Today at the Game Developers Conference being held in San Francisco, Nod Labs unveiled Project Goa, a solution for providing motion controls to mobile virtual reality.
There are two tiers of virtual reality right now. Both Oculus and HTC are releasing expensive headsets this year that connect to your PC to provide rich VR experiences with full movement of your head and body, as well as motion controls that track the movement of your hands.
The second tier is mobile VR, with products like Samsung’s Gear VR and Google’s Cardboard. You slide your phone into a headset and get an experience where your head moves around in 360 degrees. It doesn’t track your body or your hands. You have to use a bluetooth game controller or, in the case of the Gear VR, the little trackpad on the side of the headset.
Project Goa from Nod Labs wants to bridge the gap between the two tiers. CEO Anush Elangovan raises his hand to make his point, telling Fast Company, “There’s HTC Vive for tracking. There’s Oculus Rift.” Elangovan lowers his hand, “Then there’s a huge drop off to Gear VR and Cardboard.” Raising his hand once more, he adds, “Where we position ourselves is we get you there in the mobile form factor.”
Read the full article at Fast Company.