Why We Love Virtual Reality (hint: because we love makers)

Twenty years ago, the only way to explore the ruins of Machu Picchu or the islands of the Galápagos was to go there in person. Ten years ago one could visit an interactive website; five years ago there were “video tours.” Today there is virtual reality?—?and it’s going to be available to everyone a lot sooner than we think.

The first iPad was unveiled in 2010, and in four short years tablets of all shapes and sizes have become standard companions in our everyday lives. And if today’s mega-corporations have anything to say about it, virtual reality will be just as commonplace come 2018. Between Facebook’s Oculus Rift, Samsung’s Gear VR, and Sony’s Morpheus, a vast amount of global currency is being spent to bring VR to millions of living rooms in the very near future. But what if those portals to the promised land of VR’s immersive experiences weren’t locked up in app stores or attainable only through an expensive hardware arsenal? What if this next generation of experiential storytelling was accessible to everyone? That possibility is what is driving our founders and chief DODOs, Patrick Buckley and Craig Dalton to help create a free and open virtual reality ecosystem for all.

DODOcase is already known for enhancing the experience around the technology customers love. Back when Patrick and Craig launched the very first DODOcase immediately following the release of the iPad?—?they saw a clear opportunity to create a more human-centered approach to enjoying tablets. Through the ancient art of book-binding, we were able to bring customers unique handcrafted experiences that elevated everyday gadgets into unique personalized objects of warmth and beauty.

Our product line has certainly expanded since 2010, but earlier this year when Google announced their Cardboard VR?—?which transforms smartphones into VR headsets with just a few pieces of tape and paper?—?Patrick and Craig found a natural extension for our mission. Craig explained, “As individuals we are very passionate about the craftsman and maker movement. But we are also keenly into digital technology and the developer community of builders. With Cardboard, it’s just this amazing intersection of taking something that was originally designed for talking?—?your phone?—?and transforming it into an entirely different, new immersive experience.”

And so we’ve embraced the VR revolution. No longer are we just making products that accessorize devices for our customers, we are making products that enable more people to have rich experiences through those devices. “VR is not only the next major technology platform, it’s a new medium for communication and storytelling. And it’s more visual and experiential than anything we’ve had before,” said Patrick.

Within an hour of Google’s announcement, our team had devised a way to take Google’s Cardboard design recommendation, which included sourcing various components from disparate vendors, and turn it into a singularly packaged, low-priced, easy-to-construct VR viewer that anyone could assemble in just minutes.

“What is most shocking to me is that on the mobile phone you can get about 80% of the experience of a higher end VR device at only a fraction of the cost,” Craig said. Google may have opened the floodgates to DIYVR (do-it-yourself virtual reality), but we are still in the early days for developers and fans alike. And by sidestepping the fancy headgear, we can get low cost and easy to use VR experiences into the hands of more people today.

“After working hard to make virtual reality hardware (or cardware, if you will) more open and accessible through Cardboard, we realized that the software, too, needed to be more open and accessible,” Patrick highlighted. So last week we took the first step in spreading our mission of accessible VR to the masses?—?with the launch of a Kickstarter to fund developer tools that will make building web-based VR experiences open and free for everyone.

“I was blown away the first time I tried VR,” Craig added. “And it’s just this green field opportunity for developers. The next Angry Birds, the next Zillow will be built on VR. And when we realized some of the limitations being put on people building VR, we saw an opportunity to help open that up for developers which would in turn help the hardware side of things as well.” Evangelizing software development may seem surprising to longtime DODOcase enthusiasts?—?but at the heart of this new DIYVR movement is the value Patrick, Craig, and our team have always espoused from the beginning: love for the maker. “For us, this Kickstarter campaign is a natural extension of our craftsmen ethos?—?it’s about enabling that next generation virtual maker by creating open standards in virtual reality software and developing real tools to get us there,” Craig said.

And helping to spur this movement is Tony Parisi, who became one of the very first innovators in VR technology back in the 1990’s. Tony was one of the creators of VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) and later would help bring webGL to the global web. “We reached out to Tony immediately to see how we could join together to open up tools to build VR across the web,” said Patrick. Tony developed an open-source code language referred to as GLAM [GL And Markup] that makes creating 3D web content as simple as coding a website, and he wants to do the same thing now for VR. To that end, we at DODOcase are putting 100% of the Kickstarter donations toward the creation of new programming tools to be added to GLAM, specifically for building VR experiences that can be viewed from any web page anywhere. “Part of the magic of the internet is that it seamlessly takes you to all this different information and is an open network. If the internet worked like apps do, you would constantly be running into tolls on the road and having to stop, download, and then access. VR should be as free and open as the internet itself,” said Patrick.

DODOcase has always been about creating with patience and a purpose for our customers. Cases aren’t churned out by the thousands on an assembly line?—?each one is individually crafted by real artisans named Annie and Daniel who meticulously craft their products. It’s this maker-centric view that brings DODOcase to the VR-loving world we are inhabiting today. Whether it’s a customer designing a case online, an artisan cutting wood for a book-bound tablet case, or a developer creating brand new digital worlds in virtual reality?—?we are in the business of helping makers make things possible.

So that dream of fully exploring Machu Picchu from anywhere in the world? Tony, Patrick, Craig and the team here at DODOcase aren’t quite sure who will be the ones to create it?—?but we want to put that opportunity into the hands of all developers so that smartphone owners everywhere can enjoy it all with a simple piece of cardboard. The DIYVR world is already in our pockets, now it’s time to unfetter developers, construct our viewers, and start exploring.