so it all actually started at a google i/otwo years ago with cardboard. and since then cardboard has done some pretty amazing things. there are millions of themout there in the world, in all shapes and sizes. we've enabled thousands of developersto build their first vr app, and users have installed over 50 million cardboard-enabledapps. we think that's pretty good for what is, after all, just a piece of cardboard.now, we love cardboard, and for us, it represents
Android TV daydream, so much of what we think vr should be about.it should be mobile. it should be approachable, it should be for everyone. but we knew itwas just a start because there's a limit to how much you can do, how immersive an experienceyou can create with cardboard and with phones that were really only meant to be phones.we wanted to create something which has the
best attributes of cardboard but which isalso comfortable, richly interactive and far more immersive. but to create that kind ofimmersion, you have to solve -- to make your brain say, yep, i'm somewhere else, you haveto solve a lot of really hard problems across all parts of the vr experience. you have todesign a system that's capable of rendering at very high frame rates and resolution. tomake the experience really comfortable you have to minimize what's called motion to photonlatency. that's the delay between when the move your head and when the picture updatesto reflect that motion. and you you need to solve for how you interact with things invr. and when you nail those things it just feels like you're there. well, we've beenworking on these problems and more. and what
we've built won't be available until thisfall, but we'd like to introduce you to it today. we call it daydream. daydream is ourplatform for high quality mobile virtual reality, and in it are all the ingredientsyou need to have immersive vr experience. over time daydream will encompass vr devices in many shapes and sizes but today it's about how daydream will enable high quality vr on android smartphones. and thereare three parts to it. the smartphones themselves including vr optimization to android n. areference design for headset and controller. and apps, both how you get them through googleplay and the apps themselves. we've designed and built each part in concert with the otherswith a focus on getting the end-to-end user experience just right. so let's start withsmartphones. the first thing we did was look at
what it takes to build a smartphone that'sgreat at being a smartphone but also at being the core of a vr system. and with input fromthe major silicon vendors and smartphone manufacturers, we've created a set of phone specificationsfor vr. and we call phones that meet these specs daydream-ready. and the specs includethings like high performance sensors for accurate head tracking, displays with a fast responsetime to minimize blur, and powerful mobile processors. and if a phone meets these specs,it will be capable of delivering a great vr experience. but the smartphone itself, it'sonly part of the story. the operating system, the software, it needs to be able to makeuse of all of these capabilities, all while keeping latency to an absolute minimum. sowe've introduced what we call vr mode as part
of android n. and we've worked atall levels of the android stack to optimize it for vr. and we focused in particular onperformance and latency, which rebrought down to under 20 milliseconds. by adding thingslike single buffer rendering, and vr system ui, so notifications and alerts come throughproperly in vr. and all of this makes for a really comfortable vr experience that wethink users are going to love. now, it's important, these improvements are part of the core ofandroid n, so the entire ecosystem can benefit. and what that means for developers is thereare going to be a lot of daydream-ready phones. in fact, samsung, alcatel, asus, htc, huewei, lg, xiaomi, all will have phones compatible with the daydream-ready spec and several willbe ready this fall. cheep cheerp. so that's
phones with daydream-ready phone specs andthe vr optimizeizations as part of android n. let's turn to headsets. this is obvious buta vr headset is something you wear on your head. and because it's something that you wear,there are so many things you need to get just right. it has to have great optics. it hasto be comfortable. the materials need to feel good. and it needs to be really easy to puton and take off. we've taken what we've learned in all of these areas and we've created areference design for headsets that will work semlessly with daydream-ready phones. and we're sharing the design with partners across the ecosystemand there are be several available this fall. now, when it comes to vr, everyone thinksabout headsets, but the controller, how you
interact with vr, it's just as important.and we wanted to create a controller that's optimized for vr, that's both powerful andintuitive. and so we've been working on a controller for daydream. it looks like this.and if we actually zoom in a little bit, you can see the controller itself, it's very simple.there are few buttons and a clickable touchpad so you can scroll and swipe. but hidden insidethe controller is the magic. we've built in orientation sensors so it knows where it'spointing, how it's turning. and you can do some pretty awesome things with it. let'shave a look. [ video playing ] [ applause ] >>clay bavor: so as you can see,the controller, it's super flexible, and the
developers we've shared it with absolutelylove it. now the controller, too, will be part of the reference design that we're sharingwith partners, with the first available this fall. okay. so we've talked about smartphonesand operating systems, headsets and controllers. but ultimately, that's not what vr is about.it's about what you can experience. so let's turn to apps, what you can do in vr. now,first, if you're a developer, you know that there's a lot upstream, from someone usingyour app or playing your game. users have to find it in a store, buy it, install it,launch it. well, this will all work seamlessly in daydream. and that's because we've builtgoogle play for vr. users will be able to browse and search and buy and install vr appsin vr. and once you've installed an app, you
can keep coming back to it from what we calldaydream home, which gives you access to all of your favorite games and apps. let's actuallytalk about some of those apps, the things you can do and the places you can go. ourpartners like the new york times and the wall street journal and cnn are bringing theirvr apps to daydream so you'll be able to experience the world's news like you're actually there.hulu, netflix, hbo, even imax are bringing their libraries to daydream, so you'll beable to watch shows and movies in a virtual cinema or an immersive 3d film in a virtualimax theater. this is one of the dozen imax films that will be available i don't knowabout you but i'm pretty fired up about hanging out with astronauts in vr. something elsethat's going to be pretty awesome in daydream
is games. we have been working with the likesof eubie soft, ccp, netease and electronic arts, and these amazing developers are creatinggames that take advantage a of all that we've talked about and there are some amazing thingsin the works. we've also been working on on some of our own apps. google play movies iscoming to daydream complete with high definition drm video support. that means you'll be ableto watch movies and tv shows from play but in a virtual movie theater. streetview iscoming to daydream, so you'll be able to walk the streets of the world without having tofly around the world. and google photos will support vr photos so you can step inside andrelive favorite moments. and there's one more. youtube. we've rebuilt youtube from the groundup for vr. in it is voice search, discovery,
your favorite playlists; again, all in vr.and we've added spatial audio, improved vr video streaming so you'll be able to stepinside the world's largest collection of vr videos and experience places and concertsand events like you're actually there. and by the way, you'll also be able to watch everysingle standard video currently on youtube, but in a very different way. and we thinkpeople are going to love it. so that's daydream, our platform for high-quality mobile virtualreality. daydream-ready smartphones with vr
optimizations as part of androidn, a comfortable headset and powerful and intuitive controller and some amazing experiences. all designed inconcert and open and at the scale of android. now, daydream arrives this fall but you canget started developing for it today with the
latest android developer preview.
