View-Master
© 2015 Mattel, Inc.
See View Master Virtual Reality Viewer 2.0 (CTR May 2016). Most adults alive today experienced their first 3D experience with a binocular toy called View-Master, released 75 years ago. The 2015 edition is a mixture of technologies that include your smart phone (not included), a special holder (either Google Cardboard or a plastic version from Mattel), the disks (called special disks with images that act like QR codes, to unlock different sets of 360 degree photos), and a series of apps. The apps will be free but you'll need the $15 disks, sold in toy stores, to unlock the content. And Mattel eludes that somehow the experience will be better if you own one of their red-plastic viewfinders. So think of the 2015 edition View-Master as virtual reality in bite-sized chunks, delivered by way of 360 view still shots. As you move your head to look around, the view changes. So you feel like you're inside each photo. We tested San Francisco ... There are 3D effects like rain, and you can jump from place to place by pulling the trigger on the side of the goggles. There were three locations included in the disk. Note that Mattel is just one of many providers of content for Google Cardboard, and that anyone can use Google's SDK to make Google Cardboard content. This means that there will be a lot of additional open source content in various app stores that will work with the View-Master. You could call this "Google Plastic." Mattel worked with an app development team called Vortex, according to Brian Yu, of Mattel. Here's a video from the launch (Spring 2015) with a conversation with one of the designers http://youtu.be/4U7VsbMaK_g
$20, Android, iPhone
Teaches: geography, science, history, travel