a few other parts. Attendees could assemble these bits into homespun virtual reality viewers that, used in conjunction with certain Android phone models, could display 3D stereoscopic images (full-motion graphics, stills or video).

At its initial release, Cardboard came off as a cute riff on the resurgent interest in VR headset technologies. But it appears that serious interest has grown since then: Responding to Google's release of the Cardboard SDK in December, developers have been making an array of third-party Cardboard apps, and the Cardboard G+ community is more than 8,000 members strong. There's even an unofficial iOS port of the Cardboard SDK.

Because the design and assembly plans for the viewer are available for free to the public, businesses have sprouted up that hawk unofficial products: You can buy cheap kits (most cost about $20 - $25) of plain-looking, pre-cut cardboard pieces that are almost identical to those given away at Google I/O 2014 -- or you can spend more for a viewer made of plastic or even leather. (Google itself doesn't sell Cardboard viewers.)

The first step that's important (and can trip you up right off if you don't get it right) is choosing the type of cardboard to use. The Google Cardboard site says you should use cardboard that has a thickness similar to that of a "sturdy shoe box." That sounded unhelpfully vague to me. Studying the official press photos showing the Cardboard viewer that Google gave away, it appeared to me that the cardboard is, indeed, thinner than the kind typically used for boxes for packaging computers, electronic gadgets or kitchen appliances, but sturdier and thicker than the rigid paperboard of the average shoebox.

At this point I realized that Google doesn't provide specific guidance or practical tips on how to use these templates to cut out the parts from the cardboard. So I had to think over what would be the best way to cut these parts out of my newly salvaged pizza box.

I found I needed five key tools: a ruler, masking tape, a glue stick, a utility knife and an X-Acto knife. I used the utility knife to make long cuts into the cardboard, while the X-Acto knife was for making cuts that required more precision (such as corners, curves or narrow slits) and for cutting out the template pieces. For me it was an absolute must to have both kinds of knives at hand, as well as the straight-edge ruler to help either knife make long, straight cuts into cardboard or paper. (Google refers to the print-out plans as the "scissor-cutting template," which I found laughable. After just a cursory glance, I could tell it would be impossible to cut them out precisely using most scissors.)

Next step: Cut out the templates. I strongly advise cutting the templates out from the paper sheets on a large, stable table surface that's protected with several sheets of newspaper. I cut both my templates and cardboard pieces upon a copy of a tabloid-format newsweekly that was folded open.

After carefully cutting out the templates with the X-Acto, I used the glue stick to paste them onto the bottom interior of the pizza box. The fully assembled template for the Viewer Case was longer than either the length or width of the pizza box. So I split this template into two, figuring that I could join the separate cardboard pieces with masking tape.

Once the templates are in place on the cardboard, it's time to cut the cardboard itself. I did not bother to cut out the interior openings (such as the circles and slits) of the paper templates before pasting them onto the cardboard, as you can see in the upper left photo with the Lens Holder. I also chose not to cut certain outer edge areas of the paper templates because these edges require more precision. I figured I could save the effort for when I needed to cut out the final cardboard pieces.

Using the X-Acto knife (upper right photo), I cut out the openings and cut away the curved edges. I did this by carefully stabbing through the template and cardboard, gently sawing a little along the path of the black lines, pulling out the X-Acto, stabbing through another part of the line, sawing, and so on. Take your time when doing this.

Note that I ignored the two curved tabs at the bottom of the template. I squared off this flap with sharp corners and a straight line. Similarly, I cut out as rectangles what are depicted on the template as two rounded openings. Why? I figured these rounded designs were nonessential to the function of the viewer... and, to be quite honest, I was lazy and didn't want to cut these more elaborate paths into the cardboard. 041b061a72