Google’s quirky Cardboard VR viewer now has its own corner of the Play Store

By Andy Boxall December 10, 2014

google cardboard vr viewer update — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google updated its quirky Cardboard virtual reality viewer. The question is, how do you update something made out of cardboard? Well, the viewer remains the same, but everything around it has been given some love. Revealed at Google I/O, more than 500,000 viewers have since been shipped, and the unusual build-it-yourself VR device is gradually taking on a life of its own.

The most important news for Cardboard users is the announcement of a dedicated app, plus a special Collections page inside the Google Play Store. The Collections page gathers together all the apps compatible with Cardboard, making it far easier to find fun VR apps quickly. More than 25 apps are listed, including games, art programs, and interactive, immersive demos.

Recommended Videos

Google’s Cardboard app also puts many of the demos and compatible apps in one place. With the Cardboard app, you check out any Photo Sphere images you’ve taken, or watch content taken from Google Earth and YouTube. Additionally, there’s a guided tour of Versailles, a trip through Paris on a summer day, and a chance to look at unnamed cultural exhibits from any angle. Google has also included the motion-controlled Windy Day interactive story, which gained attention earlier this year.

To show its commitment to VR, and to making Cardboard more than just a bit of fun, Google has also released a software development kit to help make creating VR apps easier. Additionally, it released new plans for building your own Cardboard viewer, and next year, will update the SDK with more tools to ensure these units can be properly calibrated.

If you don’t have a Cardboard viewer, you can buy one, or download the instructions on how to make one yourself from here. You’ll need a compatible Android phone, such as the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, or Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5.

Topics

Senior Mobile Writer

Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

Mobile

Google made $8.5 billion in gross profit off the Play app store in 2019

A MacBook with Google Chrome loaded.

A court filing that was unsealed on Saturday shows that Alphabet Inc's Google Play store generated $11.2 billion in revenue -- and $8.5 billion in gross profit -- from app sales, in-app purchases, and app store ads over the course of 2019. The story, initially broken by Paresh Dave at Reuters, is a rare glimpse into the actual numbers behind Google's app store.

Typically, Google will group up the Play store's financial results with some other service in its earnings report, which effectively obfuscates the store's numbers. For example, Play is not mentioned by name at all in Google's numbers for the second quarter of 2021. This isn't illegal or even particularly unusual for a tech company, but it also means there hasn't been any reliable way for anyone outside Google itself to get an idea of just how lucrative the Play Store actually is until now.

Mobile

How to turn on Now Playing and see music history on your Google Pixel

google-pixel-3a-xl-now-playing

If you own a Pixel phone, discovering what music is playing near you is now easier than ever. Google includes an exclusive feature called Now Playing in its Pixel 2 and newer phones, so you're not scouring the internet trying to figure out what that song was you just heard playing.

In short, the Now Playing feature automatically recognizes and shows you the title and artist of that mystery song on the lock screen. It also keeps track of those songs so you can access them later. However, you must manually enable this feature first. In this guide, we show you how to enable Now Playing, how to access the history, and tweak the notifications you get.
How to turn on Now Playing
Now Playing shows songs that are playing in your vicinity right on your lock screen. Again, this feature is only supported on the Google Pixel 2 or later -- you won't be able to follow these instructions on other phones or the original Pixel. Here's how to turn it on:

Mobile

Here’s what Google has in store for us with Android 12

Android 12 developer preview home screen.

As so much of the Android-using public awaits an Android 11 update, Google is already deep in the trenches working on the next release: Android 12. Today, we have the first glimpse at what it has in store, with the launch of the Android 12 Developer Preview.

As the name suggests, this is a release targeted specifically at developers, who can use this release to begin building their apps and software experiences to be ready for when Android 12 is officially released later this year. Nothing here is final, and much of it is still in early development, but there are plenty of little hints and glimpses at what we can expect in terms of design and features when Android 12 is fully baked.
An interface refresh and performance boost
The interface is the biggest thing that people will care about. It's subsequently the part of Android 12 we know the least about. Much of the interface changes won't be seen until we're a few more releases down the road, likely with the Beta in May. So, what we have today is mostly Android 11 — plus some small tweaks that Google's emphasizing for developers early on.