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For me, I would be most excited about the lecture applications.

For example, what if every TED talk had a VR broadcast so you could slap on your goggles and "attend" it. This goes for conference key notes or college lectures. Anything where Physical attendance is a barrier and not a key component of the experience I think would benefit from a lightweight VR experience like this.

BlizzCon etc virtual tickets just got a lot more interesting in your scenario :)

Well, the entire pay-per-view field really :) , NBA finals are already on VR, imagine that for all other sports.

They're not ready yet:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/28/a-live-nba-game-is-cool-in-...

but it's definitely coming.

Why not just use a real VR headset then? When the prices come down on this stuff it'll just be seen as another peripheral for your computer. It won't be this enthusiast toy. Are you walking around with your VR mask everywhere you go just in case you see a TED talk you like? That seems incredibly inconvenient. Even a low profile mask is a fairly bulky item.

I think attaching a phone to your face is going to give a subpar experience compared to a dedicated device. I still don't see a use case here that's going to get people excited. Especially after the largely milquetoast reception smartwatches have gotten. VR masks are about 1,000x more geeky than those. Image conscious people aren't going to be putting them on their face to consume content in public.

For the same reason people bought iPods instead of audiophile stereos: yes, the quality was inferior, but there is a great value to "here, now".

Just minutes ago a co-worker grabbed the office Cardboard VR and slapped in his phone, and watched some of the Google I/O keynote. Cheap. Easy. Portable. Low res, but there he was virtually at the presentation.

People will get used to the oddity of VR just as they did with cell phones, hands free ear pieces, SIRI, coffee shop computing, etc and will get over self driving cars.

My Dodo Case Cardboard VR folds up and fits nicely in my messenger bag. And I like my Apple Watch, thank you very much.

Yours is a naysaying template I've heard for nearly every new technology for decades, and here we are with most all those things now ubiquitous.

>eople bought iPods instead of audiophile stereos

iPods fit in pockets. VR headsets don't. Did you even bother to look at the Google reference design? Its a huge headset and controller. Those aren't convenient mobile things. They're not remotely portable like a phone or ipod is.

Read the rest of my post.

They still have a place without having to be tied to a computer. Like I said, we have a Cardboard at the office, same dimensions you object to, easy to have around, easy to share, cheap, no dedicated computer needed. There are more phones in the office capable of using the head mount than there are people. Need more head mounts? cheap order from Amazon, arrive in two days. No hassle of sharing a computer for it, just pop in your phone.

And like I said, some units do fold up convenient for travel.

> Why not just use a real VR headset then?

Because a "real VR headset" includes the cost of the display screen and requires an external control device, whereas a mobile VR headset uses a mobile device that you would probably have already anyway as both the control device and display, and so is significantly less expensive and less hassle to use, even if you never use it anywhere but inside your own house.

> When the prices come down on this stuff it'll just be seen as another peripheral for your computer.

Mobile VR is just another peripheral for your computer -- the little computer most people carry around in their pocket, not the big clunky ones that less and less people are bothering with.

EDIT: By "control device", above, I mean the processing center, not the user interface device (which will still need to be separate for a mobile VR device.) I see that that could be misunderstood.

Where do you get the idea that phones are only useful when a person is not at home? I use my phone for lots of things when I'm in bed or sitting out on my balcony, despite having a nice computer downstairs.

Because nobody[1] buys computers anymore.

[1] Yes, I'm aware the computer market is huge, and there will continue to be a huge market for computer based VR and I'm completely wrong about this. BUT the mobile market is bigger.

How is a vr Ted talk different from watching it on YouTube? Aren't they essentially 2d events?

I find one of the biggest challenges of YouTube being the editing between presentations slides and videos of the presenter. Being able to look at a stage as if you were in attendance from the audience would alleviate this challenge greatly (at least for me).

This has utility for note taking as well.

Having used a gear VR (briefly), I would not want to try to read text from a slide displayed in it. It would be better to have the video feed of the presenter and a video (or text!) feed of the slides and be able to show both and maybe switch between them -- i could imagine showing one in a big rectangle and the other in a small rectangle.

I'm pretty sure I've watched corporate internal presentations with this style of UI -- it's quite useful.

Well you don't need VR to solve that problem for sure. Either better editing or just recording slides and presenter separately and allow the viewer to switch between them (or see both at the same time) on a regular display would completely solve the issue.

> For example, what if every TED talk had a VR broadcast so you could slap on your goggles and "attend" it.

No thanks. I currently would rather read a paper than youtube a lecture. I would surely rather read a paper than strap a $600 device to my head.

Having completed my undergrad degree without attending most lectures by just by reading text books and papers, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the value of a lecture and a clear and concise presentation on a complex topic. Granted at my university, many of the lecturers were un-inspired/English as a second language, but there are presenters which can provide clarity and communicate understanding through lecture.

One of my favorite presenters, for example, is David Beazley who has several presentations/examinations on the Python GIL I found very useful. As another Python example, I also found Andrew Montalenti's overview of multi-processing in Python quite enjoyable as well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVBLF0ohcrE). Finally, Sal Khan was such an inspired presenter that he founded Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) based on his great success teaching mathematics to his younger relatives and their classmates through YouTube videos.

Guess you are only thinking in the perspective of a power user who enjoys high quality games on the VR. But, Google wants to make this a utility by having one connected to your phone and let them enjoy the Youtube VR content, small games, netflix etc. I don't think carrying a small headset with me a problem and hope it evolve into a foldable/compact stuff.

Yes, but VR needs something that's better than Google Cardboard, but more open than GearVR. I expect Android VR to become the "lowest common denominator VR experience".

The fact that there is a controller for input instead of having to tap my forehead will increase usability a ton. Though I hope they provide a way to clip the controller to the HMD when not using it.

People who want to play with it, but don't want to spend 800-2000 dollars on a "real" VR setup?

80% of the Vive experience at 1/10th the cost.

Screen wise maybe, but I would value positional tracking at more than 20%. Not being able to lean in for a closer look (much less move around) is a big immersion breaker on the GearVR

Mobile VR wins with cost, rapid hardware iteration, portability. VR isn't a totally separate realm from AR... "mixed reality" is a buzzword about mixing the two. As for who's clamouring for VR phones, Samsung's Gear VR is doing very well (and Samsung mobile hardware is already used in Oculus products).

Augmented Reality headsets will be the "every day use" thing. After trying out Microsoft Hololens, I am very very impressed with what these kind of headsets can bring to the table.

Not only that, but as technology improves and miniaturizes, I fully expect the distinction between "VR devices" and "AR devices" to disappear. In the future we will be able to switch between them at will and the worlds will blur.

Imagine walking through an AR doorway overlaid in your home, where you can see a beach on the other side. You walk through and magically are on said beach. You turn around and the door is gone--the illusion is complete.

More realistically, I see AR increasingly taking the form of your "main screen" with notifications, browser windows, etc. all accessible from there and just taking up visual space in your FOV. If you decide you want to focus on work or engage in another more immersive experience (movie watching, gaming, etc.), you slip into VR mode and suddenly the distractions are gone.

Again, lots needs to happen to get us there, but I see the blending of the devices as inevitable once the form factor is popularized. My guess is it will take something as sexy and revolutionary as the first iPhone to get this to go mainstream since you are right in that most people will not carry a giant headset around.

More realistically, I see AR increasingly taking the form of your "main screen" with notifications, browser windows, etc. all accessible from there and just taking up visual space in your FOV. If you decide you want to focus on work or engage in another more immersive experience (movie watching, gaming, etc.), you slip into VR mode and suddenly the distractions are gone.

Yes. The games and immersive videos are cool, but I'm even more looking forward to replacing almost all dedicated displays with a pair of normal-looking glasses.