Tag Archives: VR

Daydream Labs: VR plays well with others

Posted by Rob Jagnow, Software Engineer, Google VR

At Daydream Labs, we pair engineers with designers to rapidly prototype virtual reality concepts, and we’ve already started to share our learnings with the VR community. This week, we focus on social. In many of our experiments, we’ve found that being in VR with others amplifies and improves experiences in VR, as long as you take a few things into account. Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

Simplicity can be powerful: Avatars (or the virtual representations of people in VR) can be simplified to just a floating head with googly eyes and still convey a surprising degree of emotion, intent, and number of social cues. Eyes give people a location to look to and speak towards, but they also increase face-to-face communication by making even basic avatars feel more human. When we combine this with hands and a spatially-located voice, it comes together to create a sense of shared presence.



Connecting the real and the virtual: Even when someone is alone in VR, you can make them feel connected. For example, you can continue to carry a conversation even if you’re not in VR with them. Your voice can serve as a subtle reminder that they’re spanning two spaces—the real and the virtual. This asymmetric experience can be a fun way to help ground party games where one player is in VR but other players aren’t, like with charades or Pictionary.

But when someone else joins that virtual world with them, we’ve seen time and time again that the real world melts away. For most multiplayer activities, this is ideal because it makes the experience incredibly engaging.



Join the party: When you first start a VR experience with others, it can be tough to know where to begin. After all, it’s easier to join a party than to start one! Create shared goals for multi-player experiences. When you give people something to play with together, it can help them break the ice, allow them to make friends, and have more fun in VR.

You think you know somebody: Lastly, people who know each other offline immediately notice stature or differences in a person’s height in VR. We can re-calibrate environments to play with height and scale values to build a VR world where everyone appears to be the same height. Or we can adjust display settings to make each person feel like they’re the tallest person in the room. Height is such a powerful social cue in the real world and we can tune these settings in VR to nudge people into having more friendly, prosocial interactions.

If you’d like to learn more about Daydream Labs and what we’ve learned so far, check out our recent Lessons Learned from VR Prototyping talk at Google I/O.

Daydream Labs: exploring and sharing VR’s possibilities

Posted by Andrey Doronichev, Group Product Manager, Google VR

In Daydream Labs, the Google VR team explores virtual reality’s possibilities and shares what we learn with the world. While it’s still early days, the VR community has already come a long way in understanding what works well in VR across hardware, software, video, and much more. But, part of what makes developing for VR so exciting is that there’s still so much more to discover.

Apps are a big focus for Daydream Labs. In the past year, we’ve built more than 60 app experiments that test different use cases and interaction designs. To learn fast, we build two new app prototypes each week. Not all of our experiments are successful, but we learn something new with each one.

For example, in one week we built a virtual drum kit that used HTC Vive controllers as drumsticks. The following week, when we were debating how to make typing in VR more natural and playful, we thought — “what if we made a keyboard out of tiny drums?”

We were initially skeptical that drumsticks could be more efficient than direct hand interaction, but the result surprised us. Not only was typing with drumsticks faster than with a laser pointer, it was really fun! We even built a game that lets you track your words per minute (mine was 50 wpm!).

Daydream Labs is just getting started. This post is the first in an ongoing series sharing what we’ve learned through our experiments so stay tuned for more! You can also see more of what we’ve learned about VR interactions, immersion, and social design by watching our Google I/O talks on the live stream.

VR at Google – Jump, Expeditions, and Daydream

Posted by Nathan Martz, Product Manager, Daydream

Two years ago at Google I/O, we introduced Google Cardboard, a simple and fun way to experience virtual reality on your smartphone. Since then, we've grown the Google VR family with Expeditions and Jump, and this week at Google I/O, we announced Daydream, a platform for high quality mobile virtual reality.

Jump—in the hands of creators and more cameras on the way

We announced Jump, cameras and software to make producing beautiful VR video simple, at I/O last year. Jump cameras are now in the hands of media partners such as Paramount Pictures, The New York Times, and Discovery Communications. Virtual reality production companies including WEVR, Vrse, The Secret Location, Surreal, Specular Theory, Panograma, and RYOT also have cameras in hand. We can't wait to see the wide variety of immersive videos these creators will share with a growing VR audience.

To enable cameras in a range of shapes and sizes and price points. Today, the Jump ecosystem expands with two partnerships to build Jump cameras. First, we're working with Yi Technology on a rig based around their new 4K Action Cam, coming later this year.

With Jump, we've also seen incredible interest from filmmakers. Of course when you're creating the best content you want the absolute highest quality, cinema-grade camera available. To help create this, we're collaborating with IMAX to develop a very high-end cinema-grade Jump camera.

Expeditions—One year, one million students

More than one million students from over 11 countries have taken an Expedition since we introduced the Google Expeditions Pioneer Program last May. The program lets students take virtual reality trips to over 200 places including Buckingham Palace, underwater in the Great Barrier Reef—and in seventh grader Lance Teeselink’s case—Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

And soon, students will have even more places to visit, virtually, thanks to new partnerships with the Associated Press and Getty Images. These partners will provide the Expeditions program with high-resolution VR imagery for current events to help students better understand what’s happening around the world.

Daydream—high quality VR on your Android smartphone

Daydream is our new platform for high quality mobile virtual reality, coming this fall. Over time, Daydream will encompass VR devices in many shapes and sizes, and Daydream will enable high quality VR on Android smartphones.

We are working with a number of smartphone manufacturers to create a specification for Daydream-ready phones. These smartphones enable VR experiences with high-performance sensors for smooth, accurate head tracking, fast response displays to minimize blur, and powerful mobile processors. Daydream-ready phones take advantage of VR mode in Android N, a set of powerful optimizations for virtual reality built right into Android.

With Daydream, we've also created a reference design for a comfortable headset and an intuitive controller. And, yes we're building one too. The headset and controller work in tandem to provide rich, immersive experiences. Take a look at how the controller lets you interact in VR:

Build for Daydream

The most important part of virtual reality is what you experience. Some of the world's best content creators and game studios are bringing their content to Daydream. You will also have your favorite Google apps including Play Movies, Street View, Google Photos, and YouTube.

You can start building for Daydream today. The Google VR SDK now includes a C++ NDK. And if you develop with Unreal or Unity, Daydream will be natively supported by both engines. Visit the Daydream developer site where you can get access the tools. Plus, with Android N Developer Preview 3 you can use the Nexus 6P as a Daydream developer kit.

This is just the beginning for Daydream. We’ll be sharing much more on this blog over the coming months. We’re excited to build the next chapter of VR with you.

One step closer to reality: introducing 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio on YouTube

Cross posted from the Official YouTube Blog.

Growing up as a kid, my favorite basketball player was Magic Johnson. I wanted nothing more than to be able to watch him play in person, but unfortunately I never got the chance. Whether it’s a sporting event or a concert or even a family gathering, all of us have had the feeling of wanting to be somewhere we couldn’t. But these days, virtual reality and 360-degree video can help get you one step closer to actually being at those places and in those moments. Today, we’re taking immersive video even further with 360-degree live streaming on YouTube.

We first launched support for 360-degree videos back in March 2015. From musicians to athletes to brands, creators have done some incredible things with this technology. Now, they’ll be able to do even more to bring fans directly into their world, with 360-degree live streaming. And after years of live streaming Coachella for fans around the world who can’t attend the festival, this year we’re bringing you the festival like never before by live streaming select artist performances in 360-degrees this weekend.

Starting today, we’re also launching spatial audio for on-demand YouTube videos. Just as watching a concert in 360-degrees can give you an unmatched immersive experience, spatial audio allows you to listen along as you do in real life, where depth, distance and intensity all play a role. Try out this playlist on your Android device.

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To make sure all creators can tell awesome stories with virtual reality, we’ve been working with companies across the industry. We’re working with companies like VideoStitch and Two Big Ears to make their software compatible with 360-degree live streams or spatial audio on YouTube and more will be available soon. We’ll also make 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio technologies available at all YouTube Space locations around the globe, so you can take it for a spin.

What excites me most about 360-degree storytelling is that it lets us open up the world's experiences to everyone. Students can now experience news events in the classroom as they unfold. Travelers can experience faraway sites and explorers can deep-sea dive, all without the physical constraints of the real world. And today's kids dreaming of going to a basketball game or a concert can access those experiences firsthand, even if they're far away from the court. What were once limited experiences are now available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Are you ready to never miss a moment again?

Posted by Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer, recently watched Dub360: Stephen Curry pregame warmup routine


Tilt Brush: painting from a new perspective

From the earliest cave drawings, to classical paintings, to crayon scribbles, humans just have a thing for visual expression. These days digital art has spurred new opportunities for creativity, going well beyond good old pencils and paper. It's against this canvas that we bring you Tilt Brush—a new virtual reality (VR) app that lets you paint from an entirely new perspective, available today on the HTC Vive.

With Tilt Brush, you can paint in three-dimensional space. Just select your colors and brushes and get going with a wave of your hand. Your room is a blank slate. You can step around, in and through your drawings as you go. And, because it’s in virtual reality, you can even choose to use otherwise-impossible materials like fire, stars or snowflakes.
3D artwork drawn in Tilt Brush

One of the best parts about any new medium is just seeing what's possible. So, we brought Tilt Brush to The Lab at Google Cultural Institute—a space in Paris created to bring tech and creative communities together to discover new ways to experience art. Since then, artists from around the world and from every discipline have come to explore their style in VR for the very first time.

We've already seen some incredible pieces from professional animators, painters, and street artists, but even casual doodlers can start painting in seconds. To get inspired, check out #TiltBrush on Twitter for even more art created with Tilt Brush.

Posted by Andrey Doronichev, Group Product Manager, Google VR https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-avD7HjpYPe8/VwQnoRHuXgI/AAAAAAAASHo/FYhf0ActxxUHaq5XnxiYLsiEIKV4tXOQw/s1600/Tilt%2BBrush%2B%25281%2529.jpg Andrey Doronichev Group Product Manager Google VR

YouTube presses play on virtual reality

If we’ve learned anything in the past 10+ years at YouTube it’s that capturing and sharing videos is a great way to bring people there with you—whether “there” is an Icelandic glacier, a special performance by violinist Tim Fain, or just a friend’s birthday party.

Virtual reality (VR) makes the experience of being there even more awesome and immersive, so today we’re bringing two new VR features to YouTube’s Android app. All you need is your current phone, and a Google Cardboard viewer.

First, YouTube now supports VR video—a brand new kind of video that makes you feel like you’re actually there. Using the same tricks that we humans use to see the world, VR video gives you a sense of depth as you look around in every direction. Near things look near, far things look far. So if you were excited about 360° videos, this is pretty freakin’ cool.

To give it a try just find a VR video on YouTube—like the Hunger Games Experience or TOMS Shoes Giving Trip—tap the new Cardboard icon, drop your phone into your Cardboard viewer, and you’re off! If you’re a creator, you can also check out technologies like Jump to capture and share your own VR videos.
Our second bit of news is for the universe of existing YouTube content. And that’s the fact that you can now watch any video using Google Cardboard, and experience a kind of virtual movie theater. Just select the new “Cardboard” option from the watch page menu, drop your phone into your viewer, and you’re done. You’ll now have the largest VR content library right at your fingertips.
Both of today’s updates make it easier to be there. In some cases, really there there. So download the new YouTube app from Google Play, and get going.

Kurt Wilms, Senior Product Manager, YouTube VR recently watched “Waves of Grace”, Sanjeev Verma, YouTube Product Manager, recently watched “LA Phil: The Orchestra VR Video Experience” and Husain Bengali, Product Manager, Jump recently watched “Apollo 11 moon landing.

Source: YouTube Blog