Google’s affordable virtual reality initiative is getting a big update

Those of us who’re too impatient to wait for or simply can’t afford virtual reality headsets, Google made virtual reality much more accessible to us with the introduction of Google Cardboard. As the name implies, all this program does is allow you to create a DIY virtual reality headset using cardboard and a smartphone. With more than a million of these headsets having been created worldwide, Google has announced some big updates to the program to keep things fresh. 

As impressive as it is for Google to announce that over one million Cardboard viewers have been activated around the world, you can’t get far in a conversation about this inexpensive little box without hearing about the lack of support for many devices. Google has updated the Cardboard design to support larger devices like the Nexus 6, but has also updated the software to include iOS support. Perhaps more significant, the Cardboard team has announced a new classroom initiative called Expeditions, with software to help kids go on virtual field trips anywhere in the world. Google Cardboard was announced last year as a cute 20% project, but since that reveal the experiment has grown into its own platform with support for hundreds of apps. With the new hardware update, Google has changed the magnetic button to a more universally accepted Cardboard button, and the increased screen size support means just about everything will be able to fit in these new boxes (sorry Galaxy Mega users).Today’s update to the Cardboard SDK adds iOS developer support as well, which means we’ll see apps on the App Store and the Play Store that natively support this platform.