Day: 18 July 2016

The VR Shinecon Virtual Reality glasses provide a low cost opportunity for people to experience Virtual Reality content and immersive videos with their existing phone rather than investing hundreds in a new phone and VR headset. it can fit phones from 4 to 6 inches easily.

The front panel opens to accommodate a diversity of phones and sizes. You can open the front panel, place your phone and centre it, and then close it. Before you close the front panel make sure to launch the VR app or content that you want to experience. Jaunt VR is one app that is easy and intuitive to use.

Once the front panel is closed and you put on the VR headset you can adjust focus  to suit your eyesight. This control is on the right and left side of the goggles.The inter-ocular distance can be adjuste to suit the spacing between your eyes via the wheel at the top of the headset. The straps are velcro so adjusting the headset to your head size is also intuitive.

The phone compartment has two openings on either side. This opening allows for headphones to be plugged in to the VR headset as well as a USB cable to charge the phone if you are using this device for an extended period of time. With the Samsung Gear headset the USB port is taken up by the external controls. This means that although you can use your phone with the headset on you lose the ability to recharge the phone.

Good for demos

If you are demonstrating VR content to clients then you have two options. The first option is to have more mobile phones than VR headsets. This allows for one or two backup phones to charge whilst the others are being used to view VR content. The other option is to recharge the phone while people are enjoying the VR experience or even to try the VR experience with their own phone. Imagine the effect that this would have on potential VR enthusiasts. When they see that there is almost no barrier to entry it will encourage them to join in the experience.

summary

The positive aspects of this headset are that it can accept most phones, you can adjust focus and interocular distance intuitively and strap adjustments are easy. It works well with youtube and the JauntVR app.

The negative aspects of this headset are that light leaks in so the immersive experience is diminished there is a slight learning curve as you learn to adjust the headset to your requirements. You can only control apps that allow you to look at something specific to start playing content.

I would recommend this headset for people getting in to VR who want to enjoy immersive content without spending too much money on features that they do not yet require.

Pokemon Go has been available in Switzerland officially since yesterday but people have been playing the game for longer than this. Some have achieved level 20 and above. There is a vibrant Swiss Pokemon Go community in the French speaking part of Switzerland.

Pokemon Go Switzerland is one place where French speaking players can unite. One thousand nine hundred people have already liked the page so if you are looking for other players this is a good place to start.

There is the Pokemon Go Lausanne group. This group has 430+ members at the time of writing. Friday they had their first event and at least elevent people were present. Another event is coming up on the 24th of July 2016.

2850 people have liked the Pokemon Go Genève page.

Ingress players from Lausanne, Geneva and other french speaking towns have had a Google Hangout dedicated to Pokemon Go for several months. At this moment there are 83 members. 50 members of the Yellow Instinct faction are also highly active on Telegram. Hundreds of messages are exchanged.

These communities form online to facilitate meeting other players offline in the physical world. By playing the game there is a good chance that you will come across other players, as would frequently happen with Ingress. Having online communities allows people to plan events and meetings, shares hints and tips and more. Factions can plan a campaign, come to my village and lets capture it from this faction or that faction. Come to that train station or event and you will find these pokemons. The game is creating new social groups and the age range according to one thread I saw today is between 15 years old and 45. I am certain that all age groups are playing. That is the range people disclosed in that specific thread.

I expect the community to grow and for events to be organised on a regular basis. If you do play the game then there are hundreds of people to meet and play alongside in the Léman region of Switzerland.