Samsung Reveals Gear VR, Mobile Virtual Reality Headset

By Mike MahardySamsung announced the Gear VR, the next wearable VR device –– and it's powered by Oculus, the company at the forefront of virtual reality.

The Gear VR is powered by the Galaxy Note 4 for all of its display abilities. It's also completely wireless, and focused on delivering a cinematic experience for users, along with games and videos. Samsung said the Gear VR will be available later this fall, although a specific date and price have yet to be announced.

The Note 4 snaps into the VR device, in front of 3D dual lenses, creating the immersive effect. A back button, touch pad and volume key also adorn the surface of the Gear VR. Samsung said the device will come pre-loaded with a collection of 360 degree videos and 3D movie trailers from a number of studios, for early adopters.

On its blog, Oculus said it has been collaborating with Samsung on Gear VR for the last 12 months, in which time it was bought by Facebook for $2 billion. Gear VR began as a project under Oculus CTO John Carmack to see if VR could be brought to modern mobile devices, and with the reveal today, it appears their labors produced some fruit.

The initial release of the Gear VR will be the Innovator Edition, an early access, beta version designed for developers and fans interested in trying it before it becomes a final consumer product.

http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/09/03/samsung-reveals-gear-vr-mobile-virtual-reality-headset

Samsung might win this like they win every market they step in.

This is good for VR, I hope it works well

Mobile VR? Dafuq?

VR is definitely the next step in entertainment world. Will it be a big hit? That remains to be seen. I'm still not convinced.

I'am incredibly interested in VR, the potential is massive.

But to be honest this seems to me a half ass'd attempt to get in on the Vr hype with a mediocre rushed product.

Did you miss the part where you had to put a galaxy note 4 into the headset?

No... nobody is winning anything like that.

This is a great approach that makes perfect sense.

From a purely technical point of view, it's actually the best VR headset currently announced, as both Project Morpheus and Oculus Rift are currently using lower resolution displays (1920x1080), while this will have a 2560x1440 pixel display. Oculus Rift is using the display of the Galaxy Note 3, this solution will be using the display of the successor, the Galaxy Note 4.

Another huge advantage over the current Oculus Rift/Morpheus prototypes is the fact that it has a digital camera built in. With Oculus Rift/Morpheus, if you need to take a short peek at the real world, you are forced to take the headset off. With a builtin camera, the image from the camera can be shown on the display, so there's no need to take the headset off.

Really the only problem is that the graphics cards inside smartphones aren't powerful. So while it actually has a better display with a higher resolution than Morpheus or Oculus Rift, the graphics will clearly be worse anyway.

What would be great is if there was a possibility to connect the device with a cable to a PC with a graphics card rendering the graphics, so that it could also be used as a full Oculus Rift replacement. That would almost make it the perfect VR headset solution.

hey the virtual boy was marketed as a mobile device...RUN SAMSUNG!

Probably, but a smart thing to do by Samsung nonetheless. I'm very interested