Why Everybody Who Went To I/O 2014 Is Talking About A Piece Of Cardboard

If you’ve followed any of the Google I/O 2014 coverage over the past few days, then you’ve probably wondered why people are freaking out over a piece of cardboard.

Wasn’t April Fool’s Day a few months ago? Aren’t these people professionals? Who cares about a stupid piece of cardboard?

Well, before you get all judgy, let’s take a look at this magical piece of cardboard.

Attendees at the Google I/O 2014 conference received a piece of cardboard that can turn your Android handset into a virtual reality headset – seriously.

The cardboard takes approximately 45 seconds to assemble. Once you’ve assembled it, you simply slide your Android phone into a cardboard viewfinder, then hold it up to your face.

The cardboard has two lenses which duplicate your screen to provide a virtual 3D effect.

Just like magic, you now have a virtual reality headset. You can walk around the Android world at resolutions similar to those offered by the first version of the Oculus Rift.

The cardboard device is causing a stir across the country – mainly because virtual reality kits have never been more accessible. You can make your own at home!

Google also includes an app that makes it easy to use your new cardboard toy. The app lets you fly over landmarks in Google Earth and experience virtual reality through YouTube videos. You can travel through photo spheres and experience a Pixar-like world of animation.

Along the way, you control your adventure using a small washer/clicker on the side of the device. This washer/clicker works in an innovative way: it slightly disrupts the magnetic field around your device every time it’s clicked. This disruption tells your phone to move to the next adventure.

Why is everybody talking about Google Cardboard? Because it’s awesome. You can make your own Google Cardboard device at home – although it will lack the NFC chips and magnetometers used in Google’s version.

If you want all that fancy tech, however, then you’ll be able to find it on Dodocase, where somebody released a DIY kit of Google Cardboard less than 24 hours after the project was released at I/O 2014.

You can install the latest version of Google Cardboard app here: https://developers.google.com/cardboard/

Obviously, the apps just going to look silly if you don’t have the cardboard attachment.

USA Today – The Pocket News Satellite For Your Daily Dose Of American News

BBC, CNN, Flipboard and Google News are all doing a fantastic job of providing extensive coverage of global events ranging across a plethora of topics. However, there are few news platforms available that offer an equally competent country-centric focus along with its global focus as USA Today does.

Fortunately, USA Today’s decision to roll out its official smartphone and tablet application for the convenience of its loyal fanbase has been a rather successful one. USA Today is a 24/7 news app that gives you up-to-date coverage of every significant event and development concerning USA that you need to know about and how it impacts the world.

The USA Today app sports a slick and intuitive interface that is highly responsive and easy to use. On opening the USA Today app, you will be introduced to a page featuring the top headlines of the day spread across various topics such as:

• News
• Sports
• Life
• Money
• Tech
• Travel
• Opinion

All of the above sections are well-organized and can pop up on the left hand side of your device screen for easy transitioning between reading and browsing. Once selected, the ‘Top Stories’ from the section you wish to view will appear on the right side of the screen.

In case you want to find news articles covering specific places like Chester County, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado, etc., then you can simply search the USA Today archive to extract it.

You can see also view high definition picture slideshows chronicling the important events of the day across the globe or opt to see them manually. USA Today even offers sections like “Day in Sports” and “Day in Celebrities” as well to appeal to sports and entertainment fans. The Opinion section also features a fun Editorial Cartoon gallery.

You can even use this app to view weather forecasts for the area you are located in. It gives you the day and night temperature for up to three days, including the current day and the current temperature displayed on the top left of your device screen.

USA Today covers nearly all the major sports leagues and gives you access to live updates of any game you want to find out about.

You could select the game and tournament you want more information on from the top right drop-down menu available in the USA app homescreen, which will be presented in a list format.

USA Today has its own snapshots with signature snapshots in the News, money, sports and the life section for you to vote in and see the quick question results in all of them.

You can sign up for the breaking news alerts and never miss anything that happens the minute it does. In case you’re running short on time and want to catch up on something significant that caught your attention, you can save those articles and read them even when you are not online so that you don’t have to be a slave to an internet connection to access that content.

With near unanimous critical acclaim and millions of active users supporting it, USA Today is the ultimate one-stop destination to keep you updated with all the hottest news about USA and the rest of the world.