The rumour that Samsung have been working with Oculus VR to create their own headset seem to be true as the pre-release version of the Samsung VR software founds its way online. The head-mounted display they’re working on will in fact be a holder for a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, which will be held in front of your face to create a display like that of the Oculus Rift, although technically it has more in common with Google Cardboard.
The software included the downloads for apps called VR Panorama and VR Cinema, no doubt for viewing of 3D images and videos on your device, which will complement some of the 3D apps already available on the Android market place for Google Cardboard. Gear VR will have a touchpad and a back button on its surface, allowing you a level of control since your phones touch screen will be inaccessible.
One of the cooler features, and something that is lacking on Oculus Rift is a pass-through mode. This will allow you to switch from VR to a view of the world around you, this will be achieved by using the camera on the back of your phone, which will then feed the video to the screen. The real view could add some interesting augmented reality features to the setup.
It’s a bit of a gimmick and likely won’t work as well as a dedicated Oculus setup, but since Oculus requires you to be sat at your desk and the Gear VR mobile, they’ll both have different roles in the VR market.
Thank you TechCrunch for providing us with this information.
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