Now your friends won’t miss out the next time you’re in VR.
Part of the latest Daydream Euphrates update announced at Google I/O Wednesday, you’ll soon be able to share what you’re seeing while in VR, as well as cast your virtual world right onto the screen in your living room.
Daydream Cast
The first Daydream sharing update brings the ability to select “Cast” and choose where you want your VR session to be broadcast, whether a nearby Chromecast or smart TV.
Daydream casting to a TV.
When you’re in a headset separated from the people around you, being in VR can be an individual experience. But when you introduce the ability to cast your VR experience to a television that your friends can watch at the same time with you, VR becomes a more enjoyable shared experience.
Then there are those times when you’re alone and want to share with friends who aren’t physically with you. Daydream is also adding the much requested ability to capture VR sessions to share on social later. By hitting the home button and volume down simultaneously, you can capture a screenshot for later.
The casting and sharing update follows news that Daydream will be made available for Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8+ later this year, opening up the platform to millions of more devices, which in turn could help bring a slew of new VR “let’s play” content posted to social media.
Daydream Home Update
On top of making content sharable with this latest update, Daydream is also getting a new update to its interface to make content more accessible to consumers. This includes a dashboard and more categorization to surface new content and hopefully have you spend more time in VR.
Daydream dashboard let’s you check notifications while in VR.
When it comes to the dashboard, the idea of taking you out of VR to check a notification or change a setting can totally ruin immersion. This new dashboard will pause your current VR session and allow you to change settings on the fly or switch to other VR experiences without having to go back to Daydream Home.
Yesterday, Google announced standalone VR headsets with HTC and Lenovo coming to Daydream later this year. They have a new technology called WorldSense, which makes it possible to have positionally tracked VR experiences without a PC or external sensors.
