No, it’s no longer an April Fool’s joke - soon you’ll be able to browse the entire web in virtual reality. Road To VR reports that Google is working to allow any website to be viewable from within a VR headset – which, for the company, would benefit the Google Cardboard HMD as well as any upcoming Google Daydream headsets.
There are currently some sites that can be viewed in VR, specifically because they are designed for VR in the first place. These sites confirm to an in-development WebVR standard – but Google’s latest effort is designed to account for the countless sites which don’t conform. As Google’s Francois Beaufort says:
“The Chromium team is working on several features to bring the web to VR. They’ve recently added an experimental flag at Flags to enable a browser shell for VR. This allows users to browse the web while using Cardboard or Daydream-ready viewers.
They’ve also been working towards WebVR support in Chromium and launched VR view to help web developers embed VR content in their web pages. The team is just getting started on making the web work well for VR so stay tuned, there’s more to come!”
This VR viewing support is currently only present in the Google Chrome Beta and Google Chrome Dev builds for Android. The option will eventually be deployed to all regular Google Chrome users. WebVR developer, Josh Carpenter, tells Road To VR:
“Today I can view a WebVR scene on an iOS [device], even if Mobile Safari doesn’t support WebVR API, thanks to a polyfill + device accelerometers. Which is awesome. The web’s got reach,” he explained. “What the WebVR API gives us on top of that is much richer ecosystem support, things like link traversal between WebVR experiences without dropping out of VR mode, and more.”
The experimental build can be downloaded here, while the source can be viewed here. Expect to see more developments on this front once the first Google Daydream headsets arrive.
