Making fun of Google Cardboard has always been more about pessimistic humor than an actual dismissal of the idea, which certainly has potential and is becoming more serious as time goes by. Google’s DIY virtual reality headset was designed to be virtual reality for people who can’t drop a few hundred bucks on something that’s still a gimmick in many ways, but now Cardboard is starting to turn into a legitimate idea.
Maybe big things really can come in small, ridiculous cardboard face-boxes. Google just made several announcements Thursday that aim to advance its popular Cardboard virtual reality viewer for manufacturers, app developers and end users. Cardboard, the curious corrugated VR “unit” Google launched at its I/O developer conference last year, seemed like a practical joke at first. (It’s basically a box you fold up into a kind of headset with an Android phone in it to serve as the display.) A year later, though, we’re all still waiting for the punch line. Meanwhile, Google has gotten serious, encouraging development for VR apps and interest by “hardware” partners to make their own versions of Cardboard. It’s now offering a new certification program, changes to its developer tools and new app categories for end users looking for compatible VR apps. Let’s take a closer look.